Back at it after their All-Star break, the Binghamton Senators went winless on the weekend, a disappointing turn that saw them grab a point before being stung in overtime on Friday. Robin Lehner spent the few days in Miami, in case that interests you. I decoded that from his tweets, which are sandwiched by smiley faces and exclamation marks. Not as effusive as Filatov's formspring account, mind you.

Binghamton faced off on Friday against last year's first round playoff opponent, the Manchester Monarchs. Naturally, the game went to overtime (five in a row for these two teams), but finished with a Monarch goal with Stephane Da Costa sitting squeamishly in the penalty box. Mike Hoffman was Binghamton's top performer on the night, finishing with a pair of points, while Andre Petersson saw his impressive run stop, despite the six he threw on net. By the scoresheet, Binghamton's powerplay was 1-for-7, but they negated their first one only seconds in. The powerplay has been a strong suit for the B-Sens over the last few weeks.

David Rundblad had a point against the BSens as the Portland Pirates handled Binghamton fairly easily on Saturday night. The Coyotes' affiliate directed 37 shots against Lehner, while Binghamton put two past Justin "was-supposed-to-be-quite-good-but-didn't-pan-out" Pogge in a 5-2 loss.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday's AHL All-Star Game featured reigning MVP Corey Locke and defenseman Mark Borowiecki, fresh from making his NHL debut on the West Coast. I did not watch the game. There was something about another sixty minutes of a bunch of hungover athletes playing hockmockery that I found to be a little repellant. Also, this one did not feature Daniel Alfredsson.

Weekends in the AHL are typically a pretty serious grind. Most of the time, it's three games in three days. So, it was pretty fitting that Locke and Borowiecki were taking part in the skills competition the afternoon after a crazy 7-4 win over Wilkes/Barre-Scranton. The win saw the B-Sens score 6 on...21 shots. It was also their third win in a row, rounding off a 6-4 month, Binghamton's first plus- .500 month of the season. Patrick Wiercioch also returned-- terrific. On that note, ingest my take at the halfway point of the season (approximation) for players in this system.

Continue reading this post »

In the last week, Shane Prince, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Stefan Noesen combined for 28 points in 12 games. The last seven days included one-game highs of 6 (!!!) for Shane Prince, 5 for J-G Pageau and 3 for Noesen. It almost makes Mark Stone's 75 in 42 look like an underperformance. Ok- not quite.

Mark Borowiecki and Andre Petersson were two of Binghamton's top performers in recent weeks and earned their call-up to the big club. But how would the B-Sens fare without them? Borowiecki ate big minutes for the farm team, and made himself noticed on the ice with bruising hits and a willingness to drop the gloves when he deemed it appropriate. He chipped in on the scoresheet from time-to-time as well, recording 15 points in 42 games. Andre Petersson had a comparably slow start, but his adjustment to the North American game exploded in recent weeks. Playing on a line with Rob Klinkhammer (not too many are feeling much longing for that conditional seventh round pick, I'm thinking) and Corey Locke, Andre Petersson was riding a six-game point streak when he got the call-up. Coming into the weekend with a record of 16-24-2, how did Binghamton fare without two of their top guys? They won back-to-back games, naturally. Unfortunately, that boost leaves them with 38 points in the standings, one point shy of climbing out of 30th place in the AHL. Shame there's no AHL lottery draft.

Continue reading this post »

Mark Borowiecki (pronounced "Boar-vee-eff-ski"), who you might remember from such films as Borocop and Borocop 2: The Land Before Borocop, will play his first NHL game tonight when he steps into the lineup against the San Jose Sharks.

Borowiecki was a fifth round pick from Ottawa's stellar 2008 NHL Entry Draft, which has now had 2 players become regular NHLers (Erik Karlsson and Zack Smith), one make a brief NHL appearance (Patrick Wiercioch), and another join Borowiecki and the Senators on this roadtrip and is sure to play a game or two (Andre Petersson).

We profiled Borowiecki more extensively in Brian Sullivan's write-up from May 2010, and Borwiecki's come a long way since then. The 22-year old Kanata native completed three years with Clarkson University, serving as team captain in his final year, and was yet another contributor to Binghamton's 2011 Calder Cup winning team. He was voted by his peers as the hardest working player at this year's development camp, and was praised for his competitiveness and work ethic.

Continue reading this post »

When I write these updates, I get the opportunity to pass on some pretty outstanding numbers. Allow me to cut to the chase: Mark Stone has 73 points in 39 games. Jean-Gabriel Pageau has 46 in 26. Shane Prince? 50 in 33. Let's return to earth... a little. Stefan Noesen has 44 in 37, Matt Puempel has 33 in 30 and Jakob Silfverberg has 30 in 32. In total, that random helping of Senators prospects have combined for 276 in 187 games, which means absolutely nothing, but is still a pretty fun statistic to look at.

Still, after two years of reading absolutely eye-popping numbers from some of our prospects (Mark Stone is doing a fine job of leading that charge) one can't help but look ahead and wonder how these kinds of statistics will translate to production in the NHL. And I can't tell you. But, for those who have recovered from a year of watching YouTube highlights of David Rundblad (and that frustratingly catchy song that went with it) we can think about it some.

Continue reading this post »

I spent a little while yesterday afternoon perusing the worldwide web searching for a "Golden Goal" type commentary of Mika Zibanejad's overtime winner courtesy of a Swedish announcer (Peter had yet to post it). I found it, but also succeeded in tracking down this hilarious and bizarre YouTube clip. The quality is terrible and, from the limited amount I know about making videos, it was made to be intentionally choppy, which I really don't get. The maker of the video also fell into the incomprehensible trap of drowning out the actual highlight with some "techno beats". There are better versions out there, including the one Peter posted yesterday, but this one was too much to handle, so I had to pass it off to all of you.

Mika was not a stand out in every fixture- his terrific rate of six shots-per-game was boosted by one game with twelve. Still, he played very good hockey when it counted, with three of his four goals in the tournament coming on the powerplay, and, you know, that goal in overtime against the Russians.

Although he could learn a thing or too from his fellow Senators' prospect on shooting the puck, Jakub Culek had a strong tournament for the Czechs. With four points in five games, Culek offered the kind of offensive play the Senators are surely looking for, and the Rimouski forward chipped in a fair amount of minutes on the penalty kill. For a prospect who offered some fairly underwhelming numbers (granted, we're used to astronomical stuff) in the Q last season, Culek played well in an important role for the Czechs.

Ottawa had another gold medalist- Fredrik Claesson was pointless through six games for the Swedes, but for a defensive defenseman, who cares? For somebody in his place, the statline doesn't tell much of the story (I couldn't find blocked shots or average time on ice numbers). What I saw in Claesson impressed me. I thought he played with confidence and was a steadying presence on the Swedish blueline.

Continue reading this post »

The last of these updates was made way back in the year 2011, in the days before World Junior blowouts, Robin Lehner's tussle with a referee and Ilya Bryzgalov's extremely publicized tea consumption. It's been a while, and a fair amount has happened, obviously. In my little holiday recess, the Binghamton Senators posted a fairly respectable record of 3-2, including an 8-3 clobbering of the Albany Devils, and a 6-2 loss to the hands of the Crunch on New Year's Eve that witnessed 169 minutes of penalties. We'll get back to that.

The World Juniors are finally underway (the preliminary round is excused), with all of the Senators' prospects advancing on to the medal round. The World Juniors are a wonderful time to debate whether we care too much about the World Juniors, and also to watch some quality hockey featuring exciting young players. Jakub Culek will be taking to the ice against Russia at 9pm, and this scribe will have been at SBP taking in a Senators/Devils game. The Czechs face a steep task against a top Russian team, but by the time you are reading this, the game will have already happened, so I will stop offering a preview. Now, jump with me.

Continue reading this post »

With the Senators plagued by injuries to their forward corps, Mike Hoffman has been given the opportunity to step into his first NHL game tonight. He'll suit up in #68 against the Carolina Hurricanes. Hoffman's route to the NHL has been a bit of an unorthodox one, but that makes it all the more impressive that he's playing in an NHL game at just 22 years old.

Hoffman's major junior career started in the OHL where he played six games for the Kitchener Rangers during the 2006-07 season. However, he was cut at the start of the 2007-08 season, so he jumped over to the QMJHL to play for the Gatineau Olympiques, only to get cut again. He played for the Drummondville Voltigeurs of the QMJHL for the rest of the season, and was not selected in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.

In the 2008-09 season, he led his team to a QMJHL championship with 52 goals and 94 points in just 62 regular season games. He added 21 goals in 19 playoff games. He was traded to the Saint John Sea Dogs to start the 2009-10, scored 46 goals in 56 games, and won himself the QMJHL MVP trophy.

Continue reading this post »