Wilkes-Barre/Scranton takes a unique approach when it comes to keeping its extra players as close to game-ready as possible.
After morning skates, the players who won't be in the lineup that night play a three-on-three game after practice ... against the coaching staff.
Wilkes-Barre has a younger coaching staff with most members not that far removed from their own playing days, so they're able to put together a competitive lineup.
Head coach J.D. Forrest is 39, and retired from playing in 2014 after nine years playing as a defensemen in the minor leagues and in Europe. Assistant coach Kevin Porter, 34, just retired last season after a 12-year professional career as a forward in the NHL and AHL. Player development coach Tom Kostopoulos, 42, retired in 2018 after a 19-year career as a forward in the NHL and AHL. Goaltending development coach Andy Chiodo, 37, retired as a player in 2017 after 14 seasons primarily in the minor leagues and Europe. Director of player development Scott Young is the older guy of the group at 53, but had the most prolific professional career with over 1,100 games in the NHL over 17 seasons.
"It's usually coaches versus the players," Forrest explained. "We've got to try to keep the pace up. We get involved a bit, and it's always a lot of fun. It's great conditioning as opposed to just making the guys go up and down the ice. You have to think the game more. And it's a lot of fun."
The games get intense, too. Two weeks ago, Forrest was bandaged up a little near his right eye, and I asked what happened to him. He laughed and said that he caught a high-stick during an "intense three-on-three game."
Who wins these contests?
"A lot of times, we might come out on top," Forrest said. "We're over .500 for sure. But we also don't have equipment and hadn't skated the whole practice, so we have some advantages. But we had a tough one the other day, I'll admit that. We had a tough one, the guys were kind of hot the other day. But we're definitely above .500, the coaching staff."
Wilkes-Barre has been having these post-skate three-on-three games for couple of years now, and one of the reasons the staff keeps them going is the boost they provide for the morale.
"Especially this year," Forrest said of the need of finding ways to boost morale like that. "It's important every single season, but we feel strongly that the ability for us to even have a season, it's a big deal. We want to make it fun for guys to come to the rink. It's really the one escape from everything else that they're going through on a daily basis with COVID protocols and the way things have to operate. The rink is where everyone comes to work, but we're playing hockey. It's fun. We want to make sure that that's a priority with our players. Not to take away from the hard work aspect of it, but we feel that you can do both. Our guys have proven that. So it's nice when your players look forward to coming to practice, knowing that there's an element of work but we're still playing the game that we love, and we're lucky to do it at this point in time."
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• Defenseman Josh Maniscalco, an undrafted free agent signing by the Penguins out of Arizona State this past offseason, hasn't played since Wilkes-Barre's second game of the season. When he was scratched for the first time last month, I asked Forrest if it was a coaching decision, and he confirmed it was.
"Josh will find (his) way back into the lineup," he said at the time. "This is a competitive from the inside-out team. No one can get comfortable with their spot."
I asked Forrest about Maniscalco again on Wednesday and he was pleased with how Maniscalco was working to get back into the lineup.
"He's been great," Forrest said. "He's had a really good attitude. It's not easy when you're starting to play pro, in particular with a couple of guys back in the lineup that were up in Pittsburgh earlier. That's a hard nut to crack, to be an everyday player. He's got some things that we've talked about where he's focusing on it in practice. He's making the most of his time on the ice. He's paying attention to particular players in our games and trying to learn from watching. I'm sure when he gets an opportunity, he'll step in and be just fine. But he's had a really good attitude throughout this whole thing, and that's not always easy to do."
• There are a couple of injured players -- Zach Trotman is still working back from knee surgery, Justin Almeida has a lower-body injury, Luke Stevens has an upper-body injury, and Felix Robert missed last game with a "nagging" upper-body injury. Zach Nastasiuk left last game after a hit from Derrick Pouliot, appearing to hurt one of his arms. He did return to the game, but didn't practice on Wednesday.
"Everyone's day-to-day," Forrest said. "All the guys are from that group. Felix Robert had a full practice today, Nastasiuk just had a maintenance day. Trotman also practiced full today. We're evaluating those on a day-to-day basis to see if they're ready for a game coming up here or if they might need more time. But everybody's progressing well at this point."
• Wilkes-Barre is coming off of a 3-2 overtime loss to Lehigh Valley. In hindsight, the blown offside call on the Phantoms' second goal of the game ended up being pretty significant for the outcome of the game:
The AHL does have coaches challenges and video review, with eight different reasons possible to challenge a goal. A missed offside call isn't one of them, so there's nothing the coaching staff could have done. I asked Forrest after practice if they noticed it at the time from the bench, and what the feeling is on the bench after a moment like that.
"Yeah," he laughed. "I was aware that it was offside. You know, it's not an easy game to call sometimes at full speed. It's not a perfect science to make those calls. We're just ready for things to go one way or the other. Sometimes things go our way, sometimes it goes the other one. We just have to be prepared for that. But yeah, that was a tough one. But like I said, it happens. We just have to, as a team, move on from it."