Chirps from Center Ice

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Coming into the third period of today’s game in Atlantic City against the Albany Devils and trailing 1-0, I tweeted that the Penguins had been shutout for 107:36 since last scoring Tuesday night vs. Hershey.

Brendan Mikkelson’s shot from the blue line 13:33 later ended the shutout streak. Tom Kostopoulos’ power play goal about two and a half minutes later on the power play put the Penguins out front for good and they would win 2-1 over the Albany Devils.

Peter Mannino started the game for the Penguins, his last start? November 8 in Wilkes-Barre against these same Devils. A game where he would be pulled then later sent to Wheeling, where it took him two months to report.

Full circle for Mannino, who gave the Penguins tonight something which was really lacking, steady goaltending. The first time since February 7 in Portland that the Penguins only allow one goal to the opponent.

Now you might be thinking that the sorry Albany Devils aren’t really an offensive juggernaut and you couldn’t be more wrong. The Devils are a solid club that block shots and kill penalties and were prior to tonight a point ahead of the Penguins in the Conference.

That shot blocking by the Devils made for a pretty boring first forty minutes of play. The Penguins only had nine shots on goal through two periods. A Mike Sislo backhander on a rebound of a shot while the Devils were on a 5-on-3 in the first period was the only goal allowed by the Penguins tonight.

Keith Kinkaid manned the net for the Devils. The Penguins recalled Anton Zlobin and Tom Kuhnhackl today from Wheeling. Zlobin took warmups but was scratched.

With the score 1-0 to begin the third and with both teams seemingly in it, it boiled down to who wanted it more.

The Penguins found themselves on what ended up to be a 6:00 penalty kill. Andrew Ebbett would high stick Mattias Tedenby and draw blood for a 4:00 double minor penalty.

Mike Carman, in an attempt to backhand the puck down ice, puts it over the glass with :03 left on the Ebbett double minor.

Penguins kill it all off. Brendan Mikkelson waits, waits and waits then snaps a shot from the top of the blue line for a tie game. Later, Tom Kostopoulos scores his 20th goal of the season on the power play to put the Penguins ahead 2-1.

Devils would pull Kinkaid with a minute to go, but the Penguins and Mannino closed the door.

Three Stars: 3) Mike Sislo (goal, evn) 2) Brendan Mikkelson (goal, +1) 1) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, even)

Around the Division: Binghamton loses 1-0 in St. John’s and are swept by the IceCaps this weekend. The Norfolk Admirals sweep the best team in the AHL with another win vs. the Monarchs tonight, 4-1. The Hershey Bears lose to the Charlotte Checkers 4-1 and have all of a sudden lost five in a row. Syracuse was up 4-1 and need overtime to defeat the Adirondack Phantoms 5-4.

Other Game of Interest: Worcester ends its seven game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. who see their seven game winning steak end.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 70 — Penguins 67 — Hershey 65 — Syracuse 53

Conference: 1) MCH (80) 2) SPR (72) 3) BNG (70)  4) STJ (72) 5) NOR (70) 6) WBS (67) 7) PRO (67) 8) ALB (66)

Wheeling Update: Nailers were in Reading tonight and lost 4-1. Eric Hartzell backed up tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: No where to be located. Don’t hold your breath.

Penguins off till next weekend. So tomorrow, I’ll be keeping tabs on Utica @ Bridgeport, Albany @ Providence and Charlotte @ Hershey. You should probably follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already for the results of these games and where the Penguins wash out in the Conference Sunday night.

Other than that, come back Monday afternoon for the Week 22 AHL Power Rankings which’ll debut at 4 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!