Thursday, February 10, 2011

Pens running Wilkes-Barre shuffle

Some interesting roster developments this afternoon in the wake of Matt Cooke's four game suspension:
  • Eric Tangradi and Tim Wallace were sent to Wilkes-Barre.
  • Four players were called up from the Baby Pens (which has be be some kind of record) - Joe Vitale, Nick Johnson, Ryan Craig and Brett Sterling.
Of the four players coming to Pittsburgh, Craig has the most NHL experience with parts of 5 seasons and 184 games under his belt. He plays center.

Sterling is a winger and he has put up some BIG goal totals in the AHL. The knock against him, however, is his height. He's listed at 5'7".

Vitale is a center in his third professional season. He kill penalties and plays a good two-way game.

Johnson is the best prospect of the four. He has some size (6'1") and has produced at a respectable level the last few seasons. He's played well this year, leading Wilkes-Barre with 20 goals.

The Pens now have the Baby Pens two best players up here (in terms of point production) - Dustin Jeffrey and Nick Johnson. Let's see if they can make some noise.

2 comments:

Captain Canuck said...

maybe a message being sent?

Pat said...

Captain - could be... I think there were four callups because Kunitz is still hurt and Cooke is out.

I don't think they're happy with where Tangradi is at right now, and Wallace doesn't seem to have the speed to play in the NHL at this point...

Sterling can play on the top two lines (as can Johnson). Craig is a vet and Vitale is probably better suited to the fourth line role than Wallace or Tangradi at the NHL level.