Chirps from Center Ice

Took an early lunch from the office today and made it up to Coal Street for the back end of the first day of training camp. Practice is a whole different animal for me, because I will openly admit to having no idea what I am watching. I suppose with time, I would get the hang of it.

Anyway, I have a bunch of pictures and things to share today, so after the jump if you will please…

Read more of this post

Wilkes-Barre announced a training camp roster today:

Forwards – Beau Bennett, Cody Chupp, Philippe Dupuis, Benn Ferriero, Brian Gibbons, Riley Holzapfel, Tom Kuhnhackl, Denver Manderson, Jayson Megna, Michael Neal, Adam Payerl, Warren Peters, Zach Sill, Trevor Smith, Eric Tangradi, Paul Thompson, Dominik Uher, Keven Veilleux and Scott Zurevinski

Defensemen – Robert Bortuzzo, Simon Despres, Brian Dumoulin, Alex Grant, Reid McNeill, Joey Mormina, Joe Morrow, Dylan Reese, Philip Samuelsson, Carl Sneep and Brian Strait

Goaltenders – Patrick Killeen, Brad Thiessen and Jeff Zatkoff

No names really jump off the page as a “who is that again?” name except for maybe Michael Neal, brother of Pittsburgh winger James. He’s 23, 6’2, left handed winger who played junior in Belleville and was a 5th round draft pick of Dallas in 2007. He bounced to and from AHL Texas and ECHL Idaho, where he spent most of last season where he was 7-18-25 and a -15 in 63 games.

With the lockout going on, he’ll probably be an afterthought by October 21, if not sooner.

Elsewhere, the Penguins tweeted a photo of what the new scoreboard looks like in action. Looks nice.

AHL announces the rules changes for 2012-2013. Here’s the rulebook. Here’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers beat writer Michael Fornabaio’s breakdown of the rule changes from last year.

Camp gets started tomorrow. Season is finally here!

I’m not breaking any news here by informing you that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins signed goalies Jeff Zatkoff and Brad Thiessen, defensemen Robert Bortuzzo and Brian Strait and Forward Eric Tangradi to AHL deals today. This was expected weeks ago, and was just made official this afternoon.

Penguins haven’t announced a roster yet. Camp officially begins off ice with physicals, etc. tomorrow so I would anticipate something in that regard tomorrow mid-morningish, hopefully.

Here’s other news you may not know:

–> Cody Wild signed a tryout with the Hamilton Bulldogs. Ex-WBS Penguins Michel Ouellet and Kyle Rank are included in that camp.

–> Norfolk signed Troy Bodie, Luca Caputi, Gabe Guentzel, Ryan Hegarty, John Kurtz and Nick Schaus to AHL deals the other day. Later they signed Nate Guenin, Garrett Klotz, Patrick Maroon and Matt Smaby to deals.

–> Syracuse signed Evan Oberg, Matt Taormina, Mike Angelidis and Pierre-Cedric Labrie. Then they signed Keith Aulie.

–> Hershey signed Jon Kalinski, number 193 on Jonathan Bombulie’s Free Agent big board to a deal last week.

–> Binghamton hasn’t announced moves yet.

–> We have ice.

One week to the first preseason game in Rochester!

Been so long since I blogged I almost forgot my login information. Okay, not really, but here’s a bunch of things to get you caught up on:

–> The NHL may have cancelled all of its preseason games due to labor strife, but the AHL announced theirs. You already know about the four WBS preseason games.

–> Wonder what happened to the old WBS scoreboard? It got sent to the ECHL.

–> Slow on the hockey news, The Times Leader’s Tom Venesky had a nice piece on incoming new defenseman Brian Dumoluin. Chris Roy, who covers the Portland Pirates for the Maine Hockey Journal, had some promising things to say about Dumoulin.

–> The Penguins announced their training camp schedule today. They stop short at announcing a roster. I think the reason behind that is because they plan on announcing the signings of Brian Strait, Robert Bortuzzo, Jeff Zatkoff, Brad Thiessen and Eric Tangradi to AHL deals soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow as a report out in Pittsburgh said Tangradi was on his way to Coal Street to sign an AHL deal.

–> The Pens also announced a “Faceoff Party” at Lucky’s Sporthouse on October 11. Details here.

–> Below is a price schedule for AHL Live, which is the primary carrier of all AHL games. If you happen to read my blog (thanks) and live far away from Wilkes-Barre, AHL Live is the only way you can (legally) watch games.

—-> Season Pass (every AHL game played) — $349.99
—-> Team Pass (all 76 WBS games) — $149.99
—-> Away Pass (all WBS road games) — $99.99
—-> 10-pack (pick any ten games) — $59.99
—-> 5- pack (pick any five games) — $32.45
—-> Single games are $6.99

I’ll be back later this week with the training camp roster.

Also, the AHL Previews are finished for the most part. They debut the week of October 8 staring with the South and Midwest Divisions concluding with the East Division on October 12. I am looking forward to this, as I do every year.

Slowly realizing that I am going to blogging up a team which plays in the highest level of professional hockey in North America this October. Due to the turmoil going on with the NHL lockout, a lot of forlorn hockey fans will be turning their eyes to the American Hockey League this fall. I’m hoping that those same fans of the Penguin variety bookmark this blog as I’ll be blogging up the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins all season long, NHL lockout or not.

Also, shout out to all of my other AHL fan bloggers for being the place to go for pro hockey this fall, barring an 11th hour Hail Mary by the NHL and NHLPA.

Anyway, gobs of talent headed to the AHL this fall. Here’s a list (basically for my own reference) of NHL send downs for every team in the AHL East Division. Please note that these lists do not include eligible players who are likely to sign AHL deals later this month. (i.e. for WBS, Eric Tangradi, Brad Thiessen, Steve MacIntyre)

Pittsburgh / Wilkes-Barre

Beau Bennett
Brian Gibbons
Tom Kuhnhackl
Jayson Megna
Adam Payerl
Zach Sill
Paul Thompson
Dominik Uher
Keven Veilleux
Philippe Dupuis
Benn Ferriero
Riley Holzapfel
Warren Peters
Trevor Smith
Simon Despres
Brian Dumoulin
Reid McNeill
Joe Morrow
Philip Samuelsson
Carl Sneep
Alex Grant
Dylan Reese
Patrick Killeen

Note: I expected all of these names to play in Wilkes-Barre at some point during this upcoming season sans lockout.

Washington / Hershey

Mike Carman
Stanislav Galiev
Garrett Mitchell
Danick Paquette
Mattias Sjogren
Matt Clackson
Zach Hamill
Ryan Potulny
Ryan Stoa
Brett Flemming
Tomas Kundratek
Dmitry Orlov
Cameron Schilling
Dustin Stevenson
Kevin Marshall
Patrick McNeill
Garrett Stafford
Brandon Anderson
Philipp Grubauer
Braden Holtby
Dany Sabourin

Note: Braden Holtby back with the Chocolate and White. Look for him and Dany Sabourin to tend the nets in Hershey with Brandon Anderson and Philipp Grubauer getting bounced down to ECHL Reading.

Tampa Bay / Syracuse

J.T. Brown
Cory Conacher
Brett Connolly
Danick Gauthier
Alex Hutchings
Tyler Johnson
Alex Killorn
Vladimir Namestnikov
Ondrej Palat
Richard Panik
J.T. Wyman
Mark Barberio
Radko Gudas
Dmitry Korobov
Charles Landry
Dan Milan
Riku Helenius
Pat Nagle
Dustin Tokarski

Note: Large core group of last years Norfolk team going to be running amuck in the Salt City.

Anaheim / Norfolk

Frederik Andersen
Igor Bobkov
Josh Brittain
Mat Clark
Marco Cousineau
Corey Elkins
Emerson Etem
Jordan Hendry
Peter Holland
Matt Kennedy
Ryan Lasch
Hampus Lindholm
Brandon McMillan
John Mitchell
Kyle Palmieri
Devante Smith-Pelly
Sami Vatanen
Chris Wagner

Note: Anaheim prospects were trending upward late last season in Norfolk. Look for that trend to continue on Hampton Roads this Fall.

Ottawa / Binghamton

Andre Benoit
Jared Cowen
Stephane Da Costa
Tyler Eckford
Eric Gryba
Nathan Lawson
Jakob Silfverberg
Mika Zibanejad

Note: This list is is shorter because Ottawa never announced who they were sending to Binghamton. Here’s a list of Binghamton’s training camp invitees.

—

Should be a fun first couple months of the season, with the eyes of the North American hockey world turned to the American Hockey League.