Monday's Catch Up & Lunch Links 8/18

Monday, August 18, 2014
Warmups from the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals.
The calendar hits mid-August, which means we are less than a month away from the Penguins annual rookie tournament in London, Ontario.

The camp, which runs from September 13-16th, will feature Kasperi Kapanen, Brian Dumoulin, Scott Harrington, Jean-Sebastien Dea and a bunch more of the Penguins prospects as they compete against prospects from the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators and Chicago Blackhawks in a four-day camp before teams' main training camps get in full-swing.

As I do every Monday, some noteworthy happenings of late with links to help you get caught up or through the start of the work week.


  • Both of the WBS Penguins top rivals - Hershey and Lehigh Valley - signed players to AHL deals this afternoon. The Bears signed forward Philippe Cornet to an AHL contract, while the Phantoms a signed 22-year-old rookie goaltender out of the University of Maine - Martin Ouelette. Outside of adding a veteran goaltender on an AHL deal (if WBS doesn't receive a goalie from Pittsburgh), I think the AHL Pens are done adding depth pieces for the upcoming season.
  • The AHL schedule for the 2014-15 regular season is nearing its completion and should be released within the next week or two. Expect about half of the Penguins 76-game schedule to be against the other teams in the East Division - Hershey, Binghamton, Norfolk and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Syracuse is no longer in the division, having been moved to the Atlantic Division where the Phantoms were last season. 
  • There are still some free agents from last year's Penguins team - Jeff Deslauriers, Peter Mannino, Brendan Mikkelson and Spencer Machacek to name a few - but you can cross both Denver Manderson and Cody Sylvester off the list of free agents. Manderson signed an AHL deal with the Toronto Marlies, while Sylvester signed an ECHL contract with the South Carolina Stingrays.
  • On Friday, I posted another feature on a potential WBS Penguins roster player in the upcoming series. This past week's feature in the summer series took a look at Penguins prospect Clark Seymour, a physical defenseman turning pro in the fall. Here are some of the other players I interviewed at the team's development camp in July:
  • I joined Ian Altenbaugh, along with Andy and Nick from PensNation, in a discussion of the top Penguins prospects and answered such things as where they are at in their development, whether they are currently worth the hype from fans/media and their time frame to making the NHL roster. Split into two parts, both well worth the read:
  • If you missed it, I was nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and after accepting the challenge, I nominated Penguins forward Bobby Farnham, Penguins beat writer Jonathan Bombulie and Hockey's Future writer/editor Ian Altenbaugh. You can see us dunk ourselves with ice cold water here. You can donate to the ALS Association on their website here.

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