Chirps from Center Ice

No funny headlines for preseason games. No graphics either. It’s preseason for bloggers, too.

Also, no radio or AHL Live, since tonight’s Penguins / Amerks preseason game was played at an IcePlex and not the Blue Cross Arena, the home of the Amerks. So I relied solely off of the tweets of one Mike O’Brien.

So instead of hitting each other in practice for the past few days, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins traveled to Western New York and hit the Rochester Americans in the first preseason game for both clubs.

Eric Hartzell vs. Nathan Lieuwen

Brian Gibbons wore the C for the Pens tonight and Paul Thompson wore the lone A.

Pens dressed the following players:

Forwards: Mike Carman, Kyle Fletcher, Chaz Johnson, Jack MacLellan, Denver Manderson, Christiaan Minella, Carter Rowney, C.J. Severyn, Cody Sylvester, Paul Thompson and Dominik Uher.

Defensemen: Nick D’Agostino, Barry Goers, Reid McNeill, Mike Ratchuk, Clark Seymour and Alex Velischek.

Andy Chiodo backed up Hartzell. Local product Patrick McGrath took warmups and was scratched. He and a guy like Chaz Johnson are cut from the same cloth, so if they are up for the same job, let the local kid in McGrath get game action at home in Wilkes-Barre this weekend. Makes sense.

Clark Donatelli, head coach of the Wheeling Nailers, was behind the bench with John Hynes & Co.

Starters for the Pens were Sylvester–Gibbons–Thompson // D’Agostino–Seymour.

Didn’t take long for the first fight. Christiaan Minella fought Johnny McGuire. Mike O’Brien said that both landed some right hooks before tumbling to the ice.

Phil Varone banged home a power play goal to put the Amerks on the board first.

Denver Manderson with a quick answer goal :25 later on a two on one rush set up by Chaz Johnson chipping the puck out of the zone to set up the odd man.

Rochester would quickly score on another power play. This time Chad Ruhwedel on a point shot. Quickly, the highly touted WBS penalty kill was 0-for-2. The Pens would go on the penalty kill again but would kill that one.

Cody Sylvester wasn’t doing himself any favors by getting called for another penalty, his third, the Penguins fourth of the period. Wilkes-Barre was able to kill that one off though.

After one, it was 2-1 Rochester with shots 15-2 for the Amerks. It’s hard to generate shots on goal when you are constantly killing penalties in a period. But hey, it’s the first period of the first preseason game of the year. I shouldn’t overanalyze.

From what I could tell from O’Brien’s tweets, the Pens were much more aggressive and disciplined to start the second. Dominik Uher had a good chance by a better same by netminder Lieuwen. Pens would get a power play out of it.

At the halfway point of the period, Andy Chiodo took over for Hartzell and Connor Knapp took over for Nathan Lieuwen in goal.

Back to the Pens power play, Paul Thompson would score to even the game at two a piece. Thompson wrists a roof job from the bottom of the faceoff circle.

Much more disciplined second period by the Pens. They must have shook off the first period jitters because the Pens outshot the Amerks 10-6 in the period and went 1-for-1 on their only power play of the game to this point.

Chaz Johnson and Drew Bagnall fought but didn’t throw any punches, so instead, both got roughing minors.

Pens got a power play with about seven minutes left in the third but weren’t able to capitalize.

Goalies Chiodo and Knapp traded glove saves….please keep reading.

Nothing was decided in the third so it was on to overtime.

Obie said that Chiodo had a flashy glove save on a redirect in overtime.

Eric Locke finished the Pens in overtime with a backhander in close on Chiodo and won it for the Amerks. Fellow blogger Amerks Sin Bin had the setup on the GWG:

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Three stars were: 3) Manderson (goal) 2) Ruhwedal (goal, assist) and 1) Locke (game winning goal.

Final shots on goal were 32-21 Amerks Pens were 1-for-2 on the power play and 4-for-6 on the PK.

I’d expect a few more cuts from Pittsburgh tomorrow or Friday, so we will see what shakes out of a lineup this weekend for the Pens starting Friday at home vs. these same Amerks.

If there is newsy news to share tomorrow, I’ll have a blog on it. If not, next entry will be the post game recap Friday night.

Let’s Go Pens!