Chirps from Center Ice

Pens with their eight game on the road today, tying a record they themselves set earlier this year. They score two power play goals and two shorthanded goals and win this game against Syracuse by the score of 4-3.

Alex Grant continued his hot hand. Two assists on the two power play goals. This give Grant a sum total of eight points this weekend. The AHL usually puts out who the Player of the Week is around noontime Monday on it’s PR feed, so watch for that or just follow me on Twitter for reactions around lunchtime tomorrow.

Brad Thiessen vs. Iiro Tarkki. Kyle Palmieri returned for Syracuse and Jason Williams was re-assigned by Pittsburgh today and both skated.

First Period: A Luca Caputi hook on the aforementioned Jason Williams gave the Pens a power play a little over seven minutes in. The Pens must have worked on power play in practice because it looks like a completely different unit out there. They scored when Colin McDonald scored his 11th goal of the season. Then, the Crunch got one back when Bryan Rodney scored from the high slot on a shot that Thiessen never saw. Ben Street would get whistled for holding late and Zach Sill picked off a pass in the neutral zone and scored a shorthanded goal with 4.3 seconds left to put the Pens up 2-1 heading into the…

Second Period: Penguin killer Kyle Palmieri scores for the Crunch from the high dot to even things at two. Later, J-F Jacques hooks Cody Wild and the Pens headed back to the power play again. The Pens would work with four forwards and one defenseman. The one defenseman? Alex Grant. He passed to Williams at the point who rifled it home to put the Pens up 3-2. At the end of the period, the Pens would find themselves defending a 5-on-3 with Brian Strait and Joey Mormina in the box. The Pens would kill the Strait penalty and as he broke from the box, Ryan Craig hit him in stride and he would score on a breakaway. Huge goal at the time.

Third Period: About five minutes into the game and the Pesky Crunch came guns blazing. A failed clear by the Pens found its way to, who else? Kyle Palmieri and the Crunch had life at 4-3. The Pens held off the charge however and the Pens skated off with the two points.

Three Stars: 3) Alex Grant (two assists, even) 2) Kyle Palmieri (two goals, even) and 1) Jason Williams (goal, -2)

Around the Division: Manchester comes to Hershey and sweeps the Bears in a two game series and wins 4-2. The Bears have lost three straight and for the first time under the Washington Capitals affiliation, have gone winless in three-in-three weekend. With the loss, that moves the Penguins into the top spot in the Conference. In the other division game, Binghamton beat Adirondack 4-3.

Standings: Penguins at the top of the division with 55 points. Bears have 55 but the Pens own the tiebreaker (overall wins) Norfolk has 53 points in third.  Crunch have 41 points, Senators have 38 points.

Conference: 1-WBS (55) 2-HER (54) 3-CT (46) 4-HER (55) 5-NOR (53) 6-WOR (48) 7-MCH (48) 8-POR (47)

Pens have off tomorrow, practice Tuesday and host the Providence Bruins Wednesday night in Wilkes-Barre.

Let’s Go Pens!