Chirps from Center Ice

Brock Trotter is becoming a pest to the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. He has four goals in the series. A series which has a total of 8 goals for the IceCaps and 7 goals for the Penguins. He scored the overtime game winner to put the IceCaps out ahead of the Penguins 2-1 and giving St. John’s a 2-1 lead in the series.

Penguins only held St. John’s to 18 shots on goal all game, including zero in the second period. Goaltender Eddie Pasquale was in a word, astonishing for the IceCaps this evening.

Pasquale vs. Brad Thiessen – no lineup changes for the Penguins. For the IceCaps Marco Rosa and Jason DeSantis were out and Maxime Macenauer and Zach Redmond were in.

First Period: Thiessen has to make some saves early, as the IceCaps came out with a bit of a jump in their step. Penguins had a few chances on Pasquale but he held them out. Late, a Zach Redmond slap pass to Brock Trotter beat Thiessen to put St. John’s on the board 1-0.

Second Period: You already know that the IceCaps did not have a single registered shot on goal on Thiessen. But this is not where the game was won for the Penguins. The IceCaps took three consecutive penalties, including two which put the Penguins on two separate 5-on-3’s. Cal O’Reilly had a sure goal which Pasquale somehow made a save on. Eric Tangradi and Geoff Walker got blown down on an offsides where they were attacking 2-on-1.

Third Period: Eric Tangradi was robbed by Eddie Pasquale when Pasquale somehow got a leg out across of where Tangradi was going to put the puck in the net. But, with 1:02 left in the game and with Thiessen on the bench, he would finally tuck one past Pasquale to even the score at one heading into…

Overtime: Penguins got the better of the chances. But, St. John’s would come in on a two on one crash and score. Guess who? Brock Trotter again.

The eventual St. John’s game winner was set up by the pinching of Philip Samuelsson. He let a man get by him and then the Penguins chased the length of the ice and got scored on. Need to be more disciplined than that, especially in overtime.

Three Stars: 3) Brad Thiessen (16 saves on 18 shots) 2) Eddie Pasquale 28 saves on 29 shots and 1) Brock Trotter (two goals, +2)

St. John’s has a 2-1 series lead in the best of seven with Game 4 coming tomorrow afternoon in Wilkes-Barre at 4:05.

I’ll end this recap with a game I just made up called “Pessimist / Optimist”

Pessimist: Anytime that Ben Street (8 GP, 1-0-1, -1) and Bryan Lerg (8 GP, 0-2-2, -2) want to show up in these Calder Cup Playoffs would be fine by this writer. They have pretty much been offensively invisible this postseason.

Optimist: Hold a team to 18 shots on goal, with none in the second period, and you will wear them down. One question which begs answering is whether or not Eddie Pasquale played his best game of the series tonight or not?

We find out I guess tomorrow at 4:05 p.m. Gameday up here on the blog at 12:05 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!