You never leave a game early. There is no such thing as tickets that let you watch 7 innings of a 9 inning baseball game or three quarters of a football game. You just never leave early.
Fans that did about 10 minutes left to go in the third period of tonight’s game are kicking themselves at this hour or have no idea that the Penguins won in a shootout 3-2. None.
John Curry vs. Dustin Tokarski tonight. Brett Sterling was sent down to WBS this morning. Of note, Mark Letestu played tonight in Toronto for Pittsburgh, might we see Joe Vitale tomorrow afternoon vs. Springfield?
First Period: Jesse Boulerice turned the puck over in the Pens zone and Levi Nelson converted to make it 1-0 about halfway through. To here, the Pens were flatter than week old soda left out. Sold out house and the Pens were just awful. Somehow, the shots through 1 were 10-7 WBS.
Second Period: Pens still playing horrible. Blair Jones makes it 2-0 at 6:29. John Hynes went for a goaltender change, pulling Curry in favor of Thiessen. I think this was more to wake up the team and shake things up then it was a knock on John Curry, who I thought played well enough to that point to remain in the game. A forgettable period in my opinion, as Norfolk out shot the Penguins 14-6. At one point it was 11-2. Really bad.
Second intermission: I tweeted this:
http://twitter.com/#!/nafsnep/status/41674394061377536
Eerie how I know my team so well and have my finger right on the pulse of what is going on, I am an insurance adjuster by trade, have no formal journalism schooling and am not a beat writer, but what happened in the third really made me look like I know what I am talking about. (Which I never claim to know what I am talking about)
First ten minutes of the third: Wilkes-Barre had two shots on goal by my rough math. Second ten minutes, the comeback began. By rights, it really was the last 5 minutes that the comeback started. 4:27 to be exact, as with Blair Jones sitting for slashing, Robert Bortuzzo would fire a puck on net and cut the deficit to 2-1. About a minute and a half later, Ben Street would fire a puck at Tokarski which found what the back of the net. In soccer they call them “postage stamp” goals because the puck went in the extreme upper right hand corner. Celebrate good times. I went nuts. High fiving people all over the place. I cheered so hard my right shoulder hurt.
Overtime: Nothing to see here. Pens came out and were all over the Admirals.
Shootout: It went 11 rounds. Every time we scored, Norfolk scored. If we missed, they missed. Until…..
Joey Haddad saves the day. To here, Haddad was on a one way ticket back to the Wheelhouse. Sayonara Stephanie as he was taking dumb penalties and was a turnover machine. Rectified.
Robert Bortuzzo played like a man possessed the last ten minutes. Brett Sterling played big minutes. Final shots on goal were 32-27 Penguins with the Pens outshooting the Admirals 11-5 the final period.
Three Stars: Robert Bortuzzo (goal, -1), Ben Street (goal, assist, +1), Joey Haddad (game winning shootout goal)
Around the Division: Hershey wins 4-3. Keith Aucoin had assists on all the goals. Charotte shuts out Connecticut, 1-0. Mike Murphy the shutout in that one. Rochester beat Binghamton in a shootout 3-2. Hamilton beat Syracuse 3-2 and Adirondack beat Worcester 2-1 in a shootout.
Standings: Wilkes-Barre preserves an eight point lead over Hershey, 86 to 78. Charlotte draws within two of the Bears with 76 points in third. Binghamton is in fourth with 71 points. That is not an opening round playoff matchup I want right now. Norfolk is in fifth with 69 points. Albany is a distant sixth with 48 points, Adirondack close with 47 in seventh and Syracuse is last overall in the league with 46 points.
Tomorrow: Hershey is in Bridgeport. Bingo is in Adirondack. Norfolk travels to Albany. WBS still has a game in hand over Hershey.
Maybe we stole one tonight, maybe we didn’t. I will leave you with this money quote. Go Pens.
“We actually refuse to lose” – Joey Mormina, Penguins Defenseman
WBS News
Chirps from Center Ice 