Slugger Ruslan Fedotenko out, Minard up

(image from the Pensblog)

The look on the Penguins faces on the bench is priceless. Miroslav Satan doesn’t seem too impressed though. But then again Satan hasn’t really been that much of anything inside a rink in quite a while.

Ruslan Fedotenko out 4-6 weeks on a broken hand from Colby Armstrong’s beak? Ouch. Rusty should leave the fighting to the big dogs. The shame too is Fedotenko was playing good hockey on the “European line” with Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora.

To replace Fedotenko, Chris Minard has been re-called. Minard’s scoring at an Ovechkin-esque rate: 26 goals in 30 games. Unfortunately when he’s been in the bigs Head Coach Michel Therrien—in all his wisdom, has given Minard 8 minutes a night, primarily playing with guys like Eric Godard. This time it should be different, Minard has been a pure goal scorer at every level. During the NHL lockout he scored 49 goals (in 69 games) playing with a playmaking center in Scott Gomez. Sure it was the ECHL, but still, if you can play with talented players it shows, despite the level of competition. With such few Penguins winger actually acting like they know how to play hockey, why not give Minard (now seasoned with 22 career NHL games) a legit shot at a chance on a scoring line.

If Therrien is smart, he'll make it happen. If he's lucky, Minard will somehow pinball around and end up on a top line with all the combination of switches. It's bound to happen, right?

No sulking here

Good to see that Chris Minard didn't seem to miss a beat when he was returned back to Wilkes-Barre....



The Pens were outshot 37-20 but still managed to hold on to the game by the score of 4-3....Guess it runs in the organization.

Dupuis out, the next Robbie Brown up?

JB brings it, as usual...Pascal Dupuis is out tonight and Chris Minard (7 goals in 7 AHL games) is up with the big Penguins...

If Minard does get the spot on Crosby's line, people will scoff. They'll say Pittsburgh must be desperate if they're putting a career minor leaguer in that role. They'll note that Minard is 26 and was never drafted and played in places like Pensacola, San Angelo and Anchorage on his way to the AHL. That, to me, is snobbery at best and bigotry at worst. What difference does it make where he came from? If he can play, he can play.

People will say Minard is too slow to keep up with Crosby, but that's not true. When WBS did its skills competition last year, Minard was second in the fastest skater contest, by one-thousandth of a second, to Jonathan Filewich. He can skate.

I'm not saying Minard is going to become an NHL all-star. In fact, I wonder if he can get his shot off against stronger, quicker NHL defensemen. But he's done everything he's been asked to do the last year-plus. At a time when the parent club's offense is struggling, it's worth giving him a chance in a scoring role. Who knows? He could become Crosby's Robbie Brown.

We would advocate giving Minard a shot with Crosby. In the lockout year, Minard played with Scotty Gomez in Alaska of the "East" Coast Hockey league and scored 49 goals in 69 games. Granted, the level of talent was no where near NHL caliber, but the stats are what they are; no one else on that team had more than 28 goals. Gomez incidentially went an Adam Oates-esque 13g, 73a in 61 games if you were wondering.

Dupuis was practicing with Crosby before leaving practice after being hit with a puck, so it would reduce the line juggling at least to slide him into the vacated slot. HCMT, of all people, of course is not afraid to switch everything up though, so who the hell knows what the lines may look like come 10 PM eastern tonight. Minard can shoot and he’s proven can play with a premier playmaking center in Gomez, why not give him a crack, if only for a night, to see if he can do it at the NHL level.

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.

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.

Pre-game Washington thoughts

JP says Malkin hasn’t established himself as a center, citing mainly his very low faceoff percentage this year. Not that big of a deal to us; the biggest factors in improvement are experience and strength, two things that will come with time. We think Malkin’s improvement will continue. The style he likes to play; that of carrying the puck through the zone, dishing it to teammates and wheeling around a lot makes him a natural center. That he is defensively responsible and backchecks well as the deep forward in his own zone continues that.

Also JP takes a swipe at Malkin’s post-season performance. His pure stats weren’t bad (0g, 4a in 5 games) and the most games he had ever played in a season was 57 in the RSL; which doesn’t much compare to 83 in the NHL that he did last season. It will be interesting to see how JP’s boy Nicklas Backstrom handles the rest of the season, as he’s basically in the same uncharted waters and now is the #1 center due to Michael Nylander’s injury.

The Penguins calling up 3 players is significant. Our guess is the majority of the 3 banged up forwards (if not all of them) will miss this game. Losing Colby Armstrong, Adam Hall and Tyler Kennedy hurts, all play important roles. Hall is one of the top penalty killers.

But we are excited to see Chris Minard. At 26 he’s no spring chicken and hasn’t appeared in a NHL game yet. But he’s been productive this season in Wilkes-Barre and after a little slump after an opening night hat trick has become one of the team’s best offensive weapons. Minard’s a goal scorer and said to be willing to go into high traffic areas. We wouldn’t mind giving him a brief audition in a situation setup to give him success with other skilled players.

Also Tim Brent and especially Jonathan Filewich are prospects that have impressed before and diehard fans have long been awaiting seeing them in Pittsburgh. Tonight could be the chance.

Speaking of chances, huge game for Dany Sabourin. After the impressive shutout of Montreal the other night the pressure is back on him to stick in the starting lineup. A poor performance could end him back on the bench in favor of the Conkmania. And with Marc-Andre Fleury a couple of weeks from returning, who knows how many chances Sabs will have to prove that he shouldn’t be waived when there are 3 healthy goalies around (more on this later).

As always when you play the Caps you have to account for Alex Ovechkin. Sergei Gonchar has done pretty well so far shadowing AO, expect that to continue tonight. The real matchup could be trying to limit the Caps 2nd line, Alex Semin is finally over his high ankle sprain and producing points again and Tomas Fleischmann is playing the best hockey of his NHL career so far.

It will be interesting to see how this shorthanded and mish-mashed lineup the Pens throw out there responds. We fully expect the best out of Malkin, and hopefully Ryan Malone and Petr Sykora can carry their end of the bargain tonight. That, plus limiting Ovechkin, stopping Semin and staying out of the box as much as possible are the keys to the game. If the Pens do that, they’ll probably win. If not, the streak of games over the Caps will end at 6.

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.

Wilkes-Barre a Winner in Game 1

The Wilkes-Barre Penguins opened their season last night against AHL powerhouse and division rivals the Hershey Bears with a 5-4 win. Some notes and observations:

--Chris Minard had a natural hat trick for the first three goals of the game. He's an unhearlded prospect but perhaps someone to keep an eye on.
--Ty Conklin reportedly gave up a few softies.
--Alex Goligoski was victimized in his first professional game, looked bad on the 3rd goal allowed, welcome to the pros kid! It should be noted however, that he played well on the powerplay. As expected. Goligoski and Letang manning the points is pretty formidable. Definitely raw, but very formidable.
--Most observers expected defensive mainstay Alain Nasreddine to be back in the AHL. He's not. With Mike Weaver getting claimed by Vancouver, the blueline was very young and doesn't have a real defensive dman to hang your hat on that you need in the AHL level. Ryan Lannon was the most experience player, and that's not going to cut it over a long season.
--Uber-pest Louis Robitaille was running his mouth as usual, and Lannon dropped him. Good times.

The lines were:
Stone-Taffe-Filewich
James-Smith-Kennedy
Minard-Brent-Wallace
Jensen-Bonvie

Lannon-Engelland
Letang-Goligoski
Ardelan-Lovejoy

--Given that lineup, one has to wonder if tough guy in the making, Aaron Boogaard is about to spend some time in the Coast (ECHL). Certainly there will be no shortages of takers for a fight there.

A win is a win, so that's nice. But it's obvious that there's several good, experience forwards, but this team will need more foundation defensively. Given so many were making their pro debuts against a solid lineup, that's not to be unexpected.