Chirps from Center Ice

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Didn’t have to wait long to hear when the Penguins last lost three straight games. As soon as I got to my truck in the Mohegan Sun Arena parking lot, I heard play-by-play man Mike O’Brien say it. It was in November. Think about that. There are 30 teams in this league. Many have fans that I follow on Twitter that just accept losing. Losing three straight games are pretty standard in places like Hartford, Albany, Utica and others. Not Wilkes-Barre.

It’ll happen to every team. This weekend was the Penguins turn.

After getting Adam Payerl back from injury and Brian Gibbons and Jayson Megna back from NHL duty, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins go 0-for-3 on the weekend with a 3-1 loss to the Hershey Bears.

I can accept this loss more than I can the losses this weekend to Binghamton Friday and Hershey last night. The Pens were in it all the way to the third period, when there was no score.

Ex-Penguin Jeff Taffe broke the deadlock at 9:05 of the third on a nice tip of a Casey Wellman shot from the point. About four minutes later, with the Penguins needing the next goal, Ryan Potulny collects a cross ice pass and does not miss an open net for a 2-0 Bears lead. The Pens would get on the board with the Brian Gibbons Breakaway of the Game™ this time shorthanded and scored to put the Pens on the board and the deficit cut to one. But the Bears answered less than a minute later when Michael Latta draws Jeff Deslauriers out of his crease and passed to Peter Leblanc who scored to put it away for the Bears at 3-1. A huge answer goal by the Chocolate and White and all of the momentum was out of the building.

That last paragraph summed up the game. Jeff Deslauriers opposed David Leggio. Harry Zolnierczyk was a healthy scratch. Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond and Tom Kuhnhackl were back in. Eric Hartzell seemed fine from last nights scare. He backed up and looked fine in warmups.

I can’t recall anything else memorable.

There stars were Brian Gibbons with a goal and +1, Jeff Taffe with a goal and +1 and Ryan Potulny with a goal.

We were the only game in the division. Binghamton, Norfolk and Syracuse were off.

Standings look like this: Binghamton 66 — Hershey 64 — Norfolk 62 — Penguins 61 — Syracuse 44

Conference: 1) Manchester with 75 points, Springfield in second with 69, Binghamton the division leader in the East with 66, the Bears in fourth with 64, Providence in fifth with 63, Norfolk sixth with 62. Penguins have 61 points in seventh and St. John’s in the eighth and final spot with 60 points.

Nine back is Albany with 60. Worcester is in tenth with 50 points. I don’t expect the Sharks or anyone behind them to make a push, but you never know. So it’s 9 teams for 8 spots in the middle of February.

The game in hand situation looks like this based on the Pens that have 52 games played. Division, Bingo and Noroflk have 2 games in hand. Hershey, Albany and St. John’s have one. Pens have a game in hand on Providence.

Wheeling played tonight and lost to Fort Wayne in Indiana 4-3. Denver Manderson had two assists.

Penguins haven’t posted the SendToNews Highlights. If or when they do, I will have a link.

President’s Day tomorrow. Do you have to work? I do. Anyway, the Week 20 AHL Power Rankings will be up at noon tomorrow in advance of the 1 p.m. games. Then the Pens play Binghamton Wednesday. If anything breaks between now and then I’ll have it on the blog.

Let’s Go Pens!!!