Chirps from Center Ice

Wilkes-Barre is not able to get the winning streak to nine game this evening and subsequently lost to the Norfolk Admirals 5-3. Pens looked flat exhausted all weekend. They willed their way to a win last night in Hershey and had a 3-1 lead before coughing up a four goal third period by the Admirals to lose.

Brad Thiessen vs. Dustin Tokarski. Dustin Jeffrey was a scratch tonight. Word on radio was that Pittsburgh wanted him to sit due to a lot of minutes played the last two games (Norfolk Wednesday and Hershey Friday) Matt Rust was called up from Wheeling in his place.

First Period: Jason Williams banged home a Colin McDonald feed from behind the net to put the Pens up early. The teams would trade power plays. Then, with Norfolk’s Jeff Dimmen in the box for tripping Bryan Lerg, Radko Gudas would score shorthanded. A miscommunication between the defensemen led to the turnover and the Gudas score. Norfolk seemed to me to have the period in control the whole way despite the 8-5 shots on goal advantage the Pens had.

Second Period: Ben Street would zip a shot past Tokarski to make it 2-1 then Niko Dimitrakos would score on a 2 on 1 to make it 3-1. Pest Eric Neilson was pestering Nick Petersen for a fight at center ice and in his badgering let the Pens come in 2 on 1 and score. Neilson would find a fight partner in the form of Steve MacIntyre. MacIntyre absolutely destroyed Neilson. I mean absolutely manhandled him. To Neilson’s credit, while eating about seven or eight bombs from MacIntyre, did not buckle once. This would end up being the turning point for WBS as they would look flat afterwards.

Third Period: All credit to Norfolk. Down 3-1 and having MacIntyre rearrange the face of Eric Neilson they could have folded up and went home. Not these pesky Admirals, they scored four times to win. First was a Cory Conacher clean up on a rebound while the Admirals were on the power play. Second was Mark Barberio on a slapshot from the far circle Thiessen never saw when Brian Gibbons was in the box for tripping. Third was Dana Tyrell on a mini break which Thiessen got a part of but it went 5-hole and in and finally an empty netter late which technically counts as a power play goal so three power play goals in the period alone.

Three Stars: 3) Ben Street (goal, even) 2) Dana Tyrell (game winning goal, assist, +1) and 1) Mark Barberio (goal, two assists, +1)

I felt like WBS chased it the remainder of the night after the MacIntyre / Neilson fight. That the defense allowed four straight goals in the third when this is something we pride ourselves on is not acceptable.

WBS will need to regroup and will. Rare Tuesday game when the defending Calder Cup champion Binghamton Senators come to town hungry for a win.

Around the Division: Hershey and Binghamton were idle. Albany shutout Syracuse 1-0.

Standings: WBS leads by one point over Norfolk, 20 to 19. Hershey has 17 points, Syracuse 15 and Binghamton 12.

Conference: St. John’s still leads overall 23 points to WBS’ 20. Then it goes Adirondack (yes, Adirondack) 17 points as the Northeast Division leader. It’s actually quite the logjam in that division as three teams have 17 points currently and last place Springfield sits just three points back. Not bad for a division which everyone thought would be  the weakest in the Eastern Conference. Four thru Eight go: 4-NOR (19) 5-HER (17) 6-CT (17) 7-ALB (17) 8-SYR (15)

May run a few things here and there between now and Tuesday. Check back often!

Let’s Go Pens!