Chirps from Center Ice

Pens lose another shootout tonight 3-2. I’d rather lose and get points then lose and get no points. Exciting game tonight between these two heated rivals.

Brad Thiessen vs. Braden Holtby. Geoff Walker and Carl Sneep were in for Niko Dimitrakos and Cody Wild. Paul Thompson and Brian Gibbons still in the chateau le bow bow Hynes.

First Period: Teams would trade penalties to start then Robert Bortuzzo would get called for tripping. Ryan Potulny, fresh back from being injured would clean up a Julien Brouillette shot and put the Bears up 1-0. Fights would break out, with Ryan Schnell and Patrick Wellar fighting to a draw and Zach Sill playing a tune on Garrett Mitchell. Bears basically controlled the Penguins this period, limiting them to 4 shots on goal while taking 10 shots themselves.

Second Period: With Ryan Potulny in the box for a four minute high stick, Ben Street would tie the game after a nice tic tac toe play from Simon Despres and Bryan Lerg. Penguins would only allow Hershey three shots in the period while taking eleven themselves.

Third Period: Penguins could not capitalize on a 5-on-3 for :56 even with a time out. The power play all night looked discombobulated. That was probably the turning point even with a tied game to this point. Then, after an Alex Picard initial holding call, Boyd Kane would elbow a Penguin and get a five minute major for elbowing (above the head) and a ten minute misconduct and a game misconduct. In the melee, Robert Bortuzzo would also get a roughing minor. After, Ryan Potulny would net his second of the night to make it 2-1. Right after the power play for the Pens after all the rough stuff expired, Nick Petersen would score on a flying backhander to even things late. Onto overtime we’d go…

Overtime: Teams would get one shot on goal. Best was a Patrick McNeill shot Thiessen got a pad on.

Shootout: Potulny and Aucoin would score for the Bears and Bryan Lerg for the Pens and the Bears would skate away with the shootout win. Afterwards, Braden Holtby would hotdog a bit which drew the ire of Ryan Schnell who got a slashing penalty after everything settled down. Holtby received a five minute misconduct. The teams would chirp at center ice (see what I did there?) and cooler heads would prevail and the game was over.

Three Stars: 3) Ben Street (goal, assist, +1) 2) Ryan Potulny (two goals, -1) and 1) Keith Aucoin (game winning shootout goal)

Around the Division: Norfolk pumped Providence 5-1. Syracuse did the same to Binghamton 4-1.

Standings: WBS leads Hershey and Norfolk 25 points to 23 respectively. Then Syracuse has 21 points and Binghamton 16.

Conference: 1-StJ (28) 2-WBS (25) 3-CT (23) 4-HER (23) 5-NOR (23) 6-BRI (22) 7-ADK (21) 8-SYR (21)

7-1 in shootouts last year vs. 1-4 this year. Discuss amongst yourselves how, with the same goaltender, the deficit is what it is.

Onto Binghamton tomorrow. I will be there in attendance. Penguins are going to need to win and win big. Binghamton has not been kind to the Pens of late. We will see what happens.

Let’s Go Pens!