Pens swap Sabs for Garon

It's not unexpected that the Penguins would make a trade, given how things have been going lately. But the first move Ray Shero has made for a Penguinomic Stimulus package was not a scoring winger, it was a bailout. Well, a backup goalie, Mathieu Garon from Edmonton. See ya later Dany Sabs!

The Edmonton Oilers traded goaltender Mathieu Garon to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday for goaltender Dany Sabourin, centre Ryan Stone, and a fourth-round pick in 2011.

The next question: what kind of season is Garon having so far?

In 15 games this year, he went 6-8-0 with a 3.17 GAA and a save percentage of .895.

Oh Jesus.

Well, we'll see. Sabourin couldn't bail the Penguins this season when Marc-Andre Fleury went down, just like it was Sabourin who couldn't carry the mail last season, yielding to Ty Conklin. Hindsight is 20/20 but clearly the Penguins should have waived/traded Sabourin before the season started and offered Conklin a contract. Conks genuinely enjoyed his time in Pittsburgh and was happy they gave him the chance to breath live into his dead NHL career, he probably would have been receptive to stay. And his contract with Detroit was reasonable, one year at $750,000. Garon's cap hit is $1.1 million.

Excuse the tangent. Sabourin lost his last six starts and the Pens really did just need to move on. Garon obviously hasn't been Patrick Roy this season himself, but he's a new face and sometimes goalies can get on a hot steak in a new setting. Last season Garon did win 26 games and posted a save percentage of .913 on a fairly weak Oiler team, so he's got the potential.

Speaking of a new setting, Ryan Stone needed that. By going to Edmonton at least he is joining a team with a lot of familiar faces--as Edmonton and Pittsburgh stocked the Wilkes-Barre AHL team with both their prospects a couple seasons ago. Stone played with Kyle Brodziak, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, Tom Gilbert and Robert Nilsson.

Stone just never chipped his way into the Penguins lineup. While he had good playmaking abilities and could throw big hits, it never seemed decided if he would slot to be in a scoring role or a checking role in the NHL. Also his skating ability just seemed a notch below adequate and seemed to limit him too. Perhaps he'll be able to make it in a new organization. We certainly wish him well but feel that he is another victim of the Greg Malone curse.

This and that

Random thoughts from here and there...

--Jeff Taffe and Ryan Stone got the call from Pittsburgh. Taffe is not surprising, he’s shown he can be a decent and serviceable player in a NHL capacity, but Stone is. He’s a prospect that’s never panned out and has seemed to spin his wheels. He’s not the best skater but has decent all-around skill and the willingness to throw his body around. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s given the opportunity to catch on. A couple years ago though, hell maybe even before this year, it would be hard to imagine that Stone would be the sixth AHL level forward to get the call to the NHL (or to have stuck originally like Bill Thomas and Paul Bissonnette did).

--Dany Sabourin has almost the same number of minutes played as Marc-Andre Fleury this season…Sabourin’s GAA is notably better (2.47 to 2.86) and his save percentage is slightly higher than the Flower (.911 to .907). Will there be controversy? No, of course not, but the interesting thing is to watch if Fleury can come back and play as lights out as he did last season under a similarly long layoff.

--Speaking of injuries and layoffs, it’s been 196 days since June 4th; the day the Penguins watched the Red Wings skate the Cup and the last time Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar played meaningful games. Isn’t it weird how such an occasion can seem so distant yet so near at the exact same time? Whitney ought to be back in a week’s time, which will be interesting to see how quickly he gets up to speed himself. And what does it mean for the Penguins blueline? Mark Eaton figures to sit 8th on the depth chart at that point, and what of Phillipe Boucher and Hal Gill, are they still in the lineup every night? Whitney’s return, though a blessing, also brings with it several tough questions.

--Don’t pay too much mind of Alex Kovalev’s 20+ game goal-less streak. What we can’t get over is how good he and old pal Robert Lang look out there. As 2/3 (with Martin Straka) of what the best 2nd line of this decade, Kovy and Bobby Lang have gotten the band back together and are playing some nice music. Lang, has 22 points in 30 games, not bad for a guy who’s gonna turn 38 years old in two days.

--In fact, if you think about it, few players who seem so inconsistent have actually been quietly steadier than Lang over the past decade. Since he established himself in Pittsburgh in 1998-99 with a 21 goal 44 point season, Lang has hit averaged 68.88 points a season, hitting the 50+ mark every time. Sure he’s bounced around to five teams and owes a lot of his stats to playing with supremely skilled wingers like Kovalev and Jaromir Jagr, but Lang’s staying power has been impressive.

--Something interesting caught our eye from the Post-Gazette yesterday and has stuck with us, so we’ll share…What names stick out to you (hint: the first two)

Still, 10 players -- forwards Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Pascal Dupuis, Eric Godard and Tim Wallace, defensemen Ryan Whitney, Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski and goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin -- went on the ice with assistant coaches Andre Savard and Mike Yeo and goalie coach Gilles Meloche for the better part of an hour [on Monday].

When the two leading scorers in the league are showing up for an optional practice that a lot of the team didn’t strap ‘em up for, that says something. The team understandably needed and deserved a maintenance day after a grueling schedule. But when the best players are out there constantly working, constantly showing up, that’s leadership and that’s a good sign.

Well the four day break is over tomorrow and the Pens are back in Atlanta for the second time in a month. In a bit of a programming note, it’s going to be a little slow over here during the weekend, we’re making a pilgrimage back to Pittsburgh to visit family and watch the Penguins break out the third jerseys in person against the Make Beliefs.

Putting down the Bears

Wow, it's almost as if starting the season on a 5 game streak of killing teams would inflate a team's confidence or something...

John Curry's back stiffened up when he was making a save midway through the second period and Adam Berkhoel had to come on in relief. As he skated to the
net, Berkhoel said the Bears reminded him about how his previous two outings went against them. (Not good for him.)

That's some quality chirping by the Bears, nice to see the relatively unheralded Berkhoel keep them at bay, if only for once.

Chris Minard and Ryan Stone led the way offensively for the young Pens, two veteran guys that should be offensive factors in that league every night.

Also if you were wondering how prospect Janne Pesonen is doing in the AHL, the answer is pretty well, he's second on the team in scoring (behind Minard) with 1 goal and 5 assists in four games. Pesonen had a breakout game Friday night with a breakaway goal and two assists.

Stone looking to move on

Unsurprisingly, Ryan Stone isn't pleased with the Pens decision to relegate him (yet again) to the minor leagues. Any team will have a chance to claim him, but to be honest we can't see another team liking this unproven 23 year old any more than they like their own lower-line grinders currently on the roster.

Stone told the Wilkes-Barre media that he would like to move on, and there's nothing wrong with that. He feels like he's earned his chance to play at the NHL and if another team agrees, he'll be gone. These comments have made a little bit of waves on the internet, but we don't think Stone said anything egregious, Stone's not requesting a trade or airing any dirty laundry, he just understandably wants to play in the NHL and is disappointed the Pens don't want him there right now. If Stone makes it to WB/S, he says he'll be a good soldier and keep working on getting the team where it needs to be until his time may come.

As the article very astutely points out, Colby Armstrong was in the same situation getting sent down (and exposed to waivers) at the beginning of his 4th professional season and many thought his NHL chances were pretty much over forever.

By season's end that year (2005-06) Armstrong was playing on a line with Sidney Crosby.

Fortunes can indeed rise and fall very that quickly in professional hockey. Stone can look no further than a perfect example in Paul Bissonnette, who as we chronicled was very deep in management's doghouse last year and now this year is one of their darlings and a "strong candidate" to play for Pittsburgh at some point this season. A couple injuries and Stone--provided his attitude is up and his performance is there--could get a real shot in the show.

Until then, time to keep working.

Cuts

Perhaps it’s not a surprise, but still it’s a disappointment to see two highly regarded former prospects in Jonathan Filewich and Ryan Stone get the cut. Both are exposed to waivers, but to be honest, I can’t see another team like these unproven guys, now 23 years old.

Someone who is no stranger to being claimed on waivers—Kris Beech—is also on waivers. We couldn’t be happier. Jeff Taffe does well as the 4th line center, and barring him falling flat on his face it looks like he’ll start in that position.

The Pens are down to 29, they need to cut five more players before heading to Europe. So who are some of the more surprising guys still around?

Danny Richmond—Internet reports raved about him, and the Pens did cut three defensemen today, including Ben Lovejoy who’s been another camp upstart. Richmond’s still an incredible long-shot to make the NHL roster out of camp, but it’s clear now who’s the first in line to come up from the farm.
Bill Thomas—The Pittsburgh native has been scoring in exhibition games, and that’s always a way to turn heads. Thomas, to us, is still probably behind Taffe and Janne Pesonen on the organ-eye-zational depth charts for forwards, but that he survived this round of cuts is another testament to him being perhaps closer to an NHL level player than we though when he was signed.
Paul Bissonnette-For a guy told to not even bother showing up to AHL training camp last year, it’s a huge turnaround to be amongst finals cuts for the man they call Biz Nasty. Especially considering his position has always been defenseman up until this past season. Bissonnette, as a winger, is like a guided missile, hitting, checking and annoying anything in the other color jersey. That he is still around is probably just to take some burden off of Eric Godard’s plate in countering any enforcers that may appear in other teams’ preseason lineups but the Pens chose Biz Nasty over Aaron Boogaard, so that’s something.

The Penguins do still have a couple more exhibition games and obviously you don’t want to run these guys into the ground (or risk injury) more times than you have to, so it makes sense not to trim totally down to the opening night lineup. That still doesn’t take away from what guys like Richmond and Thomas have done.

And if this is the end of the road for anyone (Becch, Stone, Filewich), well it’s been real.

Qualified

The Penguins have qualified all of their restricted free agents to be. The list is: Tim Brent, Ryan Stone, Jonathan Filewich, Paul Bissonnette, Mark Ardelan, Daniel Fernholm and Patrick Ehelechner.

If you're new to qualifying offers, they have to be made to players about to become restricted free agents in order to retain the rights of that player. It's a nominal bump (10% we think) on the salary the player made in the previous season. The players have a couple weeks to sign that offer, or let it expire in hopes of negotiating a higher contract or looking to sign in Europe where older professionals can make more money than being in the AHL.

As JB points out, the ones to keep an eye on are Brent (who had an awesome post-season) and Stone and Filewich….If the Penguins don’t come to terms with guys like Pascal Dupuis and Jarkko Ruutu and don’t replace them, it seems to be a lock that some internal players would fill their positions, and those three are the presumed candidates, unless an unpolished prospect like Luca Caputi or Dustin Jeffrey comes in and has an amazing training camp.

Bissonnette, a feisty player who once skated warmups in the ECHL wearing a professional wrestling championship belt, was thought to be at the end of his line with this organ-eye-zation. He’s got talent but has shown flashes of immaturity and unprofessionalism. But due to injuries he got a 2nd chance as a winger instead of his usual defensive spot and really opened eyes. Bissonnette focused on playing hockey and really impressed the front office, he’s earned his qualifying offer for sure. The other players qualified, Ardelan, Fernholm and Ehelechner are not expected to be in the organ-eye-zation moving forward.

If you're keeping score at home

Here's a great contract status chart by JB that shows an early outlook for the organization for next season.

It's assumed the Pens will give qualifying offers to retain Jonathan Filewich and Ryan Stone. But we wouldn't be surprised to see them only bring one back. We'd think the most likely to be cut free would be Filewich. The Pens have a lot of candidates for 4th line duty next year (including UFA's like Adam Hall and Jarkko Ruutu that may very well be back). It'll be interesting to see if the two aging prospects in Filewich and Stone get one more contract to try to make the transition to becoming NHL players.

Congrats Baby Pens

Understandably lost in the shuffle with that other Penguins team going far in the playoffs, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have won the AHL's Eastern Conference. So they win the prestigious Richard Canning trophy (props to JB for that).

The Baby Pens won a game seven against Portland by defeating former Pen (and not a Sweater Ted favorite) Jean-Sebastien Aubin. Aubin is a great goalie at the AHL level and made 37 saves on 40 shots before an unstoppable bid by Tim Brent won it. That alone would be impressive, but consider that Aubin missed the previous four games with an undisclosed lower-body injury and spotted in a walking cast. Tip of the cap to him.

Brent has been one of the stars of the AHL playoffs, he leads the league in goals (11 in 17 games and is tied second in points (20). Similarly awesome has been rookie Alex Goligoski who is also in that tie for second place in scoring (Golly has 3 goals and 17 assists in 17 games). Goligoski also leads all defensemen in playoff points.

The opponent in the finals is the always dangerous Chicago Wolves. They are Atlanta's farm team and seem to always stock up on the experienced players that are good at the AHL level but don't have much NHL aspiration. Of Chicago's top eight playoff scorers just one (Brian Little) is under the age of 25. The Baby Pens, by comparison, have five of their top eight scorers (Brent, Goligoski, Ryan Stone, Connor James, Mark Ardelan) coming in under 25 years old.

Since Ty Conklin's callup, Wilkes-Barre has relied on two very young and untested goalies (John Curry and Dave Brown). Curry, an undrafted player in his second year with the Pens organ-eye-zation, emerged as the man and has played like it; boasting a 12-5 record, 2.48 GAA and 90.8 save percentage. One area Chicago is young at is the goaltending position where Ondrej Pavelec, a 20 year old former second round pick, is the 'tender.

We don't follow the AHL that closely, so we haven't (and won't) be making a prediction. And with the Pens in the Stanley Cup finals, the Calder Cup isn't on our radar that much. However it's good to see the success on the farm and hopefully the boys can keep it rolling.

The Wilkes-Barre Pens ride again

So if you're keeping track the Penguins top two organ-eye-zations are a combined 6-0 right now.

A 6-2 win over the Hershey Bears throw the Baby Pens up 2-0 in their series, goals scored by Tim Brent (2), David Gove, Chris Minard, Ryan Stone and defenseman Alex Goligoski push the Baby Pens in a great position going forward.

It's a great time to be alive.

Baby Pens doing some winning too

Pittsburgh's NHL squad isn't the only team in the organization off to a good post-season start. The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins are up 1 game to none over one of their rivals the Hershey Bears (Washington's AHL team).

Wilkes-Barre is in a unique situation; since Pittsburgh had so many injuries it pulled many of their players away. Eight players in the Baby Pens lineup for Game 1 (Chris Minard, Tim Brent, Connor James, Alex Goligoski, Alain Nasreddine, Nathan Smith, Jonathan Filewich and Ryan Stone) saw NHL action this season, combining for 62 games played "in the show". And this doesn't even count contributors like Jeff Taffe, Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang who've all graduated to the NHL. Or the only goaltender with experience, Ty Conklin. By contrast only 2 of Hershey's players (Sami Lepitso and Chris Bourque) played with the Caps and they combined for just 11 games. We should point out they did graduate Quintin Laing and Eric Fehr and Coach Bruce Boudreau to the NHL.

Regardless of the higher level experience, the Baby Pens face two large hurdles: 1)having two rookie goaltenders on their roster (compared to the seasoned Freddy Cassivi that Hershey has) and 2)generating consistent offense.

Wednesday night they only got 2 goals (from James and Minard) but it was enough for a 2-1 over-time winner.

This series will be interesting to keep an eye on. Both of these AHL clubs are no stranger to post-season success, and very fimiliar with one another. If the Baby Pens goaltending stays strong and they can find a scoring spark they should have no problem advancing deep into the Calder Cup trophies....Just like the other team in the organization.

The Atlantic Division Tightens

Tight division: 3 points separate four teams in the Atlantic. Don’t look now but the New York Rangers have won 5 of their past 6 games and have inched back to the top of the shuffle to make this possible. Which puts even more weight on tonight’s game with the Devils. The Penguins are going to have to do the same thing they did last week to be successful: stay out of the penalty box, hope for a burst of production to break the Devils spirit by taking a 2 or 3 goal lead and then play a suffocating brand of defense to close the game out.

Roster shuffles: Alain Nasreddine was sent re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre, no surprise since the forwards are slowly becoming healthy and Brooks Orpik can rightfully shift back to defense. Jonathan Filewich and Ryan Stone also traded places. Disappointing and it remains unsure of what exactly Stone is going to bring to the table that Filewich hasn’t. Filewich looked the best out of all the recent callups (other than maybe Nathan Smith) so it’s hard to understand the motives on this decision. Are the Pens showcasing guys like Stone and Filewich, giving each a shot at a couple NHL games to dangle them as bait for the trade deadline? Stay tuned.

Fitting the pieces of the puzzle: It’s still unknown if Adam Hall (groin) will be ready to go tonight or if the coaches are comfortable enough with Kris Beech’s conditioning and game to have either in the lineup tonight. It’s been reported that Beech is very unlikely to play tonight, while Stone’s call up seems to indicate Hall will be out too. No point of summoning Stone to sit him, we suppose. Here’s how we’d set the lines for tonight:

Malone-Malkin-Sykora
EC-Staal-Talbot
Ruutu-Taffe -Armstrong
Stone-Smith-Laraque

Hardly a fierce lineup to be sure, but it’s one that should be hard-working and hard-nosed enough not to let up anything easy. Which is what you’re looking for with so many regulars out.

The Flu Claims Two

He's baaaack! (Note: Not Gary, the mustachioed gentleman)

According to PSI, Tyler Kennedy and Erik Christensen are out of the lineup tonight (even though Crusher told the PG he expected to be ready to roll). That means Ryan Stone will be making his NHL debut and also the return from injury by Max Talbot.

I’m not too excited by this turn of events: TK and EC have been two of the Penguins better forwards during this 7 game winning streak and have been playing arguably the best hockey of their short NHL careers in the past 20 games or so.

Stone will be on the 4th line and plays a pretty well-rounded game, he’s physical and energetic and on paper a nice replacement for Kennedy, even if TK had a bigger role than Stone will initially get.

Talbot, on the other hand, has me concerned. He returned in early December after missing 4 or 5 games from a high ankle sprain and ended up re-aggravating it that knocked him out a month. We here at the Sweater Ted don’t have to look far to see how the exact same injury has hobbled Caps sniper Alex Semin and greatly decreased his game by trying to play through (and then coming back to quickly) an ankle sprain.

But Talbot has been eased back into practice over the past 2 weeks or so and must be in good shape if the Pens didn’t want to bring up another well performing farmhand like Tim Brent or Jonathan Filewich.
We’ll see how things click in the Pens quest to beat Tampa Bay for the first time since 2003 and, more importantly, go for their 8th win in a row.

Stone, Lannon Recalled

The Penguins were sitting at having the minimum number of healthy skaters, 18, on their NHL roster. So, while getting ready to embark on a 3 game southern swing for a week, they figured they might need the flexibility just in case an injury strikes.

Enter 2 Ryans: (Stone and Lannon).

I wouldn't mind seeing Stone get a crack in the lineup for one game, he plays a role that could fit in well on a lower line.

Lannon, barring injury, will likely not sniff the lineup. No worries there.

More interesting to me, is that regular callup Alain Nasreddine was left in Wilkes-Barre.

On one hand, the Penguins regular 6 defenseman are all filling their roles well and there's no place in the lineup for Nasreddine. His services can be better spent in the AHL where he's a big part of a team that's made a turnaround in the standings right about when he got there. Plus to keep him in game shape there's no need to sit him every single night.

But, then again consider that it is unusual to carry six defensemen. Lannon is an emergency option and it doesn't seem like he is an NHL caliber player and perhaps never will be.

So why no Naz? Could he be falling victim to a provision in the CBA over re-entry waivers?

For those who may not know, Nasreddine would be exposed to re-entry waivers if he was recalled. He is a decent option as a 6/7 veteran guy.

But, better than that, his salary would be a steal....Nasreddine's cap hit would be half of his $535,000 contract. But, since the season is half over, the Penguins have paid him half of that (or the equilivant for being in the minors).

Re-entry waivers would force the Pens to pick up half his remaining salary, leaving the new team to pay just 1/4 (or $133,750) for Nasreddine's services for the rest of the year.

That would be quite the bargain for a team with defensive injuries, and especially if they're nearing the salary cap.

Those financial considerations are likely the reason it's Lannon, and not Nasreddine, that got the call this morning.

The Curse of Greg Malone

Greg Malone was a serviceable NHL player. Pittsburgh drafted him in the 2nd round (19th overall) in 1976. Greg would go on to score 143 goals in 495 games for the Penguins from 1976-77 to 1982-83 before moving on to Hartford. Nice to be sure. When Malone's playing days were done in 1987 he settled in Pittsburgh were soon a young son of his, Ryan, was playing hockey and doing well.

In 1988, former Pens GM Tony Esposito (no relation to Angelo) hired the elder Malone as a scout. Malone worked his way up the ranks and eventually was made into a head scout. He was let go when Ray Shero came in to town and Malone now is working for the Phoenix organization in a scouting capacity.

The Penguins haven't had a meaningful 2nd round pick pan out yet. Breaking it down year by year, here's the kiss of death that is becoming a Penguins 2nd round pick:

Total Busts
1978 - Mike Meeker (25th overall) 4 games, 0 points, 5 PIMs
1985 - Lee Giffin RW (23rd overall), 27 games, 4 points (1g + 3a), 9 PIMs
1988 - Mark Major LW (25th overall) 2 games, 0 points, 5 PIMs
1991 - Rusty Fitzgerald C (38th overall) 25 games, 4 points (2g + 2a) 12 PIMs
1992 - Marc Hussey D (43rd overall) 0 games
1996 - Pavel Skrbek D (28th overall) 12 games, 0 points, 8 PIMs
1997 - Brian Gaffaney C (44th overall) 0 games
1998 - Alexander Zevakhin LW (54th overall) 0 games
1999 - Jeremy Van Hoof D (57th overall) 0 games
2000 - Shane Endicott C (52nd overall) 45 games, 3 points (1g + 2a) 47 PIMs
2002 - Ondrej Nemec D (32nd overall), 0 games


At least they kinda made it
1977 - Jim Hamilton LW (30th overall) 94 games, 32 points (14 g + 18 a), 28 PIMs
1979 - Paul Marshall (31st overall), 95 games, 33 points (15g + 18a), 17 PIMs
1981 - Steve Gatzos F (28th overall), 89 games, 35 points (15g + 20a) 83 PIMs
1982 -Tim Hrynewich LW (38th overall), 55 games, 14 points (6g +8a) 82 PIMs
1983 - Todd Charlesworth D (22th overall), 93 games, 12 points (3g + 9a) 47 PIMs
1986 - Dave Capuano LW (25th overall) 104 games, 56 points (17g + 38a) 56 PIMs [only played 6 games with Pittsburgh for 0 points]
1987 - Rick Tabaracci G (26th overall), 1 game played with Pittsburgh
1993 - Dominic Pittis (52nd overall), 86 games, 16 points (5g + 11a) 71 PIMs [1 game with Pittsburgh]
1999- Matt Murley LW (51st overall) 59 games, 8 points (2g, 6a) 38 PIMs


These guys are a heartbeat away from getting relegated to the bust club
2001 - Noah Welch D (54th overall) 33 games and counting, 7 points (3g + 4a) 33 PIMs...Florida has only used him for 4 games this season
2003 - Ryan Stone LW (32nd overall) 0 games and it's not looking good
2004 - Johannes Salmonsson LW (31st overall) 0 games and probably won't be in the organization much longer


Too early to tell
2004 - Alex Goligoski D (61st overall) 1st professional season
2005 - Michael Gergen RW (61st overall), still Minnesota-Duluth, will he get a contract?
2006 - Carl Sneep D (32nd overall), sophomore season at BC
2007 - Keven Veilleux C, (51st overall) 10 points in 14 games in the Q so far


Possibly the exceptions to the rule
1989 Paul Laus D (35th overall) 530 games, 72 points (14g + 58a), 1702 PIMs [All games played with Florida Panthers]
1994 Richard Park LW (50th overall), 459 games and counting, 134 points (61g + 73a) 172 PIMs [58 games with Pittsburgh for 11 points]



Since Greg Malone there hasn't been one NHL'er the Penguins have drafted in the NHL that's made an impact for them. The only ones with somewhat decent careers (Laus and Park) found them in other cities and aren't exactly household names themselves.

So will the drought end soon?

• There were high hopes for Ryan Stone, but he hasn't been able to crack the lineup and is now going on his 3rd full season in the AHL. Not many NHL contributors often spend that much time in the minors.
• Salmonsson might never be back in North America and it doesn't seem like anyone in the organization is that concerned about whether or not Gergen will join the lineup.
• Sneep looks promising, but he's light-years away from the NHL, probably at least 3 to 4 more years of college or the minors before pencilling him into the lineup.
• Veilleux has the size but it truly is to early to tell how he could handle the professional game.
• So there's one choice left: Alex Goligoski. He's looked, well, like a 21 year old rookie playing in the AHL for the first time. There have been some praise for him, like how he's manned the point on the powerplay but also some shaky reports about his work in his own zone. It'll take a little while to get acclimated to the speed of the game. But you'd think in a year or so we're about to find out if he can hack it (like Ryan Whitney) or if he'll flounder and join the likes of Noah Welch.

Report from the Farm: Unsettling times

Overall, things are pretty well balanced for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at first glance. In 6 games played; 3 up and 3 down. 19 goals for, 19 goals against.

But there's some unsettling news: Uber-prospect Kris Letang (0g, 5a, 5p) was scratched for the last game, despite averaging a point per game. Guys who are having their pro prospects fade, Ryan Stone and Jonathan Filewich have spent a lot of time of the 4th line, in the doghouse and even in the press box for a night. Though Filewich did score 2 goals last game, so maybe he's turned the corner.

Chris Minard, hailed in these parts as maybe even a NHL caliber prospect has been bad since his opening night hat trick. "Invisible" was the word used by their beat writer. Minard too, spent some time in the press box, instead of on the bench.

But that's how things go in the American Hockey League. It's a constant rollercoaster of highs and lows, wins and losses. Instability from the young players is to be expected, but given how things are shaking out it's a little concerning right now, especially for Stone, Filewich and Letang. Hopefully they get the wakeup message that head coach Todd Richards is clearly sending.

One bright spot has been the offense of Jeff Taffe. He might never make it to the NHL, but he's putting up some great numbers, 7 goals and 2 assists in 6 games. So he has 9 points and the Penguins have 19 total.

The Penguins blueline (Bobby Scuds in particular) has played above expectations, especially in the past few games. There is no need to promote Letang in the forseeable future. So he needs to settle down, realize he's going to be in the A for a while, and just work on his game in the pros; particularly in his own end.

Forwards wise, Georges Laraque's having a nagging groin injury, but Adam Hall and Jarrko Ruutu have been sensational at grinding, hitting and cycling (now if Ruutu could only stay out of the penalty box!). So it doesn't look like Pittsburgh is in need of any forwards either at the moment.

This is all adding up to a lot of bus riding in the future for most of the Penguins closest prospects to the NHL. So close, but so very far.

See you at the Crossroads...

Jonathan Filewich and Ryan Stone might not be singing Bone Thugs, but maybe they should be.

Consider:

• Filewich will turn 23 years old on Wednesday, where he'll be celebrating by being in Wilkes-Barre's season opener. Stone, as a hockey prospect goes, is no spring chicken himself at 22.
• Both have spent two full seasons at the AHL level. Well, Stone's had some injury woes, a wrist injury knocked him out for half of last year.
• Both have scored at a fairly impressive clip in the A. Doubling Stone's stats would have translated into 66 points (14g, 52a) if he had a full season. Filewich has 52 goals in his first two pro seasons (including a team leading 30 last year).
• Neither has suited up for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their career.

Along with fellow training camp slight disappointment Tim Brent, these two young forwards ought to be the first option in case of injury. But with 13 forwards with a high level of experience (and acuity in their respective roles) the mountain is tough to climb.

And it's only going to get tougher. Every year there's going to be someone like Adam Hall with more experience, more size waiting to crack the lineup. Soon Angelo Esposito will be in the mix for a NHL job too, and it doesn't look like he'll be denied much longer. Not to mention all the veteran acquistions that Mr. Shero will make (ala Gary Roberts, Georges Laraque and Petr Sykora).

Point being, Stone and Filewich probably aren't in the Pens future plans. It would be great if they could be, but it's going to take some circumstances out of the players' control (trades, injury, etc) to get even a sniff of cracking the lineup and then trying to turn out an NHL niche. Some, like Sweater Ted, believe Stone and Filewich could be guys like Tom Kostopolous, Eric Meloche and Kris Beech; excellent AHL players that there's no room for in this organization and might have to find a new franchise to swim (like TK) or sink (Meloche and Beech).