Chirps from Center Ice

I lived in fear of this game all day long. One of the reasons was because half of our defense corps is in Hershey. Another being that Jason Williams was called up to Pittsburgh today and Joey Mormina was scratched as injured with an upper body injury. Bears are rolling right now. Pens were depleted. I expected a Bears win tonight.

Boy was I wrong. The Pens stuck with the Bears all game long then won the game in the first four minutes of the third period and won 4-2 this evening.

Scott Munroe vs. Braden Holtby. Zach Sill was back for the Penguins and Paul Thompson was scratched.

First Period: A spirited Ryan Schnell / Joel Rechlicz fight early set the tone. Credit Schnell for hanging in and dropping punches while having his head down. The Pens would have a 3-on-1 but not score. Patrick McNeill would go to the dressing room after getting a knee on knee hit from Paul Thompson but would return for the second.

Second Period: Ryan Potulny would score after a weird sequence which would see Carl Sneep clear a puck which trickled past Munroe but not in the net. Right after a Maxime Lacroix high sticking penalty Ben Street would score to even things at one.

I tweeted in the second period that Eric Tangradi looked disinterested in the game thus far as he was committing turnovers and just did not look like he was into the game to this point.

Third Period: :46 in, guess who? Eric Tangradi scored on a daft backhander to give the Pens the lead. About three minutes later, Tangradi would keep a puck in, pass to Colin McDonald who would find Bryan Lerg who scored on a wide open net to make things 3-1 Penguins. Hershey would muck things up post whistles to try an get the Pens to take penalties but WBS was 4-for-4 on the penalty kill. Late, with Holtby pulled, Graham Mink would knock the net off while McDonald was bearing down and Referee David Banfield awarded a goal. Late, Tomas Kundratek would get a goal to make it 4-2 but the Pens would hold on and win.

Again, was I expecting this? No. With the depletion on defense and Hershey running at near 100%, I was expecting a bit of a Bears blowout. I always harp  on those who doubt this team. Perhaps I need to harp on myself!

Three Stars: 3) Bryan Lerg (goal, assist, +2) 2) Scott Munroe (33 saves on 35 shots) 1) Eric Tangradi (goal, assist, +1)

So, basically, you need your best players to be your best players.

Around the Division: Norfolk beat Binghamton 5-2. The Ads and Penguins are tied in the East Division with 33 points a piece. Hamilton beat Syrause 4-1 in the Salt City.

Standings: WBS and Norfolk sit atop the division with 33 points. Norfolk actually gets first place on wins. Hershey is third with 31 points. Syracuse sits fourth with 25 points and Binghamton is last with 20 points.

Conference: 1-StJ (34) 2-CT (33) 3-NOR (33) 4-WBS (33) 5-MCH (32) 6-HER (31) 7-ADK (30) 8-ALB (27)

Tomorrow the Bears host the Norfolk Admirals in a game I’ll be watching on AHL Live.

Elsewhere, if you are looking for some Sunday reading or whatever, my fellow WBS blog pal Butch Petit caught up with Bryan Lerg in a neat interview. Check it out.

Pens back in business again Tuesday as they host the Binghamton Senators. If we should by chance get bodies back from Pittsburgh, I’ll do what I can keeping the blog updated.

Let’s Go Pens!