Faceoff Factor

WBS Penguins Weekly Report - 1/23

Kyle Dreibelbies | WBS "Baby" Penguins

Jan 23, 09:52 AM | Hype this story!

It was a busy weekend in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins hockey. There were three away games, with WBS going 1-2 in those games, and a plethora of transactions, leaving the Penguins to play two of those games with only nine active forwards. Strangely enough, those were the two games that the Penguins lost.

Transactions

First, we would like to send congratulations to Fs Jonathan Filewich and Chris Minard as they made their NHL debuts and C Tim Brent as he made his Pittsburgh debut, after playing 15 games for Anaheim last year.

We also welcome back D Ryan Lannon. Officially, he was on the Pittsburgh roster for five games, but played in none. At least he has to be happy with his bank statement after cashing the NHL checks. His return to WBS bumped D Jonathan D’Aversa to Wheeling of the ECHL. This move may have been made to allow D’Aversa to play in the ECHL All-Star Game.

In other transactions, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins welcomed two new forwards to the organization. F Jean-Michel Daoust, the ECHL’s leading scorer and former teammate of Penguins C Maxime Talbot, was signed to a professional tryout contract. Also, F Chris Blight was signed to a professional tryout from the Reading Royals. Blight was nearly at a point-per-game pace in the ECHL, but only tallied 2 assists in 11 games with the Manitoba Moose of the AHL on a recent tryout with them.

Injuries

D Alex Goligoski is recovered from a wrist injury and was able to play this weekend. Enforcer Dennis Bonvie is still day-to-day with back spasms.

If Bonvie is healthy, the Penguins will now have the minimum of 18 active skaters on their roster, 11 forwards and 7 defensemen, as they depart for another three-game road trip.

On to the games…

On Friday (before the callups), the Penguins defeated the Norfolk Admirals 3-1 in a game highlighted by F Kurtis McLean’s three points and Filewich’s first professional fight.

The next day, WBS again played Norfolk in Norfolk. The only difference was that Brent, Minard and Filewich were missing. The result was a 4-0 Norfolk Admirals win.

On Sunday, Wilkes-Barre made the trip to Hershey. A depleted team lost to the Bears 3-1, although Daoust did score his first AHL goal in his first game with Wilkes-Barre. Daoust flashed his speed and stickhandling skill. This should be a great asset while some of Wilkes-Barre’s top scorers are with Pittsburgh.

Wilkes-Barre’s next game is Wednesday, January 23, on the road against the Lowell Devils.