Chirps from Center Ice

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Inert.

That’s your answer.

Pens look flat in the first two-thirds of the game tonight, then turn it on late in the game, can’t muster anything and lose 1-0 in Syracuse.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Cedrick Desjardins

No Chad Kolarik or Steve MacIntyre for the Pens tonight with what Tom Grace said on radio were “maintenance days” for both. For Kolarik, he’s played 64 games this season, one more than the Penguins as a team. Having come over from the Connecticut Whale in a trade earlier this season for Benn Ferriero and coming off of a bad knee injury from last season, I could see where his absence is justified. On the other hand, scratching your leading scorer in the thick of a playoff push seems a bit fishy to me. I’ll keep my nose on the ground for any potential call-ups to Pittsburgh. But, for what it’s worth, Grace did say right before the game started that Kolarik would be back in the line up Saturday.

Cody Wild took warmups but was the healthy scratch.

First Period: All Crunch to start, the Pens third and fourth lines of Dom Uher / Warren Peters / Adam Payerl and Bobby Farnham / Zach Sill and Christiaan Minella had pretty much all the chances in the period for the Penguins. The Brian Gibbons Breakaway of the Game™ made an appearance while the Penguins were shorthanded, but Desjardins made the save. The Pens had a power play but didn’t register a shot. Grace called the Penguins effort “methodical” to start, which I agreed with.

Second Period: Pens get scored on in the opening five minutes. Philip-Michael Devos corrals a bouncing puck and wires it past Zatkoff to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead. Off the faceoff, the Pens looked inert and nearly got scored on again. John Hynes uses his time out, and Grace describes him as having “furnace face” with how mad he was of his teams effort at the time. The Penguins respond led by, who else, the Pens third line. Adam Payerl throws a puck at net, chases after it and nearly fights ex-Penguin J-P Cote. They slowly picked up the pace from there. For as bad as it seemed, the Pens were only one shot away heading into the….

Third Period: Good news: Pens clamped down on defense. They generated chances. Bad news: They didn’t score a goal. Not for lack if effort. They threw the kitchen sink at Desjardins, but he held firm and that was all she wrote.

Three Stars: 3) J-P Cote 2) Cedrick Desjardins (20 save shutout) 1) Philip-Michael Devos (goal, +1)

I have said, jokingly on Twitter, that I am a closet Tampa Bay Lightning fan because I want them to make playoffs to keep all the good players up. The way that tonight went, with pretty much all of Syracuse’s good players up, it may not matter.

Around the Division: Norfolk shuts out Adirondack 3-0. The only other game in the League was Springfield / Manchester in my “game to watch tonight” – the Falcons beat the Monarchs 2-0 tonight. Yes, that’s right, all home teams tonight shut out the visiting team.

Standings: Syracuse 84 — Binghamton 80 — Penguins 71 — Hershey 68 — Norfolk 63

Conference: 1) SYR (84) 2) PRO (81) 3) SPR (79) 4) BNG (80) 5) POR (73) 6) WBS (71) 7) HER (68) 8) CT (68)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Again, from a WBS Pens fan perspective, not a whole heck of a lot to look at.

Wheeling Update: Nailers fight back at home vs. the Kalamazoo Wings and win 2-1. Keven Veilleux had a shootout goal.

Pens have a rare Friday off and battle the Norfolk Admirals Saturday night at home in front of what will most likely be a sold out crowd.

Let’s Go Pens!