Don’t worry about the Hershey Bears.

Don’t worry about the Norfolk Admirals.

Don’t worry about the Charlotte Checkers.

Worry about the Binghamton Senators.

Bingo shutout the Penguins tonight 3-0 and with the win put itself three points to Charlotte for fourth and four points to Norfolk for third in the Division. Oh yeah, they will get about five players back from Ottawa when their season ends in a few weeks. The Senators are a thorn in the side of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. Wilkes went 0-4 in the regular season in Binghamton. 3-5 overall in the 8 game series. Oof. Dating back to last year, the Pens have lost seven straight games in Binghamton.*

John Curry vs. Robin Lehner. Patrick Killeen made it from Florida in time to make the trip.

First Period: Pens came out and just smothered the Sens. They had 1:10 of five on three to work with after Andre Benoit delay of game and a Ryan Keller hook. Pens could not score. Wilkes would not allow a SOG for 15:00 but then the Sens put three up in one shift. The top rated Sens power play would get a chance late with a Bryan Lerg hook but the Pens would hold the Sens to only one shot on goal more.

Second Period: While Steve Wagner was in the box for closing his hand on the puck, Andre Benoit would clank iron and put a puck in the net to give the B-Sens a 1-0 lead. Wheels would fall off afterwards, as Roman Wick just stickhandled right through Corey Potter to make it 2-0 after Jim O’Brien hacked and whacked on Curry’s pads until it went in.

Third Period: Five guys go after a puck in the defensive zone. I have it, no, you have it, no, I have it, no, wait…it’s a three on none for Binghamton. Ryan Keller scores to make it 3-0. Later, Steve Wagneer chases a puck in behind Lehner’s net and collides with him. The collision doesn’t look violent at all, but Wagner went off holding his wrist / arm / shoulder. I observed him walking out with his left arm not in his coat. Hynes told Bombulie in JB’s postgamer that Wags is out the rest of the weekend and maybe Wednesday @ Norfolk. Hello, Alex Grant. Late, the Pens would have a power play and pull Curry but not score.

Three Stars: Andre Benoit (game winning goal, even) Jim O’Brien (goal, two assists, +2) and Robin Lehner (31 save shutout)

I thought that after the Pens allowed a shot on goal the Pens folded up and went away. Almost like they expected to not give up a shot on goal. Despite that, you can’t hang this loss on John Curry. Hell, if Brad Thiessen was here he probably would have lost too. The Pens put up 31 shots on goal and only allowed 20. You take that going forward.

As an aside, nice to meet Bob Howard of the Power Play Post Show. If you haven’t heard his weekly radio show all about the AHL you should. It’s a great listen. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Around the Division. Help in the form of a Hershey loss to Adirondack 2-1 and a Norfolk was shutout by Manchester at home 4-0. Magic number to clinch the division, per Bombulie, is three. Elsewhere, Connecticut beat Charlotte in a shootout 3-2 and Syracuse beat Albany 6-2. In the Atlantic the Portland Pirates lost to Bridgeport 5-1.

Tomorrow: Wilkes-Barre travels to Adirondack, Hershey hosts Albany, Manchester and Norfolk rematch, Charlotte travels to Portland. Expect Killeen to get the nod in net tomorrow for Wilkes-Barre as Brad Thiessen is still in Pittsburgh with Brent Johnson sidelined with his upper body injury.

Go Pens.

* – Tony Androckitis with the research on this one

It looked like for much of the game tonight that the Albany Devils were going to get the first ever win in Devils minor league franchise history tonight. They did not. They battled the Penguins every step of the way tonight and the Pens prevailed in a shootout, 2-1. The win pushes the Pens to a franchise tying 51 win season, and 12 points up on Hershey for first with two games in hand and cuts the magic number to 5.

Brad Thiessen v. Mike McKenna. John Curry was back from his very minor injury. Alex Grant skated in warmups but was a scratch.

First Period: Keven Veilleux hit everything that moved in an early shift. He played well this game. Then, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond (PL3) sat for a roughing call and the Pens scored on the ensuing power play on a Ryan Craig hack and whack on McKenna’s doorstep. The teams would trade a few penalties in the last five minutes, seems like the last 5 was spent 4 on 4 and the score would be 1-0 Pens after 1.

Second Period: Devils had to kill off about :30 of an Adam Henrique boarding call. As he was coming out of the box a Devils player passed it to him wide open. He broke in and drew iron behind Thiessen. Zach Sill continued his strong play, everywhere on the PK and pretty much all game. Then, later in a scrum, PL3 scored on Thiessen. For those who are not familiar with his body of work, he has 250+ PIMs this year and is a fighter and not a scorer. It was really a bad goal given the circumstances because the Devils were out playing us.

Third Period: Pens would clamp down and allow Albany just three shots on goal all period. Brett Sterling and Ryan Craig would have a 2 on 1 chance and then later Ben Street and David Marshall. Neither would score. To overtime we went…

…other than a Brett Sterling high stick with 36 seconds left to play there were only a few anxious moments. To the shootout!

Keven Veilleux and Brett Sterling would score for Wilkes-Barre and Matt Anderson for the Devils.

Actually kind of sad to see it end in a shootout. I really wanted to see who would have scored what would have been the game winning goal. In playoffs, there are no shootouts.

Three Stars: PL3 (goal +1), Ryan Craig (goal, -1) and Brett Sterling (assist, game winning shootout goal)

Around the Division: Binghamton beat Syracuse 6-3 and Norfolk dropped Adirondack 2-1.

Standings: Pens get to 103 points and 12 up on Hershey’s 91. Survive the weekend with a 10 point lead and the race for the division is all but over. Norfolk and Charlotte are deadlocked in a tie for third with 86 points. Binghamton is fifth with 81 points and Albany, Syracuse and Adirondack are 65, 61 and 58 points respectively.

Friday: Charlotte is in Connecticut, Hershey travels to Adirondack, Manchester plays Norfolk in Virginia, Bridgeport plays Portland in Maine and the Penguins travel (as do I) to Binghamton in a must have game for their psyche. Binghamton has given us fits this year. We need to beat these guys soundly.

Go Pens.

Penguins get win 50 this afternoon vs. the Charlotte Checkers. Fourth time in team history with a 2-1 win over the Charlotte Checkers.

Brad Thiessen vs. Mike Murphy.

First Period: Early, Mike Murphy was on it, robbing Bryan Lerg. Later, Zack FitzGerald would sit for a rough and the Pens PP would go to work. It looked better than past power plays, but the same result in failing to score. First period was more of a defensive chess match and it would end scoreless.

Second Period: Still deadlocked at 0-0, the Pens were trying feathering passes which were knocked away by Charlotte. The power play would look bad in the second with Zach Boychuk in the box on a slash with the Pens playing dump and chase and ice the puck. Later, Zach Sill would keep a puck in by the far wall on his stomach and pass to Geoff Walker who passed to Nick Petersen who scored on a nifty spin-o-rama type move. Probably top three goals of the year right there.Then, Mike Murphy would come out of the game due to apparent injury. He was spilled behind the net with no call as play continued and Justin Pogge would come on in relief. Sill would get a good chance later but Pogge made the save.

Third Period: :21 in, Sill would score off of a nice centering feed from Geoff Walker and Keven Veilleux. That Walker-Sill-Veilleux line has been dynamite of late. The Pens would smother the Checkers every shift. Very late, I heard people in my section start saying “shutout” and I cringed. You never use that word until the game is over. Sure enough, a Bobby Sanguinetti was deflected by Chris Terry, who earlier with Pogge pulled swung and missed at a dropping puck on a wide open cage, broke up the shutout with 4.8 seconds left.

Three Stars: Nick Petersen: (goal, +1) Brad Thiessen (25 saves on 26 shots) and Zach Sill (game winning goal, assist, +2)

Bombulie had nice words to say about Zach Sill on his blog earlier. Really nothing more can be said about a fourth line mucker converted into a legit scoring threat every time he steps over the boards. Dustin Jeffrey, Eric Tangradi and Nick Johnson have some big shoes and Zach Sill is filling them nicely.

Around the Division: Syracuse beat Hershey 5-2. Hershey pumped 32 shots on goal and allowed 19 yet still lost. Binghamton beat Bridgeport in overtime 4-3.

Manchester lost to Worcester 3-2 and Portland beat Providence 5-3 so the Pirates go up 93-91 on the Monarchs and into second overall in the AHL.

Standings: Wilkes gets to 101 points, Hershey is 10 back with 91. Charlotte and Norfolk are tied with 84 points with Norfolk in third. Bingo sits fifth with 79 points. ALB 64, SYR 61 and ADK 58.

This week: Pens give back one of it’s three games in hand on the Bears when they take on the Albany Devils Wednesday at home in Wilkes-Barre. The Devils are 0-7 this season vs. the Pens and will be looking for the upset.

Bombulie says the magic number to clinch the division is 6. I am no math major and neither is Bombulie admittedly, so I guess I believe him. Don’t always believe what you read, @franki2003 says that the magic number is 7, with Norfolk having 12 games left if they won all of them they would finish with 108 points.

Go Pens.