AHL WEEKEND: Penguins prospects fighting for AHL playoff spot
Weekends mean a busy AHL schedule. EP Rinkside has this look around the NHL’s top developmental league to set you up for this weekend’s slate.
SIXTEEN AND COUNTING….
Change is a given in the AHL, but the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins qualifying for the Calder Cup Playoffs has been one of the few constants for nearly two decades.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s 20 seasons with the parent Pittsburgh Penguins has become one of the model affiliations in hockey. The AHL Penguins have reached the Calder Cup Playoffs for 16 consecutive seasons, but that streak is in jeopardy of ending this season.
“Our guys know the importance and urgency of every game,” Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Clark Donatelli said. “Our mindset coming to the rink now is that we’re [already] in the playoffs now.”
Year after year, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has churned out player after player to send across Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh to surround the Sidney Crosby–Evgeni Malkin–Kris Letang core that has won three Stanley Cups in the past decade. From this season’s Pittsburgh roster alone, Matt Murray, Casey DeSmith, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Brian Dumoulin, Dominik Simon, and Zach Aston-Reese are among the products of that talent pipeline. Even Letang had a quick turn in Northeastern Pennsylvania before quickly moving on to the NHL. That is to say nothing of the other Wilkes-Barre/Scranton alumni who have since been dispersed throughout the NHL.
Twelve head coaches have stepped behind the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton bench in that span, including current NHL head coaches Mike Sullivan, John Hynes, and Todd Reirden. That Northeastern Pennsylvania coaching tree also features former NHL head coaches Dan Bylsma and Michel Therrien.
Along with that development record, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has long put winning teams on the ice. In six of those 16 consecutive playoff campaigns, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton amassed 101 or more points and has averaged 97.8 points per season. The team has reached the Calder Cup final twice and reached the Eastern Conference final two other times.
This season has been much different, however, and that 16-season playoff streak may not make it to a 17th one. Going into play Friday with a 30-24-7-3 record that puts them at 70 points through 64 games, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is trying to chase down a playoff spot. Realistically, they have one slot within reasonable distance, which is occupied by the Providence Bruins. Those P-Bruins have a five-point lead on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton going into play this weekend.
To start their weekend, the Penguins went into a home-and-home series with the arch-rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The Penguins’ all-Atlantic Division weekend will then have them burn off the game in hand that they own on Providence this Sunday afternoon when the Springfield Thunderbirds visit.
Donatelli and his team are quite aware of the organization’s history of success at the AHL level.
“There’s a culture [with] the team,” Donatelli said. “It’s all over the locker room. It’s a high standard here, and a culture that everyone respects, and our guys are working tremendously hard on and off the ice to achieve that.”
The team has been dealing with personnel losses amid this playoff drive. With forward Teddy Blueger and defenseman Zach Trotman already in Pittsburgh, the NHL team also recalled forward Adam Johnson. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton also lost key forward Jean-Sébastien Dea in a trade to the Florida Panthers organization last month. Still, the team did add forward Joe Blandisi and defenseman Juuso Riikola when Johnson was recalled.
“Guys are up, but what we say is that it’s an opportunity for other guys to come in and play a lot of minutes, and guys are taking advantage of that,” Donatelli said.
“We’re right there [in contention], and we’re banging on the door.”
WHO’S NEXT?
Two challengers up, two challengers down for the AHL-leading Charlotte Checkers.
First, the Rochester Americans visited Charlotte last weekend for a two-game series. The Amerks arrived two points behind the Checkers and with an opportunity to take over first place in the AHL. Instead the Checkers swept the two games and sent the Amerks back to Rochester six points down.
Up next were the Syracuse Crunch, who made the trip to Charlotte only three points behind the Checkers for a two-game meeting. The Crunch managed to score an overtime win in the opening game, but Charlotte replied with a 4-2 win the following night to take three of four points in the showdown between the top two-ranked clubs in the AHL.
At 92 points, Charlotte now has a four-point lead on Syracuse and will host the Hartford Wolf Pack for a pair of games this weekend. Hartford is last in the Atlantic Division.
The Carolina Hurricanes have not had an AHL affiliate win a regular-season championship since the Hartford Whalers era. That goes back to the 1984-85 season when the Binghamton Whalers finished first in the league with 112 points. That spring the Whalers went out in a second-round sweep before Patrick Roy went on to win the Calder Cup as a Montreal Canadiens prospect.
Beyond the Crunch, any remaining challenges to the Checkers’ hold on the AHL lead are remote at best. Going into play Friday, Rochester had dipped to nine points behind Charlotte at 83 points. Sitting at 82 points were the Bridgeport Sound Tigers and Chicago Wolves. Bridgeport hosts the Checkers twice next week. The Bakersfield Condors had the AHL’s third-best point percentage. But because they only play a 68-game schedule, they will be hard-pressed to overcome Charlotte.
AROUND THE A
The Wolves have been without AHL leading scorer Daniel Carr (30-41-71) since an open-ice hit from San Antonio Rampage forward Jordan Nolan in a March 5th game. They go back to San Antonio for two more games starting on Saturday night. Last weekend they blew out the Rampage at Allstate Arena, 6-2.
March has seen the Utica Comets’ season unravel dramatically. Starting play Friday, the Comets had lost eight in a row (0-7-1-0) and fallen six points below the playoff line as they continue to battle injuries and NHL recalls. Among the hits to the line-up have been leading scorer Reid Boucher and defenseman Evan McEneny. Defensemen Guillaume Brisebois and Ashton Sautner remain with the parent Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver also shipped out Comets forward Jonathan Dahlén to the San Jose Sharks organization in a trade last month.
San Jose Barracuda head coach Roy Sommer will equal Al Arbour for fifth place on the all-time list of NHL and/or AHL regular-season games by a head coach this Sunday. Sommer’s Barracuda visit the Tucson Roadrunners for a two-game series and he will finish the weekend at 1,607 regular-season AHL games coached. Still ahead of Sommer are all-time leader Scotty Bowman (2,141 regular-season NHL games), New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz (2,027 regular-season games between the NHL and AHL), and Joel Quenneville (1,716 in the NHL and AHL), and Mike Keenan (1,626 in the NHL and AHL).
Goaltender Connor Ingram is back with Syracuse after being recalled Friday, though apparently not by design. A crease collision 1:47 into the game at Charlotte this past Wednesday injured Crunch goaltender Martin Ouellette. The 27-year-old left the ice on a stretcher, which pressed Eddie Pasquale into a relief appearance. The parent Tampa Bay Lightning had demoted Ingram to the Orlando Solar Bears, their ECHL affiliate on March 6th even though he ranked statistically among the top goaltenders in the AHL. Ingram, 21, is in his second pro season after the Lightning made him a 2016 third-round pick. In seven games with Orlando, he was 3-2-0 | 3.63 | .893 and was replaced in one start. Before his demotion, he had gone 14-7-0 | 2.26 | .922 in 22 games for the Crunch. However, he has only played eight AHL games since a December 21st injury at Lehigh Valley, including just once in the past 32 days.
Charlotte has added another offensive talent to the line-up. Carolina signed Brandon Wheat Kings forward Stelios Mattheos to an entry-level deal on Thursday and assigned him to the Checkers on an amateur tryout deal. Carolina took Mattheos in the third round of the 2017 NHL Draft. This season captaining the Wheat Kings, he ranked fourth in the WHL in goals (44) and sixth in points (96) and finished with a 44-52-96 line. He should slot into the Charlotte line-up on a regular basis next season.
Four teams have 3-in-3 weekends – the Cleveland Monsters, Rochester, Springfield, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
ON THE MOVE
Belleville defenseman Erik Brännström remains on recall with the parent Ottawa Senators. Forwards Vitaly Abramov and Filip Chlapik were returned to the AHL team for Friday’s tilt at Providence….Through Thursday, 99 AHL players have made their NHL debuts this season.