Chirps from Center Ice

As first tweeted by TSN’s Bob MacKenzie this afternoon, everyone placed on waivers yesterday cleared. Bombulie reported that everyone skated at Coal Street today.

Here in Wilkes-Barre, the Penguins cut seven players. Taylor Vichorek and Eric Tallent were released. Forward Marc Rechlicz, defensemen Drew Dobson, Peter Merth and Nick Tuzzolino and goaltender Nevin Hamilton all got sent to The Nail (if you don’t know what I mean, it’s the Wheeling Nailers, the ECHL affiliate) who open camp tomorrow.

From the Penguins Insider, here is who is left in Wilkes-Barre:

FORWARDS (20): Bedard, Boulerice, Collins, Conner, Haddad, Johnson, Lord, Marshall, Morency, Orpik, Petersen, Schnell, Sill, Smigelski, Sterling, Street, Veilleux, Vitale, Walker, Wallace

DEFENSEMEN (9): Bortuzzo, Bushee, DeSantis, Fata, Peltier, Potter, Sneep, Strait, Wagner.

GOALIES (4): Curry, Killeen, Modig, Thiessen.

Bombulie expects three more cuts from Pittsburgh and figures that thirteen more guys have to get shipped to The Nail.

Around the rest of the league, the Norfolk Admirals are getting Marc-Andre Pouliot from parent Tampa Bay. He is a serious scoring threat at the AHL level. I said in my East Division Preview, that the case against the Admirals was goal scoring. Well, the Admirals appeared to have solved that problem. Norfolk may have graduated from sleeper to bonafide contender.

Mark Dekanich was sent to Milwaukee today. I follow him on Twitter. You should too. Milwaukee is my favorite team!*

Introducing the logo for the Connecticut Whale.

Hershey is in town tomorrow for what will be their first preseason game and our third. Should be interesting what kind of a lineup the Bears skate. I’ll be live-tweeting the action and will probably be back here late Friday for reactions.

* – that doesn’t play the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins this year.

Our nemeses from the south were in the news today. In no particular order:

• According to multiple sources, Bears sniper Keith Aucoin cleared waivers today.
• Bears goaltender Braden Holtby was recalled by parent Washington today.
• Michael Nylander was loaned from parent Washington to the Rochester Americans today. He’ll be getting two checks.
• Hershey announced their own third jerseys today. Bears by nature, cannot skate, but apparently this one can.

Enough Hershey news for now. There was significant news out of Pittsburgh including cuts. The Penguins sent 11 guys packing. Forwards: Chris Conner, Nick Johnson, Brett Sterling, Joe Vitale and Tim Wallace. Defensemen: Robert Bortuzzo, Corey Potter, Brian Strait and Steve Wagner. Goaltenders: John Curry and Brad Thiessen were assigned to Wilkes-Barre /Scranton.

Of those listed, Conner, Curry, Potter, Sterling, Wagner and Wallace have to clear waivers by 12 p.m. tomorrow before joining WBS. Analysis from Bombulie can be found here.

Alumni watch: AHL observer Patrick Williams reported on Twitter today that Ryan Lannon is among players in Springfield Falcons camp.

I’m at home tonight and will be listening to the rematch of Crunch / Penguins on the radio. If you are local to Wilkes-Barre you can find it on 102.3 on your radio dial. If you care to stream it, you can do so here.

I will do my best live tweeting the affair blind. Follow along, if you haven’t already.

I have said all along that if you were looking for analysis from me on the team look elsewhere. That said, here is who impressed me in WBS jerseys tonight in a 7-6 shootout loss to the Syracuse Crunch:

• Keven Veilleux: Man amongst boys tonight. 2 goals and an assist. Dangling all over the ice. Sickening stick handling skills. He may not be able to get away with the dangling come regular season, but he’ll easily get 30-35 goals this year and 60-70 assists if he stays healthy.
• Andrew Lord: Gordie Howe hattie (goal / assist / fight) in the FIRST PERIOD. Made a statement he does not want to get banished to The Wheel this year.
• Pascal Morency: Hit everything that moved tonight. Did not fight Mirasty.
• Geoff Walker: Solid game. Had a pair of goals.
• Ben Street: Held his own tonight and did not look out of place.
• Carl Sneep: Can easily anchor this D corps. Yes I said it. Bortuzzo, Strait, Engelland, Hutchinson, Potter have all yet to arrive in Wilkes-Barre but you could have sworn that he was in his 4th AHL season. He is ready. He didn’t score a goal but was shut down on D.
• Chris Collins: Will easily be a top line forward for us. He didn’t score but he played a hand in a bunch of goals and was a leader out there.

There were some guys in Wilkes-Barre uniforms who stood out in a bad way to me:

• Peter Merth. Three stupid penalties. Was basically a liability on D. Cut him or send him to Wheeling.
• Andrew Orpik. Let’s just put it this way and I am not picking on the kid. He is not his brother. Those are lofty expectations and unfair, but he didn’t do anything for me which left me saying he should stick around. Get better in the ECHL and come back later this year.
• Joey Haddad. Had a terrible game. Got pushed around out there tonight. Was overall invisible all night. Credit Syracuse’s toughness? Just a bad game? Not ready? I don’t know, but with as loaded as this team is going to be you are going to be left behind if you have many more games like this.

Mattias Modig got the nod in net, backed up by Patrick Killeen. Swap the two tomorrow. Sill, Boulerice and Fata were scratched. Radio said that they are all OK but resting. Expect Fata to get in a game or two this week.

In other news from around the league, Binghamton has a new beat writer. She is on Twitter too. I’ll throw up the link on the “AHL Beat Writers” section soon. Peoria blew a two goal lead and lost to Rockford in a shootout in the only other exhibition game in the AHL tonight. The AHL listed the 2010-2011 On-Ice Officials for this year. I am intrigued by referees. 32 referees this year. A bunch of men I have never heard of but will be looking up to see what their tendencies are (are they more like Nygel Pelletier, or are they more like Jeff Smith.)

Also I found these in the Igloo (the store inside the arena) …

If you want one, I can buy and ship to you. Leave me a comment. I can e-mail you particulars.

Expect cuts from Pittsburgh tomorrow. Radio only for me as I live tweet the rematch tomorrow v. the Crunch blind (no AHL Live) so we’ll see how that goes. Check out Bombulie later. Later!