WBS Penguins Practice Update 11/3

Captain Craig skated in a red no-contact jersey today.

Interesting practice today at Coal Street. About halfway through the practice, head coach John Hynes lost his lid and really let his players have it. He wasn't happy with the effort the guys were putting into the drills and told the team to get off the ice, to put it nicely. The team gathered in the locker room where I'm sure Hynes let them have it and came back onto the ice and finished practice.

You might be surprised at this outburst, since the team is currently on a winning streak. But with two big division games this weekend against Hershey and Binghamton, the Penguins need to stay hungry and not be satisfied with what they have done the past two weekends. The Pens are still searching for a win at home.

Lots of news to update everyone on as the WBS Penguins get ready for two games this weekend.

• First and foremost, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced this morning that they have indeed recalled defenseman Alexandre Picard. This leaves the AHL Penguins thin on defense with the pairings looking something like this:

          Robert Bortuzzo - Cody Wild         
          Carl Sneep - Simon Despres
          Joey Mormina - Philip Samuelsson
          Alex Grant - Boris Valabik

• Boris Valabik skated with the WBS Penguins for the first time today. He skated on the 4th pairing with Alex Grant, so I take it he's not 100% ready for game action.

• Captain Ryan Craig also skated today wearing a red no-contact jersey. I wouldn't expect to see him this weekend either.

• Here are the lines I jotted down today:

          Colin McDonald - Bryan Lerg - Jason Williams
          Eric Tangradi - Brian Gibbons - Niko Dimitrakos
          Paul Thompson - Ben Street - Nick Petersen
          Ryan Schnell - Zach Sill - Brandon DeFazio
          Cody Chupp - Ryan Craig - Matt Rust

• Geoff Walker didn't skate today and while coach Hynes says he is day-to-day, I don't think he will play this weekend.

• Tomorrow Hershey comes to town. Game preview will be up in the late afternoon. I have done away with game threads for now until the comments pick up. Just use the game preview to comment and talk about the game. I will be in attendance and have live in-game updates on the blog's Twitter feed.

• Follow the blog on Twitter if you aren't already. Don't have Twitter? We are also on Facebook!

Go Penguins!