Chirps from Center Ice

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

2018 NHL Free Agency – Day 2

Comments Off on 2018 NHL Free Agency – Day 2 Posted by on July 2, 2018

I’ll save you some time here, no signings today for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins or Pittsburgh Penguins. There were some moves around the rest of the Atlantic Division, however, which I will encapsulate here. No links off here, sorry, its hot in Wilkes-Barre and I want to go back in my pool.

— Matt Lorito and Mike Sislo signed with the New York Islanders Bridgeport. Scoring punch with Lorito, who had a big year with Grand Rapids last year and durability with Mike Sislo, who appeared in every game for the Tucson Roadrunners. The Islanders also confirmed the report yesterday that they re-signed G Chris Gibson and Seth Helgeson.

— Bobby Butler signed an AHL only deal with Hartford. He is from the area so he is coming home. I had him #50 on my Big Board.

— Dan Renouf to Carolina. He brings a veteran presence and can put up points.

— Paul Thompson returns to the Florida Panthers / Springfield Thunderbirds. The ex-Penguin and most recently ex-captain of the Chicago Wolves returns back to the Thunderbirds.

— My top defenseman overall, Jacob MacDonald also signed with Florida. He is a power play machine.

As far as other ex-Penguins go, Ben Street, Brian Gibbons, and Carter Rowney signed with the Anaheim Ducks and Tom Kuhnhackl signed with the Islanders. Ben Street is the only player out of that group I would expect to see in the AHL, although you never know when a player moves to another organization.

So the teams that stayed relatively quiet made some big noise today. All were solid signings and all will help teams that missed playoffs last year (but for the Checkers and Renouf, who…well, I forget now…)

There are still some big names available on the AHL Big Board. Chris Bourque is still unsigned. Philip Samuelsson, Eric Tangradi, Dustin Tokarski to name others.

If Day 3 warrants a blog post, it will go Wednesday sometime. If not, Happy July Fourth!

The AHL

2018 NHL Free Agency – Day 1

Comments Off on 2018 NHL Free Agency – Day 1 Posted by on July 1, 2018

Day One of NHL Free Agency is about in the books and the Pittsburgh Penguins signed five players and re-signed another.

They were…

  • Jack Johnson – this had been known for a few days now. Defender that is in the NHL.
  • Matt Cullen – well liked Cullen is 41 years old and will likely push down a Dominik Simon or a Zach Aston-Reese at least to start come October.
  • Jimmy Hayes – defender who played for HV71 last year overseas. Last saw AHL time in 2015-16 with Milwaukee. Elite Prospects has this scouting report on him: “Elliott is a defenseman with decent two-way ability. Offensively, he has a great shot and fine puck skills. Could improve his physical game.”
  • Stefan Elliott – this forward played with New Jersey last year, just 33 games with the Devils. 334 games of NHL experience. Could be another tweeter between Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre.
  • John Muse – I had Muse 18th on my AHL Big Board. He was 11-2-2 playing on a loaded Lehigh Valley team in a backup / third goaltender role. He and Anthony Peters will make a good tandem here in Wilkes-Barre come the fall, or Muse could fall to Wheeling depending on what shakes out with Tristan Jarry / Casey DeSmith. Regardless, it’s good to have insurance in this regard.
  • Zach Trotman re-signed.

Announcements on the Hayes / Elliott / Muse and Trotman signings here. I didn’t include Johnson or Cullen because they aren’t direct impacts on Wilkes-Barre.

Elsewhere…

  • Jayson Megna and Michal Sgarbossa signed with Washington. Megna has been in the NHL or injured with the Vancouver organization and Sgarbossa put up 40 points with a good Manitoba team.
  • Providence lost a lot in defections like Tommy Cross to Columbus and Austin Czarnik to Calgary, but had a pair of signings that can help out come the fall. Mark McNeill and Cody Goloubef.
  • Philadelphia / Lehigh Valley was quiet. They don’t need to re-tool as much.
  • I didn’t see anything with Carolina, or the New York Rangers affecting Charlotte or Hartford respectfully.
  • Unconfirmed, but G Chris Gibson and Seth Helgeson have re-signed with the Islanders.
  • Florida signed my top goaltender available, Michael Hutchinson.

Jarred Tinordi signed with Nashville. I was hoping that the Penguins would be able to sway him into staying, but it was not to be.

Pretty quiet otherwise in the AHL’s Atlantic Division. The big arms race was in the North, where a ton of players got signed in what looks like is an arms race to keep up with the defending Calder Cup Champion Toronto Marlies.

I totally forgot about my Offseason Signings Tracker. I will update that later on as well as this blog post (going up around 6:30 pm local) for any additions made to the Penguins or their Atlantic Division foes. (edit: updated here)

AHL Big Board is now pinned to the top of the site, a handy link here if you linked in direct.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

2018 AHL Top 100 Free Agents and Beyond – The Big Board

9 Comments Posted by on June 27, 2018

Note: Final update to the AHL Big Board was July 26, 2018. This post will be unstuck by this weekend.

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Back for a fourth year is the yearly summertime project here on the blog where I carry on the tradition left by Jonathan Bombulie. It’s the AHL Big Board. A Top 100 list of the best available players to help your AHL team.

I’d like to that Nathan Mallett from Runnin’ With the Herd for his help on San Antonio’s players as well as Tucson and San Diego this year.

Information compiled on the names listed below was gathered from the following websites: The AHL, CapFriendly, HockeyDB and Elite Prospects.

Please feel free to reach out regarding corrections, errors or if guys on this list have signed previously.

NHL Free Agency begins Sunday, July 1.

Please click the jump if you did not link in direct and read, share and enjoy!

Read more of this post

The AHL

Big Board Wednesday – Other Stuff

Comments Off on Big Board Wednesday – Other Stuff Posted by on June 26, 2018

My massive summertime project is completed. The 2018 AHL Top 100 Free Agents and Beyond Big Board will be released here on the blog Wednesday afternoon at 5 pm. As of now, there are a total of 288 names that are going to be included in the list Wednesday, barring anyone signing between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday at 5.

It’ll get pinned to the top of the blog once my next blog piece comes out, so if if you visit once a week, just scroll down.

In other news, Coal Street announced a home opener and five other guaranteed dates as well as the logo the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins will use to commemorate their 20th AHL season played in Wilkes-Barre:

Full release here. I would be fine if they punted on Sunday afternoon home games entirely, I detest them.

Anyway, see you back here Wednesday evening after 5 for the AHL Big Board.

The AHL, WBS

Qualifying Offers, Czuczman Re-Signed, Other News 6/25

1 Comment Posted by on June 25, 2018

Today was the deadline for NHL teams to send qualifying offers to Restricted Free Agents. The Pittsburgh Penguins sent qualifying offers to everyone familiar with Wilkes-Barre in the past few seasons, except for Frank Corrado.

Corrado was acquired from Toronto as a piece in the Eric Fehr and Steve Oleksy trade back in March 2017. He  never lived up to they hype that came with him in the Toronto media. He only appeared in a handful of NHL games for Pittsburgh, didn’t really do anything memorable in his time with the AHL club and was injured in the blowout loss in Rochester earlier this year and never returned.

Pittsburgh also did not qualify Tom Kuhnhackl and Vincent Dunn, which was a throw in piece in the Derrick Brassard trade earlier in the season.

Pittsburgh re-signed Kevin Czuczman for another season as well as Daniel Sprong and Dominik Simon. I expect Sprong and Simon to challenge each other for playing time in the NHL and will be surprised if either play another game in the AHL. For Czuczman, its a big signing in that he was a key piece here in Wilkes-Barre. He will of course be looking to break through and stay in Pittsburgh come the fall but if not, it will be nice to have him here in Wilkes-Barre. I had Czuczman as the top player available in the PIT / WBS organization for my AHL Big Board, coming later this week.

Pittsburgh also announced their roster for their development camp. Interesting in this roster group is that there is not a single player invited to that camp that played in Wilkes-Barre last season.

Troy Mann was fired as the coach of the Hershey Bears. A good coach that coached a team that played thin but tough last year as Hershey finished dead last in the Atlantic Division. Unacceptable if you are a fan of the Chocolate and White, but since you can’t fire the players, Mann was the one that got the ax at the end of the season. Well, he was hired today by the Belleville Senators, the AHL affiliate of the Ottawa Senators who also played at or near the bottom of the North Division. Mann will have his work cut out for him in 2018-19, but he is the right man for the job, no pun intended.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to finish up the AHL Big Board. Look for it, barring any last minute hangups, Wednesday. I will have a blog post announcing a date and time as sort of an advisory.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

2018 Draft Recap, The Old College Try

1 Comment Posted by on June 23, 2018

As with years prior, I use this piece as a recap of the recap of the NHL Draft and the haul that the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted. Here goes.

After no action at all in the first round Friday, all of the picks were made on Saturday. They were…

Pittsburgh then traded up to draft…

Then they waited to 129 and took…

And then in the sixth round…

They traded away their final pick to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for theirs in 2019.

Coal Street with a recap here of the picks and scouting reports on all. Also, if you have a subscription to The Athletic, you can find a recap and grade of Pittsburgh’s draft class here as well.

AHL Big Board will be out this week on the blog. I am aiming for a midweek debut because all I need are blurbs on any restricted free agents not qualified by Monday. Everything else is done but for ranking, but that is seamless because I have a top 30 and really just need 60 more which shouldn’t be that hard. I learned how to have a spreadsheet alphabetize for me two years ago so that’s a breeze.

The plan is to drop a blog post in here advising when the Big Board will be out to give ample time and build up the anticipation.

Pittsburgh, The AHL

TK’s Back! (Sort Of)

Comments Off on TK’s Back! (Sort Of) Posted by on June 20, 2018

When Tom Kostopoulos retired at the conclusion of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins season at the hands of the Charlotte Checkers in a three game sweep in the Atlantic Division Semifinals, the question became, “what’s next?” regarding the Penguins captain and Wilkes-Barre legend.

The answer was discovered today.

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced Wednesday afternoon that Kostopoulous as well as Andy Chiodo have been hired in player development roles. Chiodo will serve as development coach for goaltenders.

Positive move for Coal Street. You keep a popular guy like Kostopoulos around and a likable fellow like Chiodo mentoring the next generation of goaltenders. Players genuinely wanted to win a Calder Cup for Kostopoulos in his final season.

Here is Tom on Tom with more…

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NHL Draft is this weekend. I will probably run a recap of the Penguins draft picks if I get time Sunday.

AHL Big Board is coming along and will be out sometime next week. I will probably run a quick blog post advising of the time the big project drops to give people advance warning. So, stay tuned.

Pittsburgh, WBS

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