Hey hey!

Just wanted to give a quick plug for the Admirals Celebrity Serve, coming up at Major Goolsby’s on March 7th (it’s just around the corner).  Time is from 6-9pm, with proceeds from the event going to the Admirals Power Play Foundation.

If you’ve never been, it’s a good time and a great cause.

If you’re looking for some more information, you can check out the Admirals Crew website.  Or if you prefer face-to-face interaction for your fact-gathering purposes, may I recommend stopping by the Admirals Crew table outside section 206 at the next game?  I may?  Great!

Photo credit: Scott Paulus

“I rea­lize I’m here for a rea­son, I rea­lize I’m here to get bet­ter, and I’m here to get myself back to the Chet Pic­kard that the Nash­vi­lle Pre­da­tors selec­ted in the first-round, because they took a gam­ble on me pic­king me high, and I don’t want to disap­point. That’s not what I’m going to do. I want to be the Chet Pic­kard I know I can be, but it’s not about me loo­king at pla­ying in the NHL right now. It’s about day-by-day, get­ting bet­ter, get­ting back to the way I can be, and it’s going to be a pro­cess, and I’m pre­pa­red and I’m com­mit­ted to get back there.”

That was Chet Pickard, in an interview with the Tennessean, published in the middle of November.  And in his next start, he broke that long losing streak that had plagued him going back to last season.

And until further notice, this is his show in Cincinnati.

The Cyclones are developmental affiliates for the Predators and Florida Panthers.  And Jacob Markstrom, one of the goaltenders for the Rochester Americans,  recently suffered a knee injury, prompting the recall of Chet’s co-tender in Cincy — leaving Chet as the bona fide #1 goalie in town.

Now, it was announced yesterday that Markstrom’s injury is not going to require surgery.  Team doctors in Florida concluded that it’s a minor knee sprain, and he’s being sent back to Rochester to rehab.  The last recovery timetable I read had a range of 2-3 weeks.

That kind of changes where I wanted to go with this story a bit.  If this was going to be a longer term injury for Markstrom, this had the potential to be a career defining moment for Chet.  This would be his chance to possibly carry his team to the playoffs on his back and make a statement.  A chance to get his stock rising again.

Nevertheless, if he’s looking to get his career back on track, the next two to three weeks will be a golden opportunity for Chet to show that he CAN be the man.

This past weekend, he recorded two wins against the Florida Everblades, giving up just three goals on 46 shots over the two games.  And according to Mike from the Cycwords blog, there has been obvious improvement — first and foremost, in Chet’s head.

“Early on it looked like he was ‘thinking’ his way through games, which led to breakdowns in technique and in turn, ‘soft’ goals. It just looked like he was doubting his game. He showed flashes of the potential that made him a 1st round pick, but they were inconsistent.

“Back on January 30th I think we saw what Chet was really capable of doing. It was a game against South Carolina and he got clipped in the head with a stick pretty hard early on. It must have jarred something because he started playing with a bit of swagger in that game en route to a 28 save shutout. Since then we’ve seen that same cocky swagger. He’s been chirping at the opposition and even holding his glove up in the face of the occasional shooter after a big glove save. Basically, wherever his head is, his game seems to follow suit.”

Since January 1st, he has a 7-6 record, and has given up two or less goals in seven of those games.

The Cyclones have ten games in the next three weeks, and  Mike says that while some fans may be hitting the panic button over the goalie situation, his concern is more about the defense in front of Chet.

“There are some that feel that neither of them (Chet or Marc Cheverie) are capable of stopping a beach ball and yearn for the return of Jeremy (Smith), and there are some that think their struggles relate to the sometimes porous defense in front of them. I fall into the later category; even Kelly Cup Play Co-MVP’s Jeremy Smith and Robert Mayer would have been left with their heads spinning after seeing the numerous odd man rushes the team was giving up early on.

“Former head coach Chuck Weber had a saying for goalies: ‘Stop the shots you’re supposed to and a few of the ones you’re not, and we’ll win games.’ That phrase is starting to apply more and more to Chet.”

And not a moment too soon.  We’ll be keeping an eye on his progress over the next few weeks, and I hope we’ll have some positive things to report.

Ok, let’s lighten things up a bit.  Rough weekend for everyone.  Here’s a fluff piece.

Some people take the scenic route to our little spot in the world wide web.  And the blog software is able to track what people type in their web searches that ultimately bring them here.  Here are some of the searches from this past week.

Mountain Fury Admirals (awesome)
Jamie Lundmark Wife Erica (we get these searches every week)
Governor Scott Walker Combover (????)
Effective Penalty Killer (Anyone come to mind?)
Compare nets and skeletons. how are they alike? how do they diffre? (????)
Chet Pickard Problem (We’ll have a story about Chet later this week!)

Please welcome Matt Halischuk back to Milwaukee.  Word is that he will be playing this afternoon against Rockford.

Benn Olson has been returned to the Cyclones, and Dylan Hunter is back with the Admirals.

In other news…..(hat-tip to our friends at Cycwords for breaking the story)  There are some mixed signals about a trade that Nashville may or may not have made last week.

Casey Pierro-Zabotel, a forward, has been added to the roster of the Cyclones.

Shawn Rine, who covers the Wheeling Nailers in the ECHL, wrote this story about the move, saying that the Penguins retain his rights.

But he also tweets this message:

@WheelHouse87 Shawn RIne

So we’ll see if we can figure out what really happened.

As for the player… He played with Jon Blum on the Vancouver Giants junior team, leading the team in scoring in 08-09 to the tune of 36 goals and 79 assists.  He was a 3rd round pick by the Penguins, but had not put up similar numbers since turning pro.  There have apparently be some questions about his work ethic, which may or may not still be out there.  (If we wants a chance to play in Milwaukee, those questions better be gone.)

Here’s a scouting report from hockeysfuture.com.  Frankly, I don’t care for most of their scouting reports, but for now, it’s a start.

He’s a big body with very good scoring abilities.  Pierro-Zabotel is a pure finisher who rarely fails to convert on a chance within 10 feet.  In some ways he compares to Tomas Holmstrom in the sense that he’s willing to take some punishment in front of the net and he is very much an opportunist.  He won’t create many chances himself, but he will take advantage of them when they come along.

His acceleration definitely needs improvement, although his all-around mobility is good enough to get by on with what he does on the ice.  Defensively he’s weak, but that aspect of his game can be rounded out in the future.

So we’ll do some digging to see if he’s actually Predators property… If he is, maybe he’ll be worth a flier at some point?

And a programming note….we’ll have a story on Chet Pickard early this week.  Remember him?

UPDATE:  Confirmed through the Admirals office, Pittsburgh retains the rights to Casey Pierro-Zabotel.  So his chances of playing in Milwaukee are a hair above nil at this point.

Suspensions and fines are in for the Pens/Isles game.

– 10 games for Goddard, for leaving the bench.
– Trevor Gillies got 9 games for the hit to the head, and subsequent punches, and probably his taunting from the tunnel too.
– Matt Martin got 4 games for starting stuff with Max Talbot.
– Islanders organizaiton fined $100k.

Glad to see the NHL didn’t waive any of Goddard’s automatic suspension like they have for his teammates in the past (cough Cup finals cough).  But in a lot of those cases, the coach also gets a suspension.

The Coach(es) of the team(s) whose player(s) (including goalkeepers) left the players’ bench(es) or penalty bench(es)during an altercation shall be suspended, pending a review by the Commissioner. The Coach(es) also will be fined a maximum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

The reasoning behind the $100k fine for the Islanders organizaiton was, per Colin Campbell, “The Islanders also must bear some responsibility for their failure to control their players.”

And Dan Bylsma doesn’t, apparently.

I think what Gillies got was about right.  Martin picked the fight with Talbot from behind him.  It wasn’t much of a punch though — nothing close to Todd Bertuzzi.  I suppose they’re suspending the principle behind it and what it sparked, and that’s fine.   But how does this play in open ice gets the same suspension as Matt Cooke earlier in the week?

I’m absolutely AMAZED the Michael Haley gets out of this with nothing.  Apparently, picking fights with goalies is okay after you finish a fight with another player.

Trying to be objective.  Just my thoughts.

Feel free to share yours.  And where do you stand on letting the players police themselves for previous cheap hits?

Here’s some more content for today.

Todd at Milwaukeehockey.com published a post the other day about shootouts — more so, the personnel used in shootouts.  And he brings up some interesting statistics, and some interest points.  Definitely check out the story.

The one variable that I’d like to point out is that the NHL uses the best-of-3-round system, and the AHL uses best-of-5.  So there are more chances that Lane would use a defenseman simply because there are more shootout attempts each night.  Trotz has the leisure of only needing to select three, and maybe has some more matchup information that leads to his decisions.

Wednesday against Peoria, the Admirals sent out 1) Santorelli, 2) Klasen, 3) Mueller, 4) Josi, 5) Geoffrion, 6) Blum.

Santo and Klasen I think have been 1 and 2 all season (provided they’ve both been in uniform in the game).  So based on this current roster, who would you line up as your 3 through 7 shooters, and do you take position into account?

Islanders 9
Penguins 3
346 penalty minutes.

I really can’t look at this objectively….anytime the Penguins get the snot beat out of them, I can’t help but enjoy that…but I’ll try.  One could make the argument that they were victims here, and one could make the argument that this was the players policing themselves after the last game the two teams played.  And one could make the argument that the Admirals could use a Michael Haley about now.

How would things have been different if “Cookie” had been in uniform?

Our friends at Ontheforecheck.com have the video of all the fights.

What’s your take on the circus from yesterday?

Who?

Benn Olson.  You know?  Benn Olson.  From the Cyclones.

Dylan Hunter was returned to Cincy yesterday, and Olson was called up.

In 38 games with the Cyclones, here are his vital stats.  Let me know what sticks out to you.

1 goal.  2 assists.  141 penalty minutes.

I have been told that we should expect him to suit up tonight.  And why not?  We’re playing against a team that gooned it up a bit the last time we played them.  For a team that many of you have said lacks the enforcer kind of presence, maybe this is a good start.

Looks like he’ll be wearing #42.