Chirps from Center Ice

          vs.       

  4                                           3

–

Looked like they almost had it, didn’t they?

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lose again, this their sixth loss in a row, this time 4-3 in a shootout to the Providence Bruins.

The Penguins losses in this streak have gone like this:

— A 4-3 OTL to Hershey February 9 (acceptable)
— A 6-2 loss to the Binghamton Senators (unacceptable)
— A 5-4 loss to the Hershey Bears (unacceptable)
— A 3-1 loss to the Hershey Bears (acceptable)
— A 4-3 OTL to the Binghamton Senators (acceptable)
— A 4-3 SOL to the Providence Bruins (acceptable)

The 5-4 loss to the Bears was unacceptable because the final score did not indicate the actual result. The 3-1 loss to the Bears the next night was acceptable because compared to the the prior two, it could have and should have been a lot worse.

So two unacceptable losses out of a possible six. Three points out of twelve. Right now, back in playoffs. Okay, I’ll take it.

Look, all teams in the AHL go through losing streaks. All of them. I know this because I pay attention to all other 29 teams. This just doesn’t happen to the Penguins. It’s great coaching, great defense and great goaltending with timely scoring that helps the team win. When it doesn’t they lose. When you get in a losing streak it’s hard to get out of, tonight being no different.

Or, it could be quality of opponent. No other AHL team has scored more goals than the Binghamton Senators. The Hershey Bears are a resurgent group. The Providence Bruins are a hell of a hockey team. The Penguins were in all of these last six games except for two. Hey, it happens.

The Pens inducted Kevin Blaum, Alain Nasreddine and Dennis Bonvie into their inaugural Hall of Fame class tonight. I will probably do a picture blog of all the horrible pictures I took on my phone later in the week. Pens brass tells me that there will be a display present at the Arena at some point, as early as Tuesday likely and when it is, I’ll have pictures of that for the blog piece.

Jeff Deslauriers opposed Niklas Svedberg.

First Period: Pens really step on the gas to open and don’t allow the Bruins a shot on goal for a good 12+ minutes. Jayson Megna does his best Trevor Smith impersonation from Game 6 of the Conference Semifinals last year and scores on a wraparound to put the Pens ahead 1-0. It was eerily similar to the shot that Smith scored on to force a Game 7 last year.

Second Period: Pierre Leblond and Bobby Robins fought in a spirited battle, with Leblond splitting Robins’ forehead open with a punch. Robins is as tough a customer as they come for the Bruins.

Then, Brian Gibbons gets called for a slash. Seven seconds later Providence ties it on a nifty cross ice finish by Craig Cunningham who roofed it over the pad of Deslauriers for a tie game.

Later, Nick Drazenovic pumps a puck in from center red on a routine dump and chase play that Penguins fans have seen a million times. Only this time, the puck hits the zamboni door and pops right in front of Spencer Machacek who has a wide open net to shoot into top put the Pens back ahead 2-1. Svedberg had left the net to play the puck and got burned by doing so.

Late, puck goes in off of Philip Samuelsson’s skate to make it a 2-2 game again.

Third Period: Bad D zone coverage by the Bruins, Spencer Machacek scores his second of the night to make it 3-2 Pens.

Then Providence took the game over. The Pens only had two shots on goal this entire period.

Justin Florek bar down and in for a tie game at three.

Then, later, Bruins score. Clearly, off of a face-off win. Linesman Leo Boylan, who handled the face-off, tells refs Trevor Hanson and Nic Leduc that the puck bounced off of a glove to the favor of the Bruins, and the goal was disallowed.

Huuuuuge break for the Pens, who then have to kill a Samuelsson delay of game penalty and do to force….

Overtime: Pens don’t allow the Bruins a shot but don’t score on the two that Svedberg saved, so it was onto….

Shootout: Craig Cunningham (34pts.), Alexander Khokhlachev (34 pts.) Ryan Spooner (25 pts.) scored for the P-Bruins in the shootout. Jared Knight (15 pts.) did not. Harry Zolnierczyk (29 pts.) Andrew Ebbett (19 pts.) Nick Drazenovic (31 pts.) Tom Kostopoulos (37 pts.) and Jayson Megna (11 pts.) went for the Pens in the shootout. Only Ebbett and Drazenovic scored for the Penguins.

What I am trying to point out is that the P-Bruins were DEEP when it came to who they chose to take the shootout chances. Point scorers. Granted, everybody but Kostopoulos has NHL time for the Pens, no one with less than 25 AHL points failed to score in the shootout for the visitors.

Three Stars: 3) Jayson Megna (goal, +1) 2) Spencer Machacek (two goals, +2) and 1) Ryan Spooner (shootout game winning goal, assist, even)

Around the Division: Nice night for the Pens really, as Binghamton lost to Utica 3-2, Norfolk lost to Albany 4-1 and Hershey gets shutout and sees their 12 game home winning streak end to the Syracuse Crunch 5-0.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Hershey 64 — Penguins 63 — Norfolk 62 — Syracuse 47

Conference: 1) MCH (78) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (66) 5) PRO (65) 6) HER (64) 7) ALB (64) 8) WBS (63)

Ten games on the schedule tomorrow. Albany, Providence, Norfolk, St. John’s and Hershey all in action tomorrow so it’ll be another Sunday of scoreboard watching and a blog update after of where the idle Penguins shake out in all of the games. Basically, you want all of the teams I just listed to lose.

Wheeling Update: Nailers beat the Elmira Jackals in New York tonight 3-1. Denver Manderson and Cody Sylvester scored goals for the Nailers in the win.

SendToNews Highlights: Huh. It’s 11:51 p.m. on a Saturday as I type right now. They aren’t up yet. I would’ve sworn they would have been.

Anyway, check back tomorrow to see how the teams around the Pens did. Also check out the Week 21 AHL Power Rankings Monday at 4 p.m. too.

Let’s Go Pens!!!