Chirps from Center Ice

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In Pittsburgh, they have a motto. It’s, “next man up” meaning that the next guy behind you in the depth chart is supposed to step up and fill your role and not look out of place.

Suffice to say, with the rash of injuries and such to the Pittsburgh organization, “next man up” is being tossed around a lot.

The situation applies, of course, to the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, where all the “men” come “up” from.

The trickle down effect hits Wheeling. Sometimes hard.

Their leading scorer, Zack Torquato, was signed to an AHL contract today by the Penguins and had an immediate impact in the Penguins game vs. the Syracuse Crunch tonight, a 2-1 Wilkes-Barre win. Torquato’s power play goal in the first period was seemingly all the momentum the Penguins needed to get by the Crunch tonight.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. Cedrick Desjardins

Torquato was in for CJ Severyn, who did take warmups but was scratched.

First Period: A lot more pop in the skates of the Penguins, who were flat last night in the first two periods vs. Worcester. Finally, Torquato lets it rip from the top of the near side to give the Pens a 1-0 lead on the power play.

Second Period: Pens seemed to keep the Crunch off the scoreboard via stingy defense and some jumbo saves by Jeff Deslauriers all night long. Many times Syracuse would bear down, make a move and I thought that they would score to tie it, but Deslauriers played outstanding all game. The most interesting thing to happen this period was Dustin Stevenson handily winning a fight with Syracuse Captain Mike Angelidis.

Third Period: With the feeling that one goal would not be enough vs. Syracuse, Brendan Mikkelson scores from a shot from the point while the Pens were on a power play. Yes, that’s right, two power play goals tonight from the Penguins whose special teams unit with the man advantage was 20th in the League, overall. Anyway, Evan Rankin scores on a slam dunk with 1:43 left to spoil any aspirations of a Deslauriers shutout. With a time out by Crunch Head Coach Rob Zettler and Desjardins pulled, Syracuse never found the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Deslauriers (25 saves on 26 shots) 2) Zack Torquato (goal, even) 1) Brendan Mikkelson (goal, -1)

Not listed was Barry Goers, who assisted on both goals.

Around the Division: Binghamton wins 3-2 in overtime over the Albany Devils. Norfolk wins 3-1 over Adirondack and Hershey loses 3-2 to Worcester.

Standings: Penguins 37 — Binghamton 35 — Norfolk 33 — Syracuse 28 — Hershey 27

Conference: 1) MCH (47) 2) SPR (43) 3) WBS (37) 4) ALB (37) 5) BNG (35) 6) PRO (34) 7) STJ (33) 8) NOR (33)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers win 3-2 in overtime at home vs. the Evansville IceMen.

SendtoNews Highlights: Are here. The Pens may run a YouTube highlight package, which I like better anyway because it plays nicer with my blog than the Java mess that is the SendToNews packaging. If they do and I remember to go back and look, I’ll throw up an edit.

Pens all split and head home for the Christmas break. Next game for Wilkes-Barre isn’t until next Friday at home when they host the Norfolk Admirals. There may not be a lot to blog about until then. The Week 12 Chirps from Center Ice AHL Power Rankins will be on the blog Monday at 4. That may be the only thing this week unless I get some kind of content that I feel would be good fodder for the blog during the downtime.

Let’s Go Pens!