PENS PLAYOFF PODCAST - Taylor Chorney

By Brian Coe

The Pittsburgh Penguins defensive corps was beset by injuries during the 2014-15 season, and as the team closed in on the playoffs, it saw the loss of two of its biggest cogs - Kris Letang and Christian Ehrhoff.

But those unfortunate circumstances led to opportunity for Taylor Chorney.

Now in his seventh professional season, Chorney was a huge part of the top-rated defense in the American Hockey League this season, leading Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with a plus-26 rating in 62 games.  He saw spot time in the NHL midway through the season, appearing in two games with the parent Penguins during late December and seeing 11 minutes of combined ice time in those contests.

But he took on a more prominent role with the big club after the injuries to Ehrhoff and Letang, when he averaged more than 14 minutes on the ice over the final five-games of the regular season.

His steady play in those contests led to an even bigger chance to show his shutdown style in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when he posted an even rating and average 16.6 minutes per game.

  

“Personally I think it was a great experience,” Chorney said of his first taste of the NHL playoffs.  “Just to kind of get a chance to go up there and test your game at that level and in those pressure situations, it was a lot of fun.”

Chorney has been paired with Brian Dumoulin in Wilkes-Barre for most of the season, and that duo combined to post a plus-51 rating in the regular season.  So, when Pittsburgh needed to add an another body on the blue line as the playoffs got underway, it was only natural that Dumoulin was summoned to pair with his AHL partner.

“For us to be able experience that type of atmosphere and big circumstances, it was a lot of fun for both of us,” Chorney said.  “We’ve had talks about it throughout the year, we’ve been playing together for a long time now in a lot of games. We were saying it would be cool to get a chance up there together and kind of see how our game translates.  And I think both of us were pretty happy with the way things went.”

Chorney and Dumoulin were two of the four players reassigned to Wilkes-Barre from Pittsburgh after the NHL team’s season came to an end (Scott Wilson and Derrick Pouliot were the others).  During Chorney’s absence from the AHL roster, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton posted a 7-2-0-0 regular season mark, and two impressive wins over the Syracuse Crunch in the postseason.  Still, he’s not concerned about disrupting the club’s current chemistry by being reinserted back into the lineup.

“The team’s been doing great for a month while we’ve been gone,” he said.  “It’s just a matter of kind of transiting back in and doing the same things I was before I got called up and trying to contribute in those little ways.”

FOLLOWING IN HIS FATHER’S SKATES:  When he suited up for Game One of the series against the Rangers, Chorney became the second member of his family to appear in a Stanley Cup playoff game with Pittsburgh.  His father, Marc, was a defenseman on the Penguins for parts of four seasons (1980-84), and appeared in seven postseason contests with the club.  He and his wife were able to see their son in action during Pittsburgh’s brief run this Spring.

“They came into New York for Game Two, and then from there they flew down to Pittsburgh and they caught Game Three in Pittsburgh,” said the younger Chorney.  “It was fun for me to be able to play in front of them like that in Madison Square Garden and also in Pittsburgh.  They hadn’t been back there in 30 years since my dad played there, so it was kind of a nostalgic feeling for them to come back and see the city where he started playing his carer.  Those were the first years they were married, so there’s probably a lot of memories.  It was cool for them.”