Chirps from Center Ice

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

The Curse of the Mannino*

Comments Off on The Curse of the Mannino* Posted by on July 24, 2013

Announced today was the news that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have signed Peter Mannino to a contract for the 2013-14 campaign.

Mannino played 20 games for the Manchester Monarchs last season. He filled in sparingly for the Monarchs as Martin Jones saw the lions share of work in Manchester last season in goal.

The signing is an interesting one at best, as Pittsburgh just signed Eric Hartzell to an NHL contract. Unless there’s a competition in camp, one would project that Hartzell starts the season in Wheeling, likely starting every game he possibly can to get pro experience. I can’t see the Penguins carrying three goalies (Jeff Zatkoff being the other goalie not mentioned yet)

However, the move does make some sense in regards to the young, fairly inexperienced Wilkes-Barre blue line projected for the Fall. You now have two veteran goaltenders to backstop all the youth.

Mannino was a member of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in 2008-09, and their play-by-play voice Phil Giubileo chirped in with the following:

–

I do have other things in the hopper that I want to off in a future blog post. Just minor moves in and around the East Division. If no other news breaks (which I don’t expect it to) that will all roll in the Thursday Summer blog update.

* – No malice intended with this headline. You’ll probably see it again in a future game recap.

WBS

Wilkes-Barre Hartzell’s Eric

Comments Off on Wilkes-Barre Hartzell’s Eric Posted by on July 20, 2013

Well it looks like we have our goaltender for the future.

Today, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced a two year contract for Eric Hartzell. It’s actually a re-signing, as Hartzell was with Pittsburgh after his Quinnipiac Tigers reached the Frozen Four Finals in Pittsburgh earlier this year.

Outside of that, I’m not going to pretend to know anything about the kid. He’s following the footsteps of John Curry and Brad Thiessen, that is, undrafted goaltenders that Pittsburgh signs which end up in Wilkes-Barre.

Seth Rorabaugh from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a Q&A with Hartzell worth checking out. Also, Mike O’Brien had some audio from the Day 4 of Penguins development camp with Hartzell worth a listen too.

Sorry for the terrible attempt at a headline. It’s the off season for creativity too.

Pittsburgh, WBS

Mikkelson is a Penguin

1 Comment Posted by on July 19, 2013

Pittsburgh announced the signing of D Brendan Mikkelson today.

Sound familiar? He is. He’s been a certified Penguin killer. He had a big year for Syracuse this past year and killed the Penguins as a member of the Portland Pirates in 2008 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Bombulie suggests he fills the role of Dylan Reese. He figures that Wilkes-Barre could do well to get another defenseman to fill the role Joey Mormina played.

Mikkelson was #35 on the Bombulie / Cignoli Big Board. Described as a “capable depth defenseman, solid in the AHL and can fill in at the NHL level.”

That certainly helps, as eluded to yesterday by Mike O’Brien, the Wilkes-Barre blue line is very young.

So you have Chris Conner (#34 on the Big Board) Nick Drazenovic (#24) and Andrew Ebbett (#26) signed for potential Wilkes-Barre service in the Fall. In my opinion, a modestly strong offseason for the Penguins.

I updated the 2013 Offseason Moves List.

Elsewhere….

— Here’s another entry from Mike O’Brien on development camp with audio.

— Eric Majeski’s Day 4 writeup on development camp.

— The NHL schedule is out. I saw some of you commenting about how late the schedule was this year. Me? The AHL schedule won’t be out until some time in August.

— The Pittsburgh Penguins will play in the newly formed, “Metropolitan Division” which some scoffed at the ridiculousness of the name. May I suggest that the AHL’s East Division be renamed the, “Interstate 81 Division.”

Have a great weekend.

Pittsburgh, WBS

Odds and Ends

Comments Off on Odds and Ends Posted by on July 18, 2013

It’s hot in Wilkes-Barre. Officially a heat wave. Close your eyes, you think it’s the desert.

That desert also applies to the blog world.

There is not a lot out there right now. In fact, I wouldn’t even classify this as a blog post. But here’s what I scraped together though. Let’s go in the division first:

Tampa Bay re-signed J.T. Brown and Mark Barberio. Seems the Crunch are bringing back everyone they can.

Anaheim re-signed Mat Clark. Clark appeared in a team high 71 games for the Admirals last season.

Binghamton re-signed Mike Hoffman, and also extended head coach Luke Richardson and his staff.

The Bears aren’t done yet.

Pittsburgh development camp is ongoing. As always, the venerable Eric Majeski had his thoughts on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

Mike O’Brien made it to Pittsburgh today and had a feature on the future of defense.

Chirps from Center Ice turned three on Monday. Here’s to three more years. Thank you for reading.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

It’s the Finnish Line for Brad Thiessen

2 Comments Posted by on July 15, 2013

Brad Thiessen is moving on to Finland.

After an illustrious four year career with the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins compiling a regular season record of 88-49-12-6, 2.47 GAA and a .906 SV% and a playoff record of 18-16, 2.31 GAA and a .924 SV% Thiessen is heading to HIFK in the Sm-liiga, which is the highest level of professional hockey in Finland. HIFK is a team located in Helsinki, which is the largest city and the capital of Finland.

While not surprising, the writing was on the wall from the start of the season for Thiessen with the arrival and play of Jeff Zatkoff.

Thiessen undoubtedly will go down as one of the best goaltenders to come through Wilkes-Barre and will be never forgotten for his historic Game 6 performance vs. the Providence Bruins in the Eastern Conference Semifinals this year.

I am sure I am not alone in wishing Brad Thiessen the best in his future endeavors.

WBS

Prospecting…and Other Stuff

Comments Off on Prospecting…and Other Stuff Posted by on July 12, 2013

Seems that every time I load Twitter, there are live tweets of a prospect camp somewhere for an NHL team. It’s been going on for a few weeks now.

No, I am not complaining of hockey live tweets, as that’s what I base my entire social media presence on, I’m just saying that prospect development camps are open for business.

Well, the Penguins are opening theirs next week. They announced a roster today complete with player bios.

A name on the roster familiar with Penguins fans in Wilkes-Barre is Tom Kuhnhackl, who apparently is healed enough to participate in the camp. Recall that he was injured earlier this year and wasn’t seen again. This is a positive sign as I expect him to have a strong camp.

Notables such as Brian Dumoulin, Reid McNeill, Philip Samuelsson, Jayson Megna, Adam Payerl and Dominik Uher are also attending next week.

There’s a name on the list that is actually on the “Big Board” who is an unrestricted free agent. His name is Carter Rowney, a right winger who had a four game apprenticeship with Abbotsford last year. He’s unranked on the Board, noted to have “good size” – he’s 6’2 and 202. He was the assistant captain for his University of North Dakota team and also received “most improved player” in 2011-12.

The Wilkes-Barre coaching staff is going to run the camp, so it will be interesting to see if Rowney or any other camp invitee gets an invite to Wilkes-Barre’s camp in the Fall.

Elsewhere…

— Ex-WBS goaltender Ty Conklin was named St. Louis Blues Goaltender Development Coach today.

— Derek Nesbitt signed with the Oklahoma City Barons today to an AHL contract. Recall that Wilkes-Barre sat Nesbitt out at the end of last season so he can retain his, “tweener” status and not be counted as a veteran for next season. To me, seems like a lot of hoops that the Penguins jumped through for a guy that was virtually invisible for the them in the postseason. It’s the nature of the business, I get that, just because it’s the nature of the business doesn’t mean I have to like it. The 2013 Offseason Moves list has been updated to reflect the move.

— Harry Zolnierczyk signed his contract with Pittsburgh today. I maintain he will not play a game for Wilkes-Barre next season.

— The Utica Comets may be playing in the AHL’s Western Conference next season, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ruled out that they won’t play the Penguins next year. If they do, Penguins fans may see some familiar faces on the team as Benn Ferriero and Brandon DeFazio signed contracts with parent Vancouver today.

Have a great weekend.

 

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Realignment and It Feels So Good…

1 Comment Posted by on July 11, 2013

The AHL is realigning things again for 2013-14.

The Penguins aren’t going anyplace. Still in the East Division, with Norfolk, Hershey, Binghamton and Syracuse.

In fact, the entire Eastern Conference hasn’t changed at all.

The new team in Utica, the Comets, will play in the Western Conference in the North Division. The new team in Iowa, the Wild, will play in the Midwest Division.

Looking at a map, Syracuse is west of Utica, but will play in the Eastern Conference, in the East Division.

Hold on. It gets better.

The Abbotsford Heat, all the way out in British Colombia, are in the same division as the Charlotte Checkers, in the Western Conference in the West Division.

Huh?

For the Checkers, it’s the fourth division in four seasons. My blog pal Jenni runs the blog Chasing Checkers and had some thoughts on all this moving her team is enduring.

Kevin Oklobzija covers the Rochester Americans for the Democrat and Chronicle and had some thoughts on realignment that make sense.

The AHL also announced that the season starts October 4. WIth the Penguins opening at home on October 12, it looks like for a second straight year that the Penguins will open their 15th season on the road.

The Penguins have won some awards worth noting. Individually and as a team. Good times.

No signings to note in the East Division today. I wanted to off this news about realignment today and not let it get stale.

Oh, and in case you still haven’t figured out the headline.

The AHL, WBS

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