Chirps from Center Ice

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Couple things about this game.

First, I don’t know how anyone will be able to write anything other than what happened late in the third period and beyond in this game. Scoreless after two periods, the Wolf Pack break the ice then the Penguins respond late to tie it, the shootout goes six rounds and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins squeak out a 2-1 shootout win in Hartford.

Second, the headline is a play on the Wolf Pack’s “Howl Yeah” motto for this year and was contributed by defacto correspondent Michael Cignoli, whom you may remember covered the Adirondack Phantoms las year and is now a Copy Editor for the Citizens’ Voice. Some more of his work follows.

Third and finally, I don’t think that the Pens ever “deserve” to win a game, but it would have really been a travesty if they didn’t walk away winners tonight against a downtrodden Hartford team. It was the Pens first shootout win of the season, which I found extremely surprising at first but then realized that half of the offense is still on recall and hurt with Pittsburgh.

Personell wise, Bobby Farnham must be hurt because he was an injury scratch again tonight. Jeff Deslauriers opposed Dov Grumet-Morris.

Pens had to kill an extensive 5-on-3 against early in the first. The first period breezed by.

Pens got close in the second, but weren’t able to score. Hartford didn’t really do much either.

In the third, Sam Klassen unleashes a bomb from the point that Deslauriers gets 95% of. The other 5% goes over his shoulder, deflects off of Brendan Mikkelson and into the net for a 1-0 Hartford lead.

Pens then had a power play, and to fill space, here’s how that went:

— Win face-off in offensive zone. Two passes, intercepted and out.
— Retrieve, entrance pass missed and cleared out.
— Another entrance pass misses.
— Finally in, Nick D’Agostino fans on a one-timer. Out.
— Back in, Tom Kostopoulos near miss. Out again, :30 left in power play.
— In, cycled, pass to defenseman misses. Cleared and killed.

And that was one of the better ones, because there was actual substance rather than the Pens chasing a setup opportunity.

Anyway, Danny Kristo tries to slide a loose puck back to Grumet-Morris, Harry Zolnierczyk reads it like a book and scores to bring the teams even at 1-1.

Pens would outshoot Hartford 16-4 in the third, and it really showed late as it did not appear as if anyone in road black was interested in wanting to fool around with overtime and definitely not a shootout.

Overtime comes and goes. Deslauriers had to fight off a furious Hartford rush.

Pens score in Rounds 3 (Nick Drazenovic) and Round 6 (Paul Thompson) and get out of dodge with the extra point in the standings.

Before we get to Three Stars, Mr. Cignoli snapped this rather hilarious picture during the National Anthem:

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Anyway….

Three Stars: 3) Harry Zolnierczyk (goal, +1) 2) Sam Klassen (goal, even) and 1) Paul Thompson (shootout game winning goal, even)

Around the Division: Binghamton beats Manchester 5-4 in overtime. Adirondack does the same to Hershey by a score of 1-0. Syracuse beats Toronto 6-3 in Canada and Norfolk beats Bridgeport at home 3-1.

Standings: Binghamton 43 — Penguins 42 — Norfolk 39 — Hershey 32 — Syracuse 32

Conference: 1) SPR (50) 2) MCH (50) 3) BNG (43) 4) ALB (43) 5) WBS (42) 6) PRO (42) 7) NOR (39) 8) ADK (36)

Wheeling Update: Nailers win in overtime 3-2 over Elmira at home.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Pens travel home for a 7:05 face-off against the Manchester Monarchs, who are going to be sore from losing tonight to Binghamton in overtime. They’ll probably get to Wilkes-Barre around midnight while the Pens may not get in sometime early Saturday morning. Regardless, Gameday for that will be up on the blog at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!