Chirps from Center Ice

Wilkes-Barre lays an egg vs. the defending champion Binghamton Senators tonight and Calder Cup MVP Robin Lehner stands on his head in the third period and the Penguins drop this one 3-1.

Depending on what side you come down on the fence, either a bad loss against the 30th out of 30 AHL teams or an insignificant one with the Pens clinching home use with a Hershey loss in Portland tonight. I’ll tend to lean towards a bad loss. Read on.

Brad Thiessen vs. Robin Lehner – no Black Aces warmed up. Philip Samuelsson took warmups but was scratched.

First Period: Off the hop, the Pens think they score but referee Jeff Smith rules the puck was kicked in. On a power play the Penguins score with Ryan Craig on the doorstep jamming one home past Lehner to put the Pens out ahead 1-0. Later, Mike Hoffman carries a puck in all by himself up the wing and backhands it past Thiessen to put the score even at 1 going into the…

Second Period: Patrick Cannone slices through the WBS defense and fires a wrist shot past Thiessen to put the B-Sens up 2-1. Then a scary moment as Ben Blood knocks over Brian Gibbons in the corner. Blood gets assessed a match penalty for a head check and the Penguins went on a 5:00 power play.

This turned out to be the turning point. The Penguins managed ONE shot on goal during the entire power play. Nothing could get established at all. Binghamton easily killed it. Gibbons was non the worse for wear after a brief visit in the locker room with the trainer.

Third Period: Pens would have the better of the chances by Robin Lehner was making save after save after save. Half of my game tweets in the third were all how Lehner would make great save after great save. Penguins would have a power play be negated by an Alex Grant hook. That would pass and late, the B-Sens would dump a puck in along the corner wall. Thiessen would come out to play it as he has a thousand times before. Only, the puck kicks off of an endplate and right to the stick of David Dziurzynski who had nothing but space and wide open net with Thiessen out of the picture behind the net. He buried it to make it 3-1.

The Penguins would pull Thiessen with about 2:45 left and couldn’t do anything with it.

Three Stars: 3) Ryan Craig (goal, -1) 2) Mike Hoffman (goal, +1) 1) Pat Cannone (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: Norfolk wins its 26th straight, 5-1 over Albany. Hershey loses in Portland 6-4. Syracuse lost 5-1 in Rochester.

Standings: Norfolk 107 / Penguins 93 / Hershey 88 / Syracuse 80 / Binghamton 62

Conference: 1-NOR (107) 2-StJ (92) 3-BRI (87) 4-WBS (93) 5-HER (88) 6-CT (84) 7-SYR (80) 8-POR (79)

First round matchup is set. It’s Wilkes-Barre / Hershey. Game 1 will be next Friday. Game 2 will follow Saturday. The whole schedule will be announced by the League at 11 am Saturday morning.

Bridgeport in tomorrow at 7 for the final regular season home game. The Sound Tigers wrapped up the Northeast Division Championship tonight. Gameday for this will be up at 3 p.m. on the blog.

I’d expect a better effort from the Penguins, but with these final two games pretty much meaningless, they may dress an all Black Aces squad tomorrow.

Let’s Go Pens!