Chirps from Center Ice

I said in today’s Gameday post that Zac Dalpe and Zach Boychuk make the Charlotte Checkers legit threats for as long as they are in the minor leagues. I was right.

For Boychuk, a hat trick and an assist. For Dalpe, 4 assists.

Andrew Hutchinson for the Pens was a -3 and so was Joe Vitale. For Hutchinson he is aggregate -6 for the weekend and was virtually invisible all weekend. Eric Tangradi was very undisciplined this game, he had a goal, but took two misconduct penalties in the third and really put his team down.

John Curry vs. Justin Pogge. Hutchinson in, Schnell scratched, WBS rolled 7 D again.

First Period: Charlotte threw things at us that we either 1) never seen before 2) were just not ready for. Before the game was 10 minutes old the Pens were down 2-0 with goals from Boychuk and Micflikier. The cranked down defensively, and on the power play used slap passes and misdirection plays to befuddle Curry. The Pens just appeared flat (tired) and late Jon Matsumoto was left all alone in front for the easy deflection goal. Hockey players spend hours deflecting pucks in and world class players like Matsumoto are not going to miss with time and space. Luckily, two minutes later, Chris Collins came in unassisted and scored to make it 3-1. But, :35 later, Zach Boychuk scored again to make it 4-1. It was a bouncing puck Curry should have covered. I think at this point if Thiessen is in the tunnel he comes out in relief. Jacob Micflikier would get caught high-sticking at with 4.2 seconds and Brett Sterling would score with 0.3 left on the clock to make it 4-2.

Shots, irrelevant 13-12 in my opinion. Pens had all the momentum in the world going into the second.

Second Period: The bad blood between the two teams boiling, Tim Wallace would bat a puck  out of mid-air at center ice, skate in all alone and score to make it 4-3. He bunted the puck in after whiffing on his stomach. What an effort. Justin Pogge then started to rile up the crowd by holding onto Vitale after he crashed the net. Then, he gets away with a delay of game call. Brett Bellemore would sit for hooking and Eric Tangradi would cash in to tie the score at 4.

At this point I am thinking to myself that nothing can hold this team down. Not a thing. If we came back to win the game after being down 4-1, it would be a shot across the bows of all the teams in the league that nothing can stop us.

Well the comeback died after that as Charlotte would go one to score five unanswered goals. More lackadasical defense by Corey Potter led to a Riley Nash goal, this coming after he let Zach Boychuk skate by him. Then at 19:38 of the second Oskar Osala and Keven Veilleux would get matching Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties. While the referees were trying to sort it out, Pogge started chirping our bench. Out of it, we got a bench minor for Unsportsmanlike Conduct and a Checker power play. After the period would end, Justin Pogge took a run at Robert Bortuzzo, then started fighting Joe Vitale! Out of it, Pogge would get 4 minutes for roughing and Joe Vitale would get 2 for roughing but I thought it should have been more for Pogge. Recently he went off in Hershey and was turfed. Regardless, the period would end 5-4 Checkers. Shots that period were 12-4 Penguins.

Third period: Thought Charlotte / Pogge would get destroyed. Nope. Tangradi would sit for a slash, Bryan Rodney would convert to make it 6-4. After Michal Jordan scored to make it 7-4, Patrick Killeen would relieve Curry. Joe Vitale would get caught hooking, Eric Tangradi said something to Ian Croft he didn’t like, and was taken in for a 10:00 misconduct, and Zach Boychuk would get his hat trick to make it 8-4. Wilkes-Barre timeout. Drayson Bowman would score to make it 9-4.

Everyone in white stopped playing. Not Brett Sterling, who wristed a shot past Pogge to make it 9-5. Time would run out and that was it.

Three stars: Sterling, Dalpe and Boychuk.

Thoughts: Don’t blame Curry. Blame fatigue on Curry. Not his fault we lost this game. We scored 5 goals which on any given night means you win. Charlotte came in rested, after bussing up from North Carolina. They are legit with Boychuk and Dalpe in the lineups. Look for a completely different game Wednesday.

Around the Division: Don’t look now. That sound you hear in the distance is the Big Bear Machine warming up. Bears beat Adirondack today 5-1 and sweep the weekend’s games by going 18-5 in aggregate. Quite impressive without Braden Holtby in town on recall to parent Washington. However, while sweeping the weekend, the Bears opponents are a combined 48-74-5-8.

Standings: A push weekend for Wilkes-Barre. They started 11 points up on the Admirals and it remains that way. WBS has 68 points, Norfolk 57, Charlotte and Hershey 55, Binghamton 51, Albany 37, Syracuse 37 and Adirondack 31.

This week: Norfolk is in Atlantic leading Portland Tuesday in a game I am looking forward to watching on AHL Live. Rematch Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre vs, the Checkers. Bingo is in Adirondack and Hershey hosts the Springfield Falcons while Norfolk is in Manchester. Big week ahead before the All-Star break.

Let’s Go Pens!