Chirps from Center Ice

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Thought about the headline that the Pens used in tonight’s 3-2 shootout win over Binghamton tonight and figured I would run with it. The Pens did inch by the B-Sens tonight. It’s the Jekyll and Hyde of this team, really. They run with one of the best teams in the league in Providence last night and scrap and claw and find themselves with the “pesky” Binghamton Senators tonight. They are doing what it takes to get points right now, which, when battling for your playoff lives, is everything you can ask for.

I said Wednesday morning that the Pens needed to go 3-1 in these next four games. The first three were all better competition, a win Wednesday at home vs. Binghamton, a shootout loss Friday vs. Providence and a shootout win in Binghamton. Tuesday they go to Norfolk for another huge test.

Jonathan summed it up nicely in saying that one night you win, and everyone around you loses and you look golden. Another night you lose, everyone around you wins, and you look like a loser. He said, “buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Nathan Lawson. No lineup changes for the Pens tonight.

First Period: Penguins with a decent power play would have blown Binghamton off the Southern Tier with all of the calls referee Mark Lemelin was making that favored Wilkes-Barre. Chad Kolarik and Shane Prince traded goals in the first. In the…

Second Period: … it was more of the same for the Penguins on the man advantage. The B-Sens were disappointed with every call made by Lemelin or, in the event that a Penguin player would get whistled for something, Lemelin would take a Binghamton player post whistle after pushing and shoving. This continued. Finally, with the Pens on a 4:00 double minor power play, Chad Kolarik shoots it and Trevor Smith deflects it for his 20th goal of the season, six seasons strong.

Third Period: Taking a page from last night, the Pens found themselves on the wrong end of a 2:00 5 on 3 against. But, with huge saves from Jeff Zatkoff, the Penguins special teams unit killed it. However, the B-Sens, who didn’t register their first shot of the game until twelve minutes into the first period and at that time were being outshot 8-1, had caught up to the Pens in the shots department and ultimately in the goal department when Danny New ripped home a one timer from the top of the slot to make it a 2-2 game.

The two teams would fight like dogs for the remainder of the period not to make a mistake and capitalize on one made. No further scoring would come about and it was onto….

Overtime: I got the sense that the Senators played like they wanted to win overtime and the Pens played like they didn’t want to lose overtime. A dangerous concoction. Nothing was decided so it was onto the…

…wait for it…

Shootout: Chad Kolarik, Riley Holzapfel and Trevor Smith score score in the first three rounds and Jeff Zatkoff stops Cole Schneider, Hugh Jessiman and Louie Caporusso to seal it for the Pens.

Three Stars: 3) Mark Borowiecki (+1) 2) Chad Kolarik (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Shane Prince (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: The Syracuse Crunch will have to wait another day to be the first team to clinch playoffs. The Norfolk Admirals shut them out in Virginia 2-0. The Hershey Bears, in a gotta have it game, come back from trailing after two periods for the first time this season and beat the unbeatable Niklas Svedberg and the Providence Bruins 3-2.

Standings: Syracuse 87 — Binghamton 87 — Penguins 76 — Hershey 73 — Norfolk 71

Conference: A four way tie at the top. 1) SPR (87) 2) PRO (87) 3) SYR (87) 4) BNG (87) 5) POR (79) 6) WBS (76) 7) CT (74) 8) HER (73)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers closed out their season at home vs. the Trenton Titans and lost 4-3 in a shootout. I’d anticipate a taxi squad of eligible players on their way to Wilkes-Barre fairly soon.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Nice packaging.

But for the aforementioned taxi squad of Nailers on the way to Wilkes-Barre, expect the next blog update to come Tuesday for the Gameday setup vs. the Norfolk Admirals that night. I expect Robert Bortuzzo to get called back up to Pittsburgh for good, but that’s hardly newsworthy, since we all knew it was happening anyway.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Let’s Go Pens!