Anthony Angello said that the last two months for him felt like "your engine is revving, but you're stuck in neutral."
Angello was waived by the Penguins following the NHL training camp and assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He was listed on Wilkes-Barre's lineup sheet for the season opener on Oct. 16, but was later announced as a late scratch.
"It was just right before the game. Just honestly, I rolled my ankle," Angello told me after Saturday's game. "It wasn't planned. It wasn't intentional. And it's just unfortunate that it happened and it turned out to be as bad as it was."
It took Angello much longer than anticipated to be able to return to Wilkes-Barre's lineup.
When Angello missed those first two games, the update provided by J.D. Forrest was "day-to-day, nothing too crazy but something that needs to be monitored." That later changed to week-to-week. He ended up missing almost two full months to start the season, making his season debut in Saturday's 3-2 overtime loss to the Bears at home.
"It took a handful of weeks, about five, six weeks to get back in the ice and get skating again," Angello said. "It was really frustrating. I was excited to come down and play, and it was unfortunate with the timing of it."
Angello said that he tried to take advantage of this time sidelined, and focused on getting stronger in the gym. He said that he was a little limited early on in the rehab process, but was able to do a lot of upper-body, core, and lower-body work in the gym with Wilkes-Barre strength and conditioning coach Mike Joyce.
"Joycer loves his conditioning," he said. "So I had to crush a lot of those."
Angello was set to make his season debut last Friday in Wilkes-Barre's road game against the Syracuse Crunch, just a 20-minute drive east of Angello's hometown of Manlius. The game -- and three more games after that -- was postponed due to a COVID outbreak on Wilkes-Barre, pushing Angello's debut back an additional two weeks.
"I'm gonna be honest, that sucked," he said. "I was really excited to come back and play last Friday, it was a homecoming for me a little bit in Syracuse. You know, I had about 20 people coming that I knew of, I'm sure a handful of others. And to go on a five-day break there, we weren't allowed to really do anything, that just again wasn't ideal. Another bump in the road. But it is what it is, you overcome it and move on."
After that short break in which Wilkes-Barre wasn't doing anything in-person to try to quell the outbreak, Wilkes-Barre returned to the ice with just small group skates with the healthy players, and Friday's practice was the first full practice with the team since the outbreak. When players were away from the rink, Forrest said that they were able to do "extensive" video work. Though Angello didn't have the benefit of reviewing any video of his own play this season, he said that being able to have that video work helped him in getting re-acclimated before his season debut.
"I think it was very helpful," he said. "I'm pretty visual learner, I like to see the things I do well, see the things I do poorly and can work on, and overall see the team as a whole in different situations, whether it's power play, penalty kill, or things that we're doing really well as a team, things we need to work on that's trending the wrong way, whatever it might be."
Angello debuted on the second line alongside Filip Hallander and Michael Chaput. The line didn't record any points, and each player recorded one shot on goal.
"We found each other, we were open, we made plays," Angello said. "It was a little bit evident tonight, there's areas where we'll be able to find each other and make little plays. Obviously it was our first game together. So I say we're going nowhere but up from here."
Angello said that he had a little bit of "nerves" to start the game, but that after those were out of the way he just had "a lot of fun."
"You know, it's kind of like riding a bike, you have to go out there and some timing is off, but it felt really good to go out there and play," he said.
The AHL doesn't publicly track hits as a statistic, so I couldn't give you Angello's hit count in this game. But from the first shift, it was clear that he didn't have any problems readjusting to the physical side of the game and bringing the hard-hitting style of play he typically has.
"It's more of a mindset, just about keeping your feet moving and playing physical," he said. "It's something I've done for a long time. I feel like it's natural instinct by this point."
Forrest said that Angello "played his style" in his return.
"He used his size, his speed, he took it to the net few times," Forrest said. "He's a tough guy to play against, you know, he makes the other team think twice when he's on the ice because he's physical. But his speed and his size, he's able to get places real fast, and his shot is so dangerous."
Angello didn't find the back of the net quite yet, but Forrest said that he thought Angello had some "good looks" that were just near-misses, and that he'll get on the scoresheet sooner rather than later.
"I'm sure he'll calibrate his sights here for the next game," Forrest said. "But for the first game, he was real solid for us."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• This was Wilkes-Barre's first game since Nov. 27 after games last Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday were postponed due to COVID protocols. Goaltender Alex D'Orio, forwards Jan Drozg, Justin Almeida, Jordy Bellerive, and Sam Poulin, and defenseman Juuso Riikola remain in COVID protocol. Forrest thought that his team handled the situation well in Saturday's game.
"Considering the situation we were in and the time that we had off in between games, and just trying to get back into a situation where you're game ready, I thought our guys handled it really well," he said.
• Because of the number of players in protocol, Wilkes-Barre dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with defenseman Will Reilly shifting up to the fourth line alongside Nick Hutchinson and Nathan Legare. I asked Forrest after the game what about Reilly's game made him the guy to move up to forward.
"He's a good skater," Forrest said. "His shot is pretty dangerous. He's a heavy guy to play against. So we thought him up and down the wing might help us out there with limited options. I thought he did a great job. Not a ton of ice time, it's a weird situation. I've been in it before, where you're just trying to make sure that you do the right thing out there as a forward when you're not used to being up ice with everything behind you. And it's just a different feeling. So I thought Will handled it great."
• The game was Hutchinson's AHL debut, and he recorded one shot on goal, one minor penalty, and and even plus/minus. Hutchinson, a 26-year-old center, is a product of Canisius College and played his first professional season last year in the ECHL with the Indy Fuel. He was acquired by Wheeling before this season and is the Nailers' leading-scorer with nine goals and 16 assists in 18 games. He was signed by Wilkes-Barre to a PTO this week.
"Just a really smart player," Forrest said of Hutchinson. "You know, he kind of can do a little bit of everything. If he's in a top line role like he is in Wheeling he can make some plays. And then if you ask him to play more of a grinding, fourth-line, responsible-type role, he can do that as well. So we like his smarts out there. That's one of the reasons that he was one of the guys we wanted up to help us out here. And I thought it was really good for his debut for us."
• With Filip Lindberg and Louis Domingue injured, D'Orio in protocol, the only healthy goaltender on the roster over the last week was Tommy Nappier. The team signed Sebastien Caron -- yes, former Penguins goaltender Sebastien Caron -- to a PTO on Dec. 1 then released him two days later, presumably so he would be eligible to practice with the team in those small group sessions. He was signed again to a PTO on Dec. 8 and remains on the active roster as of Saturday night.
• Caron didn't back up Nappier in Saturday's game, though. The Penguins signed 24-year-old goaltender Matt Jurusik to a PTO on Friday, and he served as backup. Jurusik was playing for the Idaho Steelheads in the ECHL, where he went 5-2-1 with a 1.86 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage.
• Nappier made 27 saves on 30 shots in Saturday's overtime loss. Wilkes-Barre plays again on Sunday afternoon, and I asked Forrest if Nappier would start back-to-back, or if they had another plan. He said they didn't have an answer yet.
• Valtteri Puustinen opened the scoring (and the teddy bear toss) with his sixth goal of the year, with assists to Felix Robert and Mitch Reinke:
• After Hershey made it 2-1, Robert tied the game off of a feed from Radim Zohorna for his fifth goal of the year:
• The power play went 0-for-5. The first unit was Reinke, Puustinen, Angello, Hallander, and Zohorna. The second unit was Cam Lee, Chaput, Hutchinson, Robert, and Legare.
"I mean, it's a bit frustrating," Forrest said of the power play. "I'm not going to lie. It's another game where we have opportunities on the power play to go ahead or pad the lead when we had it. And we don't. I do think that we had some really good looks, some good chances, there goalie was able to make some saves. This is one of those things you just kind of keep digging out of. I think the effort was there, we had the right mindset, which is 90% of it. Now we got to find the back of the net."
• The penalty kill went 3-for-4.
• The ugly Christmas sweater jerseys worn by the team are available for auction here.
WBS PENGUINS
Will Reilly models the Penguins' ugly Christmas sweater jerseys.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza:
1. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Bears
2. Felix Robert, Penguins
3. Valtteri Puustinen, Penguins
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• Goaltender Filip Lindberg is week-to-week with a lower-body injury sustained during the game on Nov. 12.
• Goaltender Louis Domingue is day-to-day with a lower-body injury sustained during practice on Dec. 2.
• Forward Kasper Bjorkqvist is day-to-day with a lower-body laceration sustained during the game on Nov. 24.
• Goaltender Alex D'Orio, forwards Jan Drozg, Justin Almeida, Jordy Bellerive, and Sam Poulin, and defenseman Juuso Riikola are in COVID protocol.
THE LINEUPS
Forrest's lines and pairings:
Felix Robert - Radim Zohorna - Valtteri Puustinen
Filip Hallander - Michael Chaput - Anthony Angello
Jamie Devane - Jonathan Gruden - Kyle Olson
Will Reilly - Nick Hutchinson - Nathan Legare
Cam Lee - Taylor Fedun
P.O Joseph - Matt Bartkowski
Niclas Almari - Mitch Reinke
And for Scott Allen's Bears:
Joel Snively - Garrett Pilon - Axel Jonsson-Fjallby
Shane Gersich - Mike Vecchione - Matt Moulson
Kale Kessy - Mason Morelli - Kody Clark
Ryan Dmowski - Drake Rymsha - Eddie Wittchow
Michal Kempny - Bobby Nardella
Alexander Alexeyev - Cody Franson
Tobias Geisser - Dylan McIlrath
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins have a quick turnaround, and will host the Springfield Thunderbirds on Sunday at 3 p.m.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
