Chirps from Center Ice

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Pens should have had this one.

The good is that the Pens hung with one of the top five teams in the league tonight only to lose in the shootout 3-2. Brad Thiessen gets 85% of a Christian Hanson shot in the shootout and the puck falls in the net.

Dylan Reese had two power play goals, one in the first and another in the second. My, this power play looks great with Beau Bennett running things, that’s for sure.

Pens had to kill a full 2:00 of 5 on 3 when John Hynes did not particularly like the way that Chris Cozzan and Tremt Knorr were calling things. The Penguins did so successfully.

Providence is an extremely quick team that has highly skilled forwards. The Penguins did a fantastic job hanging with them tonight.

I got the sense that the coaching staff did their homework on the eighth ranked Providence power play unit. Pens were generating many shorthanded chances tonight and really had all the passing lanes bottled up.

Oh, Providence goaltender Niklas Svedberg’s right pad should be registered as a lethal weapon. It stopped Jayson Megna on a 2 on 1 shorthanded rush. Several other times it was flashed.

Bobby Farnham and Alden Hirschfeld had a memorable fight. I have a link to it on my Pheed page here.

Oh, it’s here on YouTube too:

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The above is unconventional, yes, because the majority of it was typed on my iPhone after the game watching a high school all-star game that occurred immediately following the Penguins game.

Here’s the rest of the conventional stuff:

News: Reid McNeill was recalled to WBS according to ECHL transactions and Jeff Zatkoff was back from Pittsburgh and backed up Brad Thiessen. The Peoria Rivermen are no more, starting AHL affiliation “silly season” early.

Around the Division: Hershey lost up in Albany 5-3. The Bears play these same P-Bruins tomorrow in Hershey. The Norfolk Admirals and Syracuse Crunch squared off in Virginia. The Admirals battled back down 4-1 to win 5-4 in overtime. The Binghamton Senators avoid losing three in a row for the tenth time this season, winning 5-2 at home vs. Adirondack.

Standings: Syracuse 87 — Binghamton 86 — Penguins 74 — Hershey 71 — Norfolk 69

Conference: 1) PRO (87) 2) SYR (87) 3) SPR (85) 4) BNG (86) 5) POR (77) 6) CT (74) 7) WBS (74) 8) HER (71)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost 8-5 at home to Toledo tonight. Wheeling closes out its season tomorrow.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Has everything you like in one highlight package.

Pens travel to Binghamton tomorrow. Gameday for that will be up at 3.