Chirps from Center Ice

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

Thursday is Just Another Day

Comments Off on Thursday is Just Another Day Posted by on February 14, 2013

Happy Valentines Day to one and all.

For the smarter population single people out there, it’s just another Thursday.

I’m cleaning up some old news and have a poll for you to vote in so let’s roll…

Eric Tangradi was traded to Winnipeg for a seventh round pick yesterday. I’m not going to get into the arguments as to whether Tangradi was a good fit in Pittsburgh or bash his skill set. Hockey players want to play hockey. Eric wasn’t given a chance to do that playing for Pittsburgh, so he goes to Winnipeg to get his chance at playing hockey in the NHL. I’m happy for him and thank him for all he’s done in Wilkes-Barre.

With the return of Dylan Reese, Reid McNeill was sent back to Wheeling yesterday.

Beau Bennett was called up to Pittsburgh today. Here’s Bombulie’s take on Bennett from yesterday and today, mixed in with a practice update and a few quips about Tangradi’s trade to Winnipeg.

While I do believe that Bennett will be a full time NHLer one day, that day isn’t today, tomorrow or any time soon. He will most likely slot in with Evgeni Malkin and James Neal on second line duties. We have seen countless players of recent try out at that slot. Tyler Kennedy, Dustin Jeffrey, Zach Boychuk, Tangradi, etc. have all tried and failed. Bennett is a 21 year old in his first year of professional hockey. The Pittsburgh fanbase is a giant microwave. They want everything now. The first sign of non-production or failure, they call for the head. I am not saying that I want or expect Bennett to fail, I am saying that the fanbase isn’t going to give him much rope if any to crawl before he walks. If, six games from now, Bennett is 0-2-2 in Pittsburgh, you will have some in the fanbase calling him a bust or another Eric Tangradi. That does nothing for his development at all in my biased, I-can’t-believe-you-are-taking-one-of-Wilkes-Barre’s-best-players-why-are-you-doing-that mentality.

So anyway, it begs this question I am asking you, the reader. Please answer honestly:

–

Gameday for tomorrow’s matchup vs. Norfolk will be up Friday afternoon at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

Pittsburgh, WBS

Return of Reese / Binghamton Fallout 2/13

Comments Off on Return of Reese / Binghamton Fallout 2/13 Posted by on February 13, 2013

On the personnel front, Pittsburgh announced the reassignment of Dylan Reese back to Wilkes-Barre. That’s great news for all involved. Matt Niskanen and Kris Letang came off injured reserve up top so Pittsburgh is healthy and there are no bodies there that belong here. Simon Despres? His AHL ship has sailed. He still hypothetically could return because he’s waiver exempt, but the way he’s playing for Pittsburgh, there’s no way you send him back.

Fallout from last night, Binghamton recalled Marc Chevrie from Elmira, no doubt because of the injury to Nathan Lawson last night from Adam Payerl’s charging major.

This morning I checked the AHL Rulebook on the Major Penalties that were assessed to Payerl and Tom Kostopoulos. Payerl first:

Rule 42 – Charging

42.1 Charging – A minor or major penalty shall be imposed on a player who skates or jumps into, or charges an opponent in any manner.

Charging shall mean the actions of a player who, as a result of
distance traveled, shall violently check an opponent in any manner. A “charge” may be the result of a check into the boards, into the goal frame or in open ice.

A minor, major or a major and a game misconduct shall be
imposed on a player who charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within his goal crease.

A goalkeeper is not “fair game” just because he is outside the goal crease area. The appropriate penalty should be assessed in every case where an opposing player makes unnecessary contact with a goalkeeper. However, incidental contact, at the discretion of the Referee, will be permitted when the goalkeeper is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.

It goes on to state that if there is an injury to the face or head as a result of the foul, the player is fined $200 and if deemed appropriate, supplementary discipline can be imposed.

I think Payerl is getting suspended. I checked the history of the suspensions handed out by the League going back to November. The majority of them are for violent boarding penalties or checking to the head penalties. Since we have the combination of a violent collision which resulted in a subsequent injury to Lawson’s head area, Payerl is going to get sat down. My guess is three games.

Kostopoulos’ spearing call is black and white. There is no minor penalty for spearing in the AHL Rulebook. It’s either a double-minor, major or a match penalty if there is an injury. A major was assessed last night. He’ll receive a $200 fine. I do not think he gets suspended.

We’ll have to wait and see what, if any, action the AHL takes on this. I’d expect that if there is a suspension, it is announced before Friday’s game vs. Norfolk.

Let’s Go Pens!

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Binghamton Beatdown – Pens LOSE 5-1

Comments Off on Binghamton Beatdown – Pens LOSE 5-1 Posted by on February 12, 2013

   button_bng200       vs.       WBS

  5                                              1

–

Woof.

 That’s the best way to describe this 5-1 dismantling at the hands of the Binghamton Senators tonight.

You can blame the officiating. David Banfield and Trent Knorr let things get out of hand and whenever that occurs, bad things happen.

You can blame the Penguins defense, because before the madness with the officiating began, two defensive gaffes occurred and one of them ended up in the back of the Penguins net. Things rapidly went down hill from there.

The B-Sens have the Penguins number this season. The Penguins are 1-6 vs. Binghamton this season. Bingo had lost six of their last nine coming into tonight.

Penguins were put in a 2-0 hole to start and at the end of twenty minutes were without Adam Payerl, dismissed after being assessed a five minute major for charging B-Sens starting goaltender Nathan Lawson and Tom Kostopoulos, who was assessed a five minute major for spearing. The rule book says that whenever there is an injury on a charge the player who charged is given a game misconduct. Whenever you intentionally spear someone, that’s a game misconduct too.

Lawson left the game with injury and was replaced by the ever steady Robin Lehner.

Second period the Penguins were on a power play and Binghamton scored its 13th shorthanded goal of the season, which is tops in the AHL. Then, whatever traction the Penguins had gained or hope to gain was squashed when Pat Cannone scored and then Jack Downing from the slot to make it 5-0 Binghamton. At this point, the rout was on.

Nothing really mattered in the third period. Dominik Uher scored his first AHL goal of his career to make it 5-1. Then to rub salt in the wound, Riley Holzapfel appears to score to make it 5-2, but referee Trent Knorr immediately signals no goal because Alex Grant was in Lehner’s crease. Holzapfel, livid, gets thrown out of the game for arguing the call.

That was pretty much it after that. Crumble this one up and come back Friday vs. Norfolk.

No one else played in the division. Penguins are ten back of Binghamton, five back of Syracuse, one ahead of Hershey and ten ahead of Norfolk. Binghamton has 63 points. Do the math from there.

Penguins remain in sixth in the conference. They are four points behind Providence for the five seed and five back of Syracuse for the four. Hershey is one back of the Penguins, who have, if you haven’t figured it out already 53 points.

Saturday’s game on the Southern Tier should be interesting, no?

Wheeling didn’t play and I’m not going to bother to link in to the SendToNews Highlights. If you want to look, you can do so on your own.

Penguins probably have off tomorrow, then practice Thursday for their three in three weekend against divisional foes. I’ll see what I can run content wise for the blog and go from there.

Let’s Go Pens!

Postgamer

GAMEDAY: vs. Binghamton 2/12

Comments Off on GAMEDAY: vs. Binghamton 2/12 Posted by on February 12, 2013

vs. 

–

–

Home Game: 24

AHL Game: 713

Who: Binghamton Senators

Where: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza

When: 7:05 p.m.

Media Kit

Last Game: Saturday in Norfolk, the Pens won 4-1. Chad Kolarik had two assists and was named first start of the game. For Binghamton, Sunday they hosted Albany and lost in a shootout 3-2. Robin Lehner stopped 44 of 46 shots and was named third star of the game.

Last Meeting: January 9 in Wilkes-Barre, the Penguins lost 3-1. Paul Thompson had the lone goal for the Penguins in the loss.

Record: For WBS: 25-19-2-1 (53 pts., 3rd place East Division) For BNG: 28-13-1-4 (61 pts., 1st place East Division)

Why you should care: B-Sens seem to be floundering, Penguins seem to be gaining momentum. This should be a big early litmus test to see where the Penguins stack up amongst the AHL’s elite.

Referee(s): David Banfield / Trent Knorr

Linesmen: Matt McNulty / Luke Murray

Twitter: @wbspenguins / @BSens_Hockey

Facebook: /WilkesBarreScrantonPenguins // /binghamtonsenators

Beat Writers: @CVBombulie / @PSBSens

Broadcasters: For WBS: Tom Grace @TGracePens and Mike O’Brien @MikeOBrienWBS / For BNG: Grady Whittenburg @BSensRadio

Fan Bloggers: @nafsnep / @BSensExaminer

Radio: For WBS: 102.3 The Mountain / For  Binghamton: Big 107.5 / Also Nationally on NHL Network Radio (Sirius 207 / XM 92)

Television: AHL Live

Promotion(s): None

Other Game to Watch: The Providence Bruins sit right ahead of the Penguins in the Conference standings. They play the Manchester Monarchs up in New Hampshire tonight.

Next Five Games:

NOR 2/15, @ BNG 2/16, SYR 2/17, @ ADK 2/22*, CT 2/23

* – game played at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA

Gameday

Call-Ups, Call-Downs, Collins

Comments Off on Call-Ups, Call-Downs, Collins Posted by on February 11, 2013

Busy Monday morning on Coal Street.

Joe Morrow’s NHL cup of coffee lasted one day. He was returned to Wilkes-Barre almost to the second since when he was recalled. He was scratched in the 4-1 loss to New Jersey last night.

Reid McNeill was recalled from Wheeling. He’s a defenseman. He may be enjoying his AHL cup of coffee today, as with him on town, WBS has 8 D on the roster (B. Dumoulin, M. Eaton, A. Grant, R. McNeill, J. Mormina, J. Morrow, P. Samuelsson, C. Wild) unless one of the d-men are still hurt, I can’t see McNeill sticking around.

Chris Collins was signed to a PTO today by Wilkes-Barre. You may remember Collins from a few years ago playing on the team in 2010-11 that collapsed in the second round of the playoffs won the AHL’s regular season title. I checked the Chirps from Center Ice archives (900+ posts strong, by the way) and found him to be more of a quiet role player who killed penalties. Collins ranked second in points for his DEL team overseas last season, and bounced around North America this season playing for the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers and the AHL’s Springfield Falcons.

Jonathan will have more later most likely. Hell, Tom might even have something too.

Let’s Go Pens!

WBS, Wheeling

Sunday Roundup

Comments Off on Sunday Roundup Posted by on February 10, 2013

So some news and what happened in the East Division Sunday afternoon with every team except Wilkes-Barre playing a game. First the news…

–> Chris Barton was released from his PTO and returned to Wheeling where he and the Nailers played the Elmira Jackals up in New York. Another thing worth noting in this game was it was Keven Veilleux’s first game back from his 10 game suspension. The Nailers lost this game 5-0 and haven’t scored a goal since Thursday. Veilleux was a -3.

–> Joe Morrow was recalled to Pittsburgh, Kris Letang was placed on injured reserve and Morrow is up “for insurance” purposes. He was scratched in Pittsburgh’s game vs. New Jersey tonight.

–> Follower @TK_Noodle chirped in this morning and showed me his first quarter grades for the Pittsburgh Penguins through 12 games. Worth a read.

Alright, so here’s what went down in the East Division today:

SYR     1

ADK     6

Recap: Scott Munroe stopped 42 of 43 shots as the Phantoms rolled the Crunch 6-1 in Glens Falls. Syracuse is 2-8 since the end of the lockout.

–

ALB      3

BNG      2

Recap: B-Sens let a 2-0 lead slip on them and lose in a shootout 3-2. Penguins square off against Binghamton Tuesday night.

–

NOR      4

HER      3

Recap: Norfolk coughs up a three goal lead in the third period but still manage to win in a shootout 4-3. Norfolk wins it’s league low seventh road game.

–

Here’s what the standings in the East look like tonight:

Team GP W L OTL SL Pts. Pct.
BNG 46 28 13 1 4 61 0.663
SYR 46 26 14 2 4 58 0.630
WBS 48 25 19 2 1 53 0.564
HER 48 23 19 3 3 52 0.542
NOR 47 20 24 2 1 43 0.457

–

So I had time today to mess around with graphs and graphics. Now you know how I spent my afternoon. You like it.

Anyway, unless something big happens tomorrow, look for the next blog update to come Tuesday for the Gameday setup. Always the latest on Twitter, then Facebook but never Instagram. Heh.

Let’s Go Pens!

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Chad-42 – You Sunk My Battleship! – Pens WIN 4-1

Comments Off on Chad-42 – You Sunk My Battleship! – Pens WIN 4-1 Posted by on February 9, 2013

WBS          @          NOR

4                                                1

–

In an utter reversal from last night’s 4-1 loss, the Penguins win tonight by a 4-1 score of their own in Norfolk tonight led by a two assist effort by Chad Kolarik.

Wait. What’s that you say? Why are two, seemingly insignificant assists that important? Kolarik didn’t have any coming into what is his seventh game played for Wilkes-Barre tonight. He already leads the team in points overall. He is a rare, dynamic player, the kind that you just don’t see that often in Wilkes-Barre.

Look, after last nights loss, raise your hand if you thought that the Penguins were fitting to spiral back into what happened to them in December. Bad loss bred bad loss after bad loss. Tonight, the Penguins righted the ship and came out and pretty much dominated Norfolk for large parts of his game.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Igor Bobkov – Mark Eaton had a “tweak” so Cody Wild took his spot on the WBS blueline making his debut. No other lineup changes were made.

First Period: Alex Grant and Josh Brittain get any animosities festering from last night out of the way :03 in a fight. Penguins and Admirals would trade power plays but would not score. Then, about halfway into the first period, Jeff Zatkoff would find Trevor Smith on a long pass that Smith would fire goal-ward. The puck would deflect off of Admirals defenseman Jordan Hendry and go into the net putting the Penguins up 1-0. It was a pretty back and forth period by both teams with each making long outlet passes to each other. Almost felt like a track meet.

Second Period: On a carryover power play from the first period, Chad Kolarik would find Beau Bennett in the slot and the rookie would score a power play goal putting the Penguins up 2-0. The Pens in the first half of the period relentlessly forechecked, smothered on defense and won races to pucks and looked to run the Admirals out of the rink. On a power play, Joe Morrow would turn a puck over and the Admirals would come in two on none. Peter Holland would score to put the Admirals on the board. It would be the fifth shorthanded goal allowed by the Penguins this season. Much different hockey game from there for the remainder of the period as the Penguins almost looked stunned from the goal and Norfolk desperately looked to even the score.

Third Period: Norfolk continued to pressure, nearly score on a power play then finally Chad Kolarik finds Riley Holzapfel wide open in the slot where Holzapfel has all day to pick a corner and score. Big goal at the time as the Penguins were on their heels. Turns out that it would be all the run support that the Penguins would need as they wouldn’t allow the Admirals any more Grade A chances and scored an empty net goal when Warren Peters scored from about 100′ away.

Three Stars: 3) Beau Bennett (goal, even) 2) Trevor Smith (goal, assist, +2) 1) Chad Kolarik (two assists, +1)

Around the Division: Hershey betas Binghamton at home 4-3. Syracuse coughs up a three goal lead in the third and lose to Albany 4-3.

Standings: Binghamton 60 — Syracuse 58 — Penguins 53 — Hershey 51 — Norfolk 41

Conference: 1) SPR (60) 2) BNG (60) 3) POR (56) 4) SYR (58) 5) PRO (53) 6) WBS (53) 7) HER (51) 8) WOR (50)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout by the Reading Royals 3-0 at home.

Penguins bus home tonight, are off Sunday, practice Monday and host the Binghamton Senators Tuesday.

I will probably run a Sunday recap on scores tomorrow night, as every team in the division except Wilkes-Barre has a game. Just something to keep things fresh on the blog until Tuesdays Gameday setup for what is shaping up to be a big game vs. the Binghamton Senators.

Let’s Go Pens!

Postgamer

← Older posts

Newer posts →