No silly headlines for games which don’t count. No box score either.
Wilkes-Barre wins its preseason opener on the road up in Rochester by a score of 4-3.
Jeff Zatkoff vs. David Leggio. Starters for WBS were Dumolin – Sneep and Uher – Chupp – Payerl. Riley Holzapfel wore the lone “A”
First Period: Penguins found themselves on penalty kill early. Brian Gibbons had a shorthanded chance twice in one kill. Penguins created enough pressure which lead to at least four Penguin odd man rushes. Paul Thompson scored the first goal of the preseason skating out of a corner and firing up on Leggio then whacking twice and finally by the Amerks netminder for the 1-0 lead. Penguins had a late 5-on-3 but weren’t able to score.
Second Period: Brian Gibbons had another shorthanded chance. Later, Jayson Megna scored to make it 2-0 Penguins off a rebound from a Brian Dumoulin shot which hit the post. Amerks fired right back getting two power play goals from Luke Adam and Phil Varone.
Third Period: Patrick Killeen took over for Zatkoff. Uneventful opening fifteen minutes. Adam Payerl scored to make it 3-2. His initial shot was blocked, rebound right back to him and he fired it through a crowd. Rochester pulled Leggio with under a minute. Philip Samuelsson would sit for delay of game putting the Amerks up 6-on-4. Brian Gibbons, from his own faceoff dot 160′ away, buries an emptynetter to make it 4-2. It would serve as the game winning goal as Brayden McNabb would score with :02 left.
Three stars were 3) Mark Pysyk (RCH) 2) Adam Payerl (WBS) and 1) Mark Mancari (RCH) — I have no idea what the thought process was in naming Pysyk and Mancari stars, as they weren’t mentioned at all tonight, but again it’s only preseason.
The two teams rematch Friday in Wilkes-Barre.
Other news to note:
–> Observer Jason B. chirped in and mentioned that the nets weren’t anchored in tonight. Interesting.
–> The Wheeling Nailers announced a training camp roster.
–> Norfolk signed tough guy Jay Rosehill to a PTO. Fellow blogger Ken Peacock who runs Vultures Row, has details.
Many thanks to the descriptive tweets of Mike O’Brien and Kevin Oklobzjia which, without, this summary would have read, “Pens win 4-3, thanks and good night.”
WBS News
Chirps from Center Ice 
Yes, I’ll clarify my point about the nets not anchored. They weren’t, and even slight contact moved the nets off. Two times this prevented would-be goals for Rochester.
One was when an Amerk was behind the net and made a cross crease pass to Cody Hodgson. Zatkoff slid over but knocked the net off in the process. Hodgson’s shot (I was at the perfect angle) would have hit the open far corner of the net from where the pass came from. But the net had moved off and play was called dead.
Second was sort of similar. Amerk forward was circling around the net and coming towards the faceoff dot when he made a backdoor pass to an open forward. It appears, in the chase of the forward with the puck, a defenseman brushed the net off while the pass was being made. The open Amerks fired it into the open net, but the whistle had blown just prior because of the net.
I don’t know how good those explanations were, but the nets certainly would have stayed in place under normal circumstances.