Confirmed with Link: Penguins sign Blueger to 2 year ELC

[madinsomniac]

Either the pens have another signing in mind for the 50th... Or they simply wish to keep flexible for now in case something happens

 

[WayneSid9987]

Either the pens have another signing in mind for the 50th... Or they simply wish to keep flexible for now in case something happens

I'm guessing this is the case as well.
They're going after another NCAA guy, no doubt.
May or may not get them.
In the off-season, 2, 3 or 4 contracts will come off the books.

 

[WayneSid9987]

I'm guessing this is the case as well.
They're going after another NCAA guy, no doubt.
May or may not get them.
In the off-season, 2, 3 or 4 contracts will come off the books.

ETA:
Just counting them(contracts that may come off the books):

LJ
Zatkoff
Maybe Cullen
Maybe Bennett
Porter
Biggs
Plachta
Ruopp
Andersen
Zlobin
Erixon
Mouillierat
Jeffrey
Oleksy
O'neill
Uher
O'Donoghue
Melindy
Sestito

OK yea, theres alot more than i thought.
Alot of em will be re-upped though for WBS.

As of right now we have 48 contracts.
Bleuger and Rowney aren't on NHL(contract countable) deals til next yr.
And 30 next year including Bleuger and Rowney.
That'd be bumped up to 33/34 if/when Schultz, Cullen, Bennett and Guentzel get re-uped/sign.

 

[Malkinstheman]

Id say just fill out a large portion of the roster with prospects. Obviously dont just sign anyone but try to get as many guys with potential. Look at juniors, College, Europe etc. With the graduation of Dumo, Wilson, Rust, Kuhn and I guess sheary, our prospect pool looks even more thin. Really need to get some picks at the draft. Pens havent had atleast 7 picks in the draft since 2012.

 

[State of Hockey]

Bye, bye, Teddy. I'll miss his name being announced after a goal. One of the best names.

He was our MVP this year in my eyes, and arguably the best in the WCHA. Very consistent. Just a good all-around player--good skater, good agility, good hands, good vision, and good defensively. I don't know if his physical skill will be enough for a scoring role in the NHL, but I think he will make a home in the lineup. I hope he does well in the pros.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Bye, bye, Teddy. I'll miss his name being announced after a goal. One of the best names.

He was our MVP this year in my eyes, and arguably the best in the WCHA. Very consistent. Just a good all-around player--good skater, good agility, good hands, good vision, and good defensively. I don't know if his physical skill will be enough for a scoring role in the NHL, but I think he will make a home in the lineup. I hope he does well in the pros.

If Blueger and Sundqvist could become our bottom 6 centers over the next couple years, we'd be sitting pretty at C.

 

[WayneSid9987]

Bye, bye, Teddy. I'll miss his name being announced after a goal. One of the best names.

He was our MVP this year in my eyes, and arguably the best in the WCHA. Very consistent. Just a good all-around player--good skater, good agility, good hands, good vision, and good defensively. I don't know if his physical skill will be enough for a scoring role in the NHL, but I think he will make a home in the lineup. I hope he does well in the pros.

Thanks for stopping by and the report.
We really don't know much about him cuz the vids are hard to find.
So anything helps.

 

[Allie Kitsune]

Which the Penguins now have 49 out of the available 50. The contract limit is the big reason NHL clubs want these ATO deals, coupled with the delayed start of the ELC.

ATOs have been the standard for juniors leaving college for as long as I've been following the sport. It's just how things are done. Consider it an internship with an ELC waiting at the end. If Guentzel wants to play professional hockey in 2016-17 his options are basically the Penguins or Europe, and there isn't a good reason for him to go to Europe unless he had zero interest in signing with the Penguins and had no interest in staying in college.

Bļugers just had to say no thanks to any contract with the Penguins before the August deadline past, then he could sign wherever he wanted.

Why isn't the 's' part of his (North) Americanized name?

 

[TNT87]

I'm glad the Pens didn't lose him. Good to see him stay in the organization.

 

[Kalv]

Hey guys, is this meaning Bļugers will report to AHL Pens?
What is his competition there and what kind of spot could he get there to finish the season?

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Hey guys, is this meaning Bļugers will report to AHL Pens?
What is his competition there and what kind of spot could he get there to finish the season?

These were the lines on March 19.

Kael Mouillierat – Dustin Jeffrey – Dominik Simon
Mattias Plachta – Carter Rowney – Tom Kostopoulos
Tom Sestito – J-S Dea – Josh Archibald
Adam Krause – Jarrett Burton – Patrick McGrath

Considering we know where Guentzel plays...I would wonder if it's something like this below?

Plachta, Jeffrey, Simon
Blueger, Rowney, Kostopoulos
Mouillierat, Guentzel, Archibald - Is a line.
Krause, Dea, McGrath

Or they rotate Guentzel and Blueger.

 

[Vujtek]

You can sign an ATO and go back to college as long as you don't hire an agent, if I'm not mistaken. Guentzel has no reason to go back, so he hired an agent. He's AHL-ready. Don't take my word on it, the NCAA is ridiculous with what they consider being a 'professional', so it wouldn't surprise me if the meal stipend that goes along with an ATO would be tantamount to signing a multi-million dollar deal in their eyes.

Bļugers couldn't get the same treatment since he'd become a UFA in August if we didn't sign him...getting him under control makes sure he doesn't go elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure signing ATO means player loses his college eligibility. ATO is a contract with a professional hockey team - you can't sign that while keeping your college eligibility. College players can't be receiving any payments either and I'm pretty NHL/AHL bylaws stipulate some kind of payments attached to ATO's (so you can't sign players for free).

I can't think of any example of a player playing AHL games on ATO after his college season is over and going back to college the next season. So I'm confident signing ATO means player loses his college eligibility. As you said, NCAA rules are very strickt on these issues.

Which the Penguins now have 49 out of the available 50. The contract limit is the big reason NHL clubs want these ATO deals, coupled with the delayed start of the ELC.

Blueger doesn't count towards the 50 contract limit this year (just like Rowney) since the contract kicks in for 2016-17 season.

Penguins are still at 48 contracts for the current season.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I could easily see Dea being shifted to winger/being pushed out of the lineup for Blueger. Blueger fits a 4C mold much better than Dea does and Dea is still pretty weak at ES.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Why isn't the 's' part of his (North) Americanized name?

I'm not a linguist and I'm not Latvian, so I'm not the most qualified person to answer that, but I'd assume that the 's' is silent in this case.

A disproportionate amount of Latvian names end in an 's' and it seems almost random as to who keeps it when anglicizing things. Bļugers fully anglicized his name when he came over, so this one comes down to his choice. Honestly the only reason I refer to his full Latvian name is that I think it's cooler than the Anglicized version

Teodors Bļugers > Teddy Blueger

Fun fact: In my minimal research for this I found out that Scranton translates to Skrentonas in Latvian.

 

[WayneSid9987]

Bleuger just got to Wilkes today so isn't playing tonight.

Lines tonight:

Simon-Jeffrey-Krause
Plachta-Rowney-TK
Guentzel-Mouillierat-Archibald
Sestito-Burton-Dea

Erixon-Oleksy
O'Neill-Goers
Andersen-Ruopp

Jarry

Hey guys, is this meaning Bļugers will report to AHL Pens?
What is his competition there and what kind of spot could he get there to finish the season?

He arrived in Wilkes today.
Judging by the lines above he'll be 4th line C or LW i'd imagine.

 

[Malkinstheman]

That defence could use an influx of young guys/prospects. All our D prospects have graduated so we're extremely thing there now. Jeff Taylor seemed promising but stats wise hes dropped back down to earth.

 

[Darth Vitale]

STOP! BOOGER TIME!

 

[v-man]

I'm not a linguist and I'm not Latvian, so I'm not the most qualified person to answer that, but I'd assume that the 's' is silent in this case.

A disproportionate amount of Latvian names end in an 's' and it seems almost random as to who keeps it when anglicizing things. Bļugers fully anglicized his name when he came over, so this one comes down to his choice. Honestly the only reason I refer to his full Latvian name is that I think it's cooler than the Anglicized version

Teodors Bļugers > Teddy Blueger

Fun fact: In my minimal research for this I found out that Scranton translates to Skrentonas in Latvian.

Quick Latvian lesson:

The "s" simply denotes the male gender. Latvian is very phonetic, so there's no stupid silent letters like there are in English. Except for a few specific cases all men's names will end in "s", while women's names will end with an "a" or at times "e". Dropping the "s" when anglicizing is a completely person choice, as is changing the spelling to improve foreigner's pronunciation (as Ozolinsh did). A lot of Latvian player's wives will also break phonetic rules and simply go with male suffixes in North America to avoid confusion when traveling. From what I've been told, Teddy's ancestry isn't ethnically Latvian as it is, so he's probably not too concerned about changing it, as historically, it probably didn't have an "s" to begin with.

The language is always conjugated, so suffixes will change depending on the situation.

Skrentonas only applies if it's possessive, for example "Scranton's Penguins". The city itself is Skrentona.

When addressing people directly, you also lose the suffix on their name, so you'd say "Hey Teodor, how you doing". Calling him Teodors to his face would be weird.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Weirdly enough, Latvian, Lithuanian and the Baltic Languages are not too distantly related to the Slavic languages. It blew my mind when I could read enough Latvian in Riga to get basic things done on holiday there. Speaking was difficult, but grammatically, they've all retained a lot of really odd Indo-European features that other languages in the group (like Germanic languages) dropped several thousand years ago.

 

[Zero Pucks]

I'm happy we signed him. Blueger seems to have a ton of skills and smarts. But I always thought his effort and intensity left a lot to be desired though (from what I've seen), hopefully he picks it up at the next level.

 

[Sjoelbak]

Weirdly enough, Latvian, Lithuanian and the Baltic Languages are not too distantly related to the Slavic languages. It blew my mind when I could read enough Latvian in Riga to get basic things done on holiday there. Speaking was difficult, but grammatically, they've all retained a lot of really odd Indo-European features that other languages in the group (like Germanic languages) dropped several thousand years ago.

The Indo-European family is a good one, in that regard. Germanic languages are quite easy to pick up, when you're a native in one of them. I'm currently learning Hungarian, that's a whole different story

 

[KeziaTML]

How has he looked this year?

 

[wej20]

Haven't seen much apart from highlights but 31 points in 54 games is a good rookie year, +24 too (not that it matters).

 

[Cherpak]

How has he looked this year?

OGBobbyFarnham probably could give you the best info on him. He seems to follow WBS really well. He's our regular Baby Pens info updater.

 

[Jacob]

If you have trouble remembering which Baltic country is which just remember they're in alphabetical order from north to south.