Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Category Archives: Wheeling

Carl and Cody’s Reunion Tour

Comments Off on Carl and Cody’s Reunion Tour Posted by on January 16, 2013

News out of Coal Street this morning was the return of defenseman Carl Sneep and the signing of defenseman Cody Wild from the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers.

Two depth recalls, which to me mean that Simon Despres may be getting an extended look in Pittsburgh at least through this weekend. The alternative could mean that a trade is in the works for one of the three D-men that went up (Brian Strait, Robert Bortuzzo and Despres) or an existing Pittsburgh defenseman. We just don’t know.

Here’s the lineup for the Black and Gold game tonight. An interesting name that jumps out at me is one of Patrick Killeen. It’s interesting because Killeen has been injured and hasn’t played for the Wheeling Nailers in quite some time. It’s equally  shocking to me because the Nailers left this afternoon for Orlando, where they play the Solar Bears this weekend.

The scrimmage will be shown live on ROOT Sports Pittsburgh.

Keven Veilleux was suspended 10 games for his use of inappropriate racial comments on Sunday. Per Nailers beat writer Shawn Rine, Veilleux has been ordered sensitivity training.

My Second Quarter Grades are still being put together. My plan is to put the finishing touches on them tomorrow and have them here. Stay tuned for that.

Pittsburgh, WBS, Wheeling

Dribs & Drabs 1/15

1 Comment Posted by on January 14, 2013

Some things to catch you up on if you haven’t seen them already:

— Steve MacIntyre, Brad Thiessen and Jeff Zatkoff cleared waivers today. That’s great news, because we have muscle and guys that are very good at stopping opponents pucks headed their way.

— Jonathan Bombulie’s entry today touched on the above and also mentioned Tom Kuhnhackl had season ending upper body surgery. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Season ending upper body surgery. At this point, the Penguins should just come out and say what he had operated on and be done with it. But, if you don’t have to, the Penguins don’t. We all have to live with that.

— Jonathan also mentioned Benn Ferriero practiced today, joined the team this morning on the bus to Norfolk and may or may not play tomorrow. My guess is he doesn’t, but we will see.

— Pittsburgh is planning on calling a few more guys up after the Norfolk game tomorrow for a scrimmage Wednesday which will be shown on ROOT Sports Pittsburgh. Some AHL teams are doing this with their NHL parents. Even some ECHL teams too, so it’s not a surprise to me that the Pens are among the ones that have this planned.

— Regarding call ups, Carl Sneep is still a Wheeling Nailer according to today’s ECHL Transactions.

— This next story is not feel good at all. Keven Veilleux was suspended indefinitely by the Wheeling Nailers yesterday for the alleged use of a racial slur in a game yesterday vs. the South Carolina Stingrays. You can read Nailers beat writer Shawn Rine’s story here. If the ECHL gets involved and suspends him, the AHL reviews any players status automatically should Veilleux get recalled back to WBS. I’m not about to turn my blog into a social studies lecture, so this is all I will offer on the matter.

— On a much lighter note, Eric Majeski has been writing about the Penguins and training camp since when I had hair. Here are his Day One and Day Two thoughts on Pittsburgh’s NHL training camp complete with practice lines.

Gameday for tomorrow’s game vs. Norfolk will be here on the blog at 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

Let’s Go Pens!

Pittsburgh, WBS, Wheeling

Help Wanted

Comments Off on Help Wanted Posted by on December 10, 2012

No. Chirps from Center Ice is not looking for help in the blogger department.

But the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins and Wheeling Nailers may be looking for help in the goal tending department:

–

https://twitter.com/Shawn_Rine/status/278170046801522688

–

Bombulie had the update today, if you want to call it that. Too soon to speculate, but when have you ever heard a guy leave practice with the trainer then be back the next day as good as new? It just doesn’t happen.

With the unknown status of Killeen, this leaves Brad Thiessen as the lone healthy goaltender in the Penguins organization eligible to play.

Bombulie mentioned in his update that a reader had mentioned to him the possibility of bringing ex-PIT backup Brent Johnson in on a PTO. Apparently Johnson is working out in Pittsburgh with the rest of the locked-out players. What would it take to drive 300 miles East and help out the farm a bit? It makes too much sense, really, and that’s why I would be shocked that it come to fruition.

The ailments / injuries could not come at a more inopportune time for the Pens, who are about to embark in an eight game in twenty day journey, with seven of those eight against divisional opponents and looking more long term nine of ten against East Division foes. Albany Wednesday is the only non-divisional game on the Penguins immediate matrix.

I’ll think worst case here: Zatkoff is out a while. Brent Johnson doesn’t come in on a PTO. The Pens sign some unknown kid. Let’s benchmark Wednesday, Pens are three points out of the division lead and tied for second with Binghamton. Where oh where will the Pens be at the end of this ten game slog? Time (and good goal tending) will tell.

—

There are a few other things I want to briefly touch on:

–> Here’s my other game story I wrote for the Maine Hockey Journal on Saturday night. Can’t thank Chris Roy enough for the opportunity to serve.

–> More AHL games were added to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio with the axing of more NHL games thru December 30. The Penguins aren’t featured in any games other than the one already scheduled for this Friday vs. Binghamton.

–> From the ex-Penguin alumni file: Colby Armstrong signed an ECHL deal with the Utah Grizzlies and Chris Collins signed on with the Springfield Falcons.

—

If anything breaks on news regarding Penguins / Nailers back stoppers, either in the form of new signings or health status updates, I will have retweets in some from from Mssrs. Bombulie / Rine on Twitter then probably a blurb here on the blog. If not, next update will probably run Wednesday at 3 for the Albany Gameday setup.

Not AHL, The AHL, WBS, Wheeling

Crunch / Penguins Notebook

Comments Off on Crunch / Penguins Notebook Posted by on November 30, 2012

Sitting here looking at some stats in advance of tonight’s huge tilt between Syracuse and the Pens and wanted to fire off a quick, “notebook” blog of material that would get lost in the shuffle of the live tweeting. Check out the Gameday setup if you haven’t already and enjoy the following notes:

  • Syracuse is the last team in the AHL to lose on the road in regulation. (9-0-0-1)
  • The Crunch are 10-1 when they score first. They are the first team in the AHL to achieve ten wins when they do score first.
  • Syracuse is first overall in the AHL in goals for with 3.82 goals / game.
  • The Penguins are third overall in the AHL in goals allowed with 2.22 goals against.
  • AHL Commissioner Dave Andrews will be in the house tonight.

—

In other news today, the Wheeling Nailers were active on the transaction wire this afternoon. They received Dominik Uher and Keven Veilleux for tonight’s game at Elmira and traded for Andrew Hotham (from Cincinatti) and Chris Higgins (from Utah) in ECHL-related moves for future considerations. Nailers’ beat writer Shawn Rine tweeted that the Uher / Veilleux assignments were one night rentals.

Back later tonight for the postgame recap. Let’s Go Pens!

The AHL, WBS, Wheeling

Odds and Ends 11/12

Comments Off on Odds and Ends 11/12 Posted by on November 12, 2012

Stringing together the following links for you to enjoy:

–> Mohegan Sun Arena tweeted today that the gates will open at 6 p.m., like it has in the past. About a month ago, the Arena opened the doors at 5:30 in an effort to get people through the new security screening. They are reverting back to the old 6 p.m. way, effective immediately.

–> Keven Veilleux returned to the Penguins yesterday. This was planned. He should be in the lineup Wednesday vs. Springfield.

–> Yeah, about them Springfield Falcons. They are 8-1-0-2, with 18 points and lead the Eastern Conference. I always love “fun with numbers” breakdowns, so I offer the following for your viewing enjoyment regarding the opponent on Wednesday.

–> One more thing regarding the Falcons, G Curtis McElhinney was named AHL Player of the Week this afternoon after shutting out his opponents in two starts this past weekend. If my math is correct (stay with me here) he has a 138:40 shutout streak going which is most likely going to get built on come Wednesday as he will most likely start in goal for the Falcons vs. the Penguins.

–> Paying off this past weekends freelance work I did for Maine Hockey Journal, you can find the edited, finished version of my work here. ‘Twas fun, I hope to get to do that again sometime soon.

–> The AHL partnered up with a news outlet by the name of SendtoNews a few weeks ago. They provide video highlights to news outlets. I don’t consider myself a “news” outlet, but if you are here to get information on the Penguins, you are here for “news” – so starting Wednesday, I will start offering the highlights as part of the postgame blog updates.

The problem with that, unfortunately, is that the scripting and coding and all that technical computer jazz doesn’t play nice with my blog, which is hosted by WordPress.com. They don’t allow it, so you’ll need to click twice to see it, once on the link and then once to “play” when on the Send to News site.

—

Probably won’t have anything Tuesday, but you can always find me on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest nonsense.

Let’s Go Pens!

The AHL, WBS, Wheeling

It Starts With a Tweet

Comments Off on It Starts With a Tweet Posted by on November 7, 2012

Sort of unearthed news late yesterday based off of this tweet from Mark Divver, who covers the Providence Bruins for The Providence Joural:

–

After I mentioned that, Wheeling Nailers beat writer Shawn Rine sprung into action, did some investigating and tweeted the following:

https://twitter.com/shawn_rine/status/265957332335329281

–

So, what’s it all mean?

Bombulie blogged yesterday that with only 13 forwards healthy and only 12 at WBS practice yesterday with Dominik Uher out for personal reasons, now was as good as any to get a look at Farnham.

https://twitter.com/shawn_rine/status/265957695234908161

–

Oh. Penguins made it official this morning, by the way.

First thought is that Farnham reminds me of Zach Sill. The Pens miss that grinding bottom line guy that Sill is, maybe Farnham steps in and fills the role from the beginning?

He gets a chance to make an immediate impact, as the Pens face off against the Binghamton Senators at 7:05 tonight. Gameday setup for the event here on the blog at 3:00.

Let’s Go Pens!

WBS, Wheeling

Penguins Flying the Coop

Comments Off on Penguins Flying the Coop Posted by on July 19, 2012

Couple of Penguins in the news of recent, all with new locations they are calling home next year. Off we go:

–> Cal O’Reilly signed this week with Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL. Link here already translated to English for you. Have a laugh at some of the comments which were translated also.

–> Ex-Penguin Tim Wallace signs on with the Carolina organization. I have a strange feeling that the Penguins will be seeing the Checkers at least once this upcoming season, so it will be weird seeing Wallace, who ranks something like second or in the top five of WBS games played, flying around the ice in opposing colors.

–> Captain Ryan Craig to the Springfield Falcons on an AHL deal. This one will take a while to sink in for me, because Craig was like the rock on the ice for all the players. Nothing spiraled out of control that often under his watch. It will be a homecoming of sorts for Craig in his return to Springfield, where he was their captain and will most likely return to the captaincy this fall. It will be hard to boo him when Springfield visits, that is for sure.

Footnote to the above, Falcons president and general manager Bruce Landon, one of the more noticeable AHL GM’s in the league (could you name the Grand Rapids GM? I sure can’t) had nice things to say about Craig and the leadership he is bringing with him to Springfield in the fall.

Other teams had moves of their own:

Anaheim / Norfolk:

–> Signed goalie Marco Cousineau. Technically this is a “re-signing” as Cousineau moonlighted with the Ducks AHL affiliate last year in Syracuse. He has bounced from AHL, ECHL and even to the CHL.

Elsewhere:

–> Not really a new signing, but the Gryba Smash will be sticking around the Southern Tier for one more season.

–> Speaking on returns, the Peter Merth Effect is back in Wheeling for another season, from Pens Director of Communications Mike O’Brien, the Penguins were 9-2 when Merth was dressed and in the lineup for the Penguins.

–> Speaking of O’Bie, he wraps up the Season in Review with the Bears and the IceCaps playoff series.

Check out the Facebook page and the Twitter feed for the latest, or sign up for auto updates on the blog via e-mail.

But for more late breaking news, have a great weekend!

The AHL, WBS, Wheeling

← Older posts

Newer posts →