Chirps from Center Ice

Face it. No one expected Wilkes-Barre to win today. Nobody. I go on a lot of AHL boards, a lot of beat writers comment sections and follow a lot of fans on Twitter. No one had this Wilkes-Barre this afternoon.

Except me.

About two hours before puck drop…

http://twitter.com/#!/nafsnep/status/36829920189624320

Prior to that, I read this commentary in Sunday’s Citizens Voice from beat writer Jonathan Bombulie.

Penguins blitzkrieged the Bears today, winning 7-1. Now I will say that I did not expect a 7-1 whooping that the Penguins put on the Bears today. I expected a much tighter game.

Brad Thiessen vs. Todd Ford.

First Period: Corey Potter hook at 1:05 in. Bears have the 2nd ranked power play in the AHL. Here we go right? Nope. Zach Sill is no Dustin Jeffrey, but he scored a shorthanded goal and the floodgates opened. Later, Hutchinson came down the slot and chipped in a Ben Street feed from behind the net to make it 2-0. Later, Brian Strait would fire a puck from the blueline Ford could not see to make it 3-0. I love when Strait scores. They are postage stamp goals and boy are they pretty. The Bears would pressure the last third of the period but would not score. I though had they did, all the momentum would go out the window.

Second Period: Andrew Orpik would feed David Marshall to make it 4-0 and chase Ford. Have you driven a Ford lately? Jared DeMichiel would come in relief of Ford. Pens would have to kill off :56 of a 5 on 3 but would end up killing it and getting a power play. Ben Street would make it 5-0. Veilleux again would fire a shot at DeMichiel which Street cleaned up on the rebound. Pens didn’t stop there, Robert Bortuzzo came down the slot and received a Chris Collins centering bid to make it 6-0. He just picked a corner and it went in.

Third Period: Not much here in this period. The defense would not allow Hershey many chances, only allowing 4 shots all period. One of those however was a Brian Willsie rebound goal from a Sheldon Souray shot from the blueline. But later, Ryan Schnell would pick up his first AHL goal on a nice feed from David Marshall.

Bombulie had a nice postgamer himself. In it, Pens got a mountain of offense from a bunch of guys who you have never heard of. Seven different Penguins scored goals. More role players than anything, as Veilleux and Haddad and your more purer scorers did not find the score sheet. I could not be more proud of this organization and that group of guys that played today.

Around the Division: Charlotte beat Albany 3-2. Bingo beat Adirondack 4-3 in overtime and swept the weekend. The Senators are for real.

Standings: If we manufacture this kind of offense yesterday, we have a 12 point division lead. Instead we only have a 10 point division lead. 80-70 right now over Hershey. Charlotte sits third with 66 points. Idle Norfolk (who plays Hershey Tuesday at Scope) has 65 points for fourth. Binghanton has 62 points in fifth. Syracuse is sixth with 42 points. Albany seventh with 41. Adirondack gets the loser point and has 40 points.

This week: Hershey is in Norfolk Tuesday, and Albany plays a third game in a row in Charlotte. I’ll probably update periodically on Tuesday night on Twitter and will probably have something here on the blog then.

Proud of this team. You should be too. 80 points! WOO! Let’s Go Pens!