Chirps from Center Ice

If they went ahead and never kept score, you would think that the Penguins dominated parts of, if not all of, this game tonight. If there is anything to be taken from a 5-2 loss on home ice tonight by a very well put together St. John’s IceCaps team it is this: The Penguins can bang with anyone and run with them too.

However when your starting goaltender lets in the first three shots he sees and you don’t have your star player and leading point getter in Bryan Lerg in the lineup, you get what you got, a hard fought game in the end, decided by goals which matter.

Scott Munroe vs. Eddie Pasquale

Lineup Notes: Bryan Lerg was out again with an injury. He played Sunday in Adirondack and missed the Norfolk game last Sunday, so whatever it is that he has, is nagging him. Matt Rust took his spot. I blogged earlier in the day about Clear Day rosters. You can click here or just scroll down if you are on the main page of the blog.

First Period: Penguins were on a power play when John Albert scored on a 2-on-1 pass from Garth Murray. Nothing really Munroe could do about that one. Penguins were buzzing all about the place, narrowly missing chance after chance. Then Brandon DeFazio took an inopportune roughing penalty and in the ensuing St. John’s power play, Paul Postma turned his stick into a rifle and picked off both Matt Rust and Zach Sill with shots and then ultimately fired a puck on net that Carl Klingberg got a stick on and the IceCaps were up 2-0 on two shots. Sill went to the locker room and returned later, Rust never missed a shift. Later, Ex-Penguin Jason DeSantis scored from the blue line and that was the end of Munroe, rearing three goals on three shots. Patrick Killeen came on in relief. Still, the Penguins were gravely outplaying the IceCaps and finally, with :31 left, Simon Despres scored from the blue line to make it 3-1.

Shots were 11-4 in favor of the Penguins and again, the IceCaps were being outplayed.

Second Period: Really a rough sequence for referees T.J. Luxmore and Francis Charron. The NHL wants to develop referees in the AHL to be full time someday in “the show” – they use a four man officiating system in the NHL. The AHL is slowly implementing a four man system as well. Tonight, you could have have ten referees out there and they would have still missed both Carl Sneep and Paul Thompson getting sliced wide open on sticks from the opposing team. Both Sneep / Thompson left the ice for repairs with no calls of penalties.

To game action, Brian Gibbons snuck behind the defense and scored to make it 3-2. Really a big goal in the moment cause you could feel the comeback coming.

Third Period: St. John’s would take a too many men on the ice call and Arturs Kulda would score shorthanded on a blue line snipe which eluded Killeen. Really a deflating goal in hindsight because later Ray Sawada would score after Killeen comes out square to stop a shot, drops the rebound, realizes he is out too far when Sawada pounced on it and scored it.

After that, nothing big happened.

Three Stars: 3) Jason DeSantis (goal, +1) 2) Ray Sawada (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Arturs Kulda (goal, assist, +3)

Around the Division: They all watched us as no one skated.

Standings: Norfolk 81. Penguins 73. Hershey 71. Syracuse 56. Binghamton 50.

Conference: 1-NOR (81) 2-StJ (77) 3-BRI (70) 4-WBS (73) 5-HER (71) 6-CT (68) 7-ALB (63) 8-WOR (61)

Don’t want to be too wordy, but the Penguins needed this game and these points if they wanted to be serious about a comeback for East Division leaders. Hopefully Coach Hynes uses this as a learning tool and the guys learn from it and adjust. I think we are past the “crumble it up and forget it” phase. Especially when the home record is a sour 12-13-2-2. Maybe this three game road trip shakes some sense into them.

Late Edit: One thing I wanted to mention was that Lightning goaltender Mathieu Garon left the game vs. Ottawa tonight with an injury. Look for Dustin Tokarski to get the call. Aftermath, Garon will need an MRI.

Depending on content, I will try to keep the content on the blog fresh. I am planning on chasing the Pens this weekend, so there’s that.

Let’s Go Pens!