Chirps from Center Ice

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

Pens Re-Sign Patrick McGrath 8/9

1 Comment Posted by on August 9, 2016

In keeping with keeping their name in the news cycle during the middle of August, there was more news out of Coal Street Tuesday.

They re-signed Forward Patrick McGrath.

McGrath is a Shavertown native known more for his fists than anything else. With the AHL cracking down on staged fights and fighting in general, the McGrath signing adds toughness to the Penguins lineup.

If you are expecting a big splash name in AHL free agency this week with this parade of news so far from the Penguins, prepare yourself to be underwhelmed….

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We’ll see. We aren’t even at Wednesday yet. The 2016 Offseason Moves List has already been updated.

Stay tuned.

WBS

Lively New Livery

1 Comment Posted by on August 8, 2016

Coal Street teased the following this morning…

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…which is good for summertime blogging I suppose. I’m enjoying my summer and the warm weather along with the pool and cigar time. Good to keep the fingers sharp and the content on the blog fresh.

Later that day, the Pens announced a new look…

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Release here. Remember with the new rule change this year it will be whites at home till Christmas than darks at home thereafter.

No word on if there will be alternate jerseys and what those will look like. There always is but there was no word in todays release.

For visual learners…

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Details on when and where you can get these new colors in the press release.

One other note that was out there today was on an ex-Penguin. Eric Hartzell is back playing in America and today signed with the Fort Wayne Komets of the ECHL.

More news to come this week.

Not AHL, WBS

Leach Defects 8/3

Comments Off on Leach Defects 8/3 Posted by on August 4, 2016

With the announcement earlier this week of the assistant coaches named to the bench with Clark Donatelli manning the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins ship for 2016-17, it wasn’t a matter of if Jay Leach would land on his feet with another team, but when.

It happened Thursday. What was wildly reported on for weeks was made official. Leach is heading to Providence to serve as assistant coach with Trent Whitfield. Leach and Whitfield will serve as assistants to Kevin Dean.

It’s a bit of a monkey see, monkey do bit with the P-Bruins, who are the second team this week to name two assistant coaches. I think that you will see that become the norm. Your ideal situation is to run your AHL bench like you do in the NHL.

Kevin Dean on Whitfield and Leach as told to Mark Divver of The Providence Journal…

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Back home, Mike O’Brien and Nick Hart sat down with new Penguins assistant coach J.D. Forrest and podcaster about it. You can check that out and give it a listen here.

Enjoy August. Remember to apply sunscreen.

The AHL, WBS

Clark Finds Taylor With a Nikkel in the Forrest

3 Comments Posted by on August 2, 2016

Today, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins filled out their coaching staff for the 2016-17 season.

Chris Taylor and J.D. Forrest join Clark Donatelli behind the bench as assistant coaches. In addition, Coal Street announced the hire of Madison Nikkel as video coach.

Release here with information on each. Taylor comes over from Rochester where he was an assistant coach with Amerks after he retired. Forrest coached in Austria last season and was an assistant with the U.S. National Team Developmental Program in 2014-15. Nikkel comes from the college ranks, recently with Boston College.

Wait a second, what happened to Jay Leach…

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So there is that.

One other thing that I saw across the Coal Street media platforms I will leave you with…

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I have no idea. They didn’t explain.

Schedule for the 2016-17 AHL season will be out a few days after the NBA schedule is out later this month. Here’s a preview: Hershey and Lehigh Valley 12 times, everyone else in the division a couple times, a few games with the North Division teams here and there and nothing scheduled against any Western Conference teams.

Enjoy your August.

WBS

No, You Haven’t Missed Anything

3 Comments Posted by on July 28, 2016

It’s the middle of summer. The Top 100 AHL Free Agent Big Board and Beyond is pretty well picked over with players signing with teams. There is nothing out there in the hockey world that is worth noting. You haven’t missed anything.

Barry Goers was the Friday re-signing by the Penguins back on July 8. Since then, nothing but tumbleweeds.

Even the AHL is running retread news on its Twitter feed this morning….

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Possible news includes a new assistant coach on Coal Street….

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Down 81, ex-Penguin Reid Cashman was named assistant coach of the Hershey Bears filling the role of Bryan Helmer who took the position of VP of Hockey Operations for the departing Doug Yingst.

That’s about it. We are probably about five weeks away from an AHL schedule. If / when Coal Street makes an announcement on a new assistant coach, I’ll have a blog here. But otherwise, go outside and enjoy the warm weather.

The AHL, WBS

Thursday Notebook 7/7

Comments Off on Thursday Notebook 7/7 Posted by on July 7, 2016

Couple more things of note this week as, for the beginning of July, it’s been busy.

The run on signings by Coal Street continue. After announcing Casey DeSmith on Tuesday, the Penguins announced they have re-signed Adam Krause on Wednesday and Sahir Gill on Thursday.

Down Interstate 81, Hershey announced the re-signings of Dustin Gazley and Ryan Bourque to AHL deals. In addition, they announced they have signed G Parker Milner and D Hubert Labrie to AHL deals. Milner had gaudy numbers playing in the ECHL for the Missouri Mavericks last season, the Mavericks were a very good team. Labrie has bounced around from team to team and is a third pair defender. Hershey also announced they have re-signed Joey Leach and Dominic Monardo. Monardo was with the Bears in their playoff run.

Pittsburgh signed Garrett Wilson on Thursday. Wilson, who was not ranked in the Top 100 of the AHL Big Board, played 29 NHL games last season with Florida. He had 38 points with San Antonio in 2014-15. Expect him to be the first or second call-up for Pittsburgh next season once the inevitable injury bug starts biting the Stanley Cup Champions.

Ex-Penguin Matt Carkner announced his retirement.

The annual Board of Governors meeting wrapped up this week in Hilton Head, South Carolina. With this, normally comes realignment and rules changes. This year was no different. From the release, the divisions look like this heading into 2016-17:

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Penguins remain in the same division with the same divisional foes, sans Portland, who is now Springfield, who is now Tucson, playing 68 games in the Pacific Division.

If I was running things, I would keep all 68 game teams (every team in the Pacific except San Antonio and Texas) in their own division, I’d move San Antonio and Texas to the Central and move Lake Erie to the North Division and Charlotte to the East. But that’s just me editorializing.

Other rule changes include,

Playing Schedule/Standings 

• The 2016-17 regular season will consist of 1,116 games, played between Oct. 12 and Apr. 16. All teams will play 76 games each with the exception Bakersfield, Ontario, San Diego, San Jose, Stockton and Tucson, who will play 68 games each. The full league schedule will be announced later this summer.

• Teams will receive two points for a win and one point for an overtime or shootout loss. The top four teams in each division ranked by points percentage (points earned divided by points available) will qualify for the 2017 Calder Cup Playoffs.

• The 2017 Calder Cup Playoffs will feature a divisional playoff format, leading to conference finals and ultimately the Calder Cup Finals. The division semifinals are best-of-five series; all subsequent rounds are best-of-seven.

• Teams will wear light jerseys at home until the Christmas break, and dark jerseys at home after the Christmas break.

Rule 46 (“Fighting”)/Rule 23 (“Game Misconducts”) 
• Players who enter into a fight prior to, at, or immediately following the drop of the puck for a faceoff will be assessed an automatic game misconduct in addition to other penalties assessed.

• During the regular season, any player who incurs his 10th fighting major shall be suspended automatically for one (1) game. For each subsequent fighting major up to 13, the player shall also be suspended automatically for one (1) game.

• During the regular season, any player who incurs his 14th fighting major shall be suspended automatically for two (2) games. For each subsequent fighting major, the player shall also be suspended automatically for two (2) games.

• In any instance where the opposing player was assessed an instigator penalty, the fighting major shall not count towards the player’s total for this rule.

Rule 82 (“Icing”)
• In addition to not being permitted to make player substitutions, the offending team on an icing violation also may not use its team time-out.

Rule 1.10 (“Ice Cleaning”)
• The ice cleaning procedures used during promotional timeouts will also be used prior to overtime during the regular season, replacing the “dry scrape.”

In layman’s terms:

– No more crossover. The top four teams in each division make playoffs, based off of percentage. This will have no bearing on the Eastern Conference teams since they all play the same amount of games.

– White jerseys at home until Christmas then black, or dark jerseys, from there on out. They do this in the ECHL. I think it is a dumb rule and the Leagues meddling with things better left alone.

– No more time outs after icings. Another dumb rule. Teams will find a way around this. A goaltenders pad may fall off. A skate blade may fall off. A stick will break. Something.

– No more dry scrape. This I like. There was no standard from AHL arena to AHL arena on how exactly to clean the ice after overtime. Some places it would last up to 5 minutes. Now, the off-ice crew will simply shovel away the snow in the attacking zones like they do at the 14, 10 and 6 minute stoppages during the period. You’ll be in and out of games in a jiffy.

– The other rule involves convoluted words regarding fighting. Gone are the staged fights. If you do that you are thrown out of the game. Once you fight ten times, you are suspended a game. Do it again up to 13 times, and you are suspended again. After your fourteenth fight and every fight after that, you are suspended for two games. If you are in a fight and the guy gets an instigator that fights you, that fight does not count towards the ten that gets you sat a game.

If the League is going to trip over itself sideways to implement these rules to curb fighting, it should simply just be banned. Fight once and get an automatic ten games. Make it simple. You obviously want to eliminate this aspect of the game, so simply come out and do it, rather than confusing the common fan that doesn’t understand why staged fights are gone.

I’ll have updates to the AHL Big Board and my 2016 Offseason Moves List later this evening. Have a nice weekend if there isn’t a Friday Coal Street Signing worth firing the blog up over.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

I Ain’t Scared of No Ghost

Comments Off on I Ain’t Scared of No Ghost Posted by on July 5, 2016

After a pretty meek Day 2 and beyond of the NHL Free Agency, business picked up again on the day after the Fourth of July.

It was the Philadelphia Flyers who made the most noise in bolstering their AHL affiliate about an hour down the PA Turnpike in Lehigh Valley.

The number one name on the AHL Big Board, T.J. Brennan, signed with the Philadelphia Flyers today. The Phantoms on their own a few hours later announced the signing of Mark Zengerle and Martin Ouelette to AHL contracts.

First, T.J. Brennan. Two time defensive player of the year. He is the real deal. Pairing him with Will O’Neill, the second best defensemen I had on the board will give teams fits. Couple that in with Mark Zengerle, who centered the Grand Rapids Griffins top line of Anthony Mantha and Eric Tangradi last year and you have a recipe for success considering other signings made by the Flyers such as O’Neill and Andy Miele, the top forward available on the big board.

That is, however, if the Phantoms even make playoffs. Lehigh Valley has done nothing but disappoint in its two seasons in Allentown with lineups that look in October that they can compete in June but are out of it in December and a laughingstock in March.

Long and short, I’ll believe all this July hype about the Phantoms and playoffs it when I see it in mid-April next year.

There were other signings today affecting a lot of other AHL teams that I will update on the Big Board in a bit.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins today announced the re-signing of Goaltender Casey DeSmith. DeSmith, while playing on a PTO in the playoffs with the Penguins, took over the starters role in the playoffs and was one overtime Game 7 shot away from advancing to the Conference Finals against Toronto. The tandem as it stands in the beginning of July appears to be Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith. I see this as healthy competition between the two. DeSmith will be gunning for the starters role over the NHL contracted Jarry and Jarry will be looking to re-claim his undisputed number one role on Coal Street and become the next Matt Murray.

My 2016 Offseason Moves List will be updated later too, as I am hammering off this blog post, dinner is on the grill. Pork chops if you are scoring at home.

The AHL, WBS

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