Chirps from Center Ice

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Textbook Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins hockey tonight for 59:52 tonight.

Up 1-0 late in third, with under a minute left and Comets G Joacim Eriksson pulled, ol’ buddy Brandon DeFazio slips one under G Peter Mannino through a crowd. A lifeless Utica Comets crowd was alive.

Overtime solves nothing, probably the most even set between the two teams, with an even three shots each.

Then, in the bottom of the fifth round of the shootout, another ol’ buddy, this time Cal O’Reilly is staring down Peter Mannino. Neither team to this point scored a single shootout goal.

The Utica Comets were wearing green jerseys. It was an Irish themed night, in March, with St. Patricks day a week or so away.

So you can guess how this one ended up with O’Reilly, a common Irish name, on Mannino, whom I am assuming has some Italian in him, what with the vowel at the end of his name.

Utica wins 2-1 in the shootout. The Pens leave a huge point behind in the Mohawk Valley.

Four big things to takeaway from this game:

1) Brian Dumoulin was back from injury.
2) Chuck Kobasew was not on the trip. Russ Hryvnak tweeted that he will join the team next week.
3) Peter Mannino was great in net, but…
4) The Wilkes-Barre defense bottled up the Comets, allowing them only 10 shots through two periods.

Utica got a few more shots in the third, with the Pens playing prevent and the Comets in all out desperation mode.

Spencer Machacek took a nice pass from Jayson Megna, camped out behind Eriksson’s net and zipped one in 1:12 into the second period.

I wasn’t able to watch much of the game or listen, but it seemed that the Wilkes-Barre defense simply just limited Utica to not much and whatever they did, Mannino was there.

Three stars went went DeFazio (game tying goal) O’Reilly (shootout GWG) & Eriksson (32 saves on 33 shots) — laughable that Peter Mannino didn’t get a star but with the setup of a late game tying goal and shootout game winner and a goalie that stops all 5 shooters, I can see the reasoning.

Rest of the Division, Standings and Conference look like this:

Around the Division: Binghamton off. Hershey beats Norfolk 3-2 in regulation to end their six game losing streak. Syracuse loses 4-1 in Rochester.

Other Game of Note: Albany yaks up a 3-1 lead in Maine to the Pirates but manage to eke out a 4-3 shootout win.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 70 — Penguins 68 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse — 53

Conference: 1) MCH (82) 2) SPR (74) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (74) 5) NOR (70) 6) PRO (70) 7) ALB (69) 8) WBS (68)

Binghamton is in the cat bird seat, with at least a game in hand on everyone in the top eight.

Wheeling Update: Tom Kuhnhackl and Harrison Ruopp were sent to Wheeling this morning. The Nailers were in Reading tonight and lost 5-4. Kuhnhackl had a goal. Carter Rowney had a goal and an assist.

SendToNews Highlights: Aren’t up yet. I may check for a link tomorrow.

Pens travel to Hamilton for a date with the Bulldogs tomorrow at 7 p.m. Gameday for that will be up at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!