Chirps from Center Ice

          @          

4                                                3

–

If the Penguins lose out on a playoff spot in a month or an East Division Championship by one point, they will know exactly where to drive to find it.

That location is the Utica Memorial Auditorium. With 7.2 seconds left and the Comets net minder pulled, Utica scores on Peter Mannino to tie the game and go on to win in the shootout Friday night.

Okay. The Penguins lick their wounds over the border, and hand Hamilton a 4-2 loss on Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon in Toronto, the roles of Friday were reversed.

Ol’ buddy Trevor Smith picked Scott Harrington’s pocket as the Penguins defenseman was exiting the zone. We saw first hand last season what Trevor Smith does with time and space. He does not miss. 3-2 Marlies late.

Wilkes-Barre, in scramble mode, later pull starting goalie Jeff Deslauriers for the extra attacker. Andrew Ebbett, cool as a cucumber, makes a blind cross crease pass to Nick Drazenovic who buries it to tie the game at three again.

Overtime proved uneventful, and the Penguins get goals from Tom Kostopoulos, Drazenovic and Ebbett and skate out of Canada winners 4-3 and back to the top of the East Division in a tie with the Norfolk Admirals, after the Binghamton Senators coughed up another late lead to the Syracuse Crunch in Central New York by a score of 4-3 as well. The B-Sens have lost six straight.

Lineup wise, Mike Carman was out and is day to day with a “needs to be evaluated” upper body injury. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin, coming off of injury, was given the day off. Anton Zlobin and Barry Goers filled in respectively.

Drew MacIntyre was in net for the Toronto Marlies, an extremely tough nut to crack as MacIntyre leads or is at the top of just about every statistical goaltending category in the AHL.

Scott Harrington scored this fluky goal to put the Pens up 1-0 late in the first.

Then the Penguins took the second period over, outshooting the Marlies 19-4 in the period. Toronto got tremendous goaltending by Drew MacIntyre which seemed to have glue on his jersey as everything stuck to him.

The only blemish was a Jerry D’Amigo pick off of a Wilkes-Barre D to D pass while the Pens were on a power play. D’Amigo passed to Kenny Ryan who whipped one in from between the rings to tie the game at one.

But Wilkes-Barre’s inability to score on a power play, all eight of them, proved to be the difference in why this game was not a Wilkes-Barre blowout.

Finally Anton Zlobin crashed the net late in the second and pushed the Penguins ahead 2-1. It was an earned goal for Wilkes-Barre, who seemingly did everything but score in this period.

The third period was a role reversal for both teams seeing Toronto outshoot the Penguins 13-5. Toronto gets a power play in the third period in what seemed like forever for them and Spencer Abbott makes the Penguins pay. Jeff Deslauriers was screened badly.

I really wrote this post game recap with the best stuff, which was the last stuff to happen in the game, first. Go back to the top and look again, if you haven’t. Ha.

Standings: Norfolk 72 — Penguins 72 — Binghamton 71 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse 55

Conference: 1) MCH (86) 2) SPR (78) 3) NOR (72) 4) STJ (76) 5) WBS (72) 6) PRO (72) 7) BNG (71) 8) ALB (70)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Penguins will probably get a few much needed days off and will have a full week of practice to prepare for an important weekend with Hamilton and Norfolk. Both dangerous games for the Pens and here is why. Look past the Bulldogs to focus on the Admirals who own the Mohegan Sun Arena as of late. Lose to the Bulldogs and then to the Admirals. Binghamton finds its sea legs and a bunch of other teams win and Wilkes-Barre may be on the outside looking in again. That’s why it’s a dangerous weekend.

Let’s Go Pens!!!