Chirps from Center Ice

Penguins win a penalty-fest tonight 4-2 to pull four points ahead of rival Hershey Bears and home ice in Round 1 of the Calder Cup Playoffs in a few weeks. It was head coach John Hynes’ 100th regular season AHL victory.

Regardless, a typical Penguins / Bears game on a Friday night in the AHL. Maybe it’s because I have so much respect for the Bears, but I was on the edge of my seat all night.

Brad Thiessen vs. Dany Sabourin – news du jour was that Steve MacIntyre was recalled to Pittsburgh for tomorrows Penguins / Flyers game.

First Period: Penalties would make this post gamer about 1,000 words.* I’m not going to recap each one obviously, or else you would miss the first period of Penguins / Whale tomorrow by the time you are done reading this. Geoff Walker deflected a Jason Willimas point shot while Julien Brouillette was in the box for hooking. This was predicated by 4:00 of power play the Pens had when Billy Ryan was in the box for Hershey on a high stick double minor.

First period shots on goal were thirteen for the Penguins and four for the Bears. Really a dominating period for Wilkes-Barre despite nearly half of it being on the penalty kill, it seemed.

Second Period: Scary moment as Joey Mormina caught Ryan Potulny up high and shook Potulny up a bit. Julien Brouillette came over to defend his felled teammate and ended top getting an extra minor for roughing. in the ensuing power play, Brandon DeFazio outworked everyone and backhanded it in and past Sabourin to make it 2-0 Penguins. Hershey would use its time out.

What a timeout by head coach Mark French, as the Bears score two goals in the span of :41 and evened things. Both goals scored by Kyle Greentree, even strength and on the power play, respectively.

Third Period: Penguins failed to score on a five-on-three penalty. Then, Zach Sill and David Marshall fought after a hard hit from Marshall on Sill. Marshall would get an extra two for interference and in the ensuing power play Ben Street would tip home a Joey Mormina point shot to put the Pens out in front for good, 3-2. Penguins would then have to kill a Robert Bortuzzo tripping call. Penguins killed it, then Chris Bourque took a slashing call with under two minutes left, Hershey would pull Sabourin and Nick Petersen would score an empty netter to seal it.

Three Stars: 3) Geoff Walker (goal, -1) 2) Kyle Greentree (two goals, +1) and 1) Ben Street (game winning power play goal, assist, even)

Penguins get three power play goals. Not bad, considering the Bears had the third overall best and sixth best road penalty kill unit.

Around the Division: Norfolk wraps up the regular season title with a 3-1 victory against the Binghamton Senators. That’s twenty-four straight wins for the Admirals. Syracuse lost to Bridgeport in my “other game to watch” tonight by a score of 3-1.

Standings: Norfolk 105 / Penguins 91 / Hershey 87 / Syracuse 78 / Binghamton 62

Conference: 1-NOR (105) 2-StJ (90) 3-BRI (87) 4-WBS (91) 5-HER (87) 6-CT (82) 7-SYR (78) 8-MCH (77)

After the game, Dany Sabourin was headed to New York City to join parent club Washington Capitals. He will be back Sunday.

Tomorrow Connecticut is in for a 7:05 face-off. Gameday up at 3. Keep me on your Twitter feeds in case there are more call ups for tomorrow’s meaningless game vs. the Philadelphia Flyers. It’s Pens-Flyers Round 1 up top, so we will see what, if anything, happens tomorrow.

Let’s Go Pens!

* – only 575 words tonight.