vs.        

4                                             2

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Tonight’s game, a 4-2 loss to the Syracuse Crunch, was won and lost by the goaltenders tonight.

Brian Foster for Wilkes-Barre stopped just 13 of 16 shots at him tonight and looked generally awful. I had a concern at the start of the year that if the Penguins ever needed to rely on him at any point that they would be in trouble and this is proving to be true. Seth dug this stat up during the game tonight:

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682702943653605381]

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Also…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682691592210247681]

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682678874161967108]

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I will get to my point that he wasn’t very good tonight and cost the Penguins at a real shot at winning the game.

Andrei Vasilevskiy on the other hand, was outstanding. He wasn’t one of the three stars of the game, but he won the game for Syracuse tonight, stopping 28 of 30 and all 16 shots in the third period by the Penguins as they were chasing a one goal deficit. His best work came in the third period and again, I will get to the evidence of that visually in a second.

Lines were as follows…

Josh Archibald – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Ty Loney – Sahir Gill – John McCarron

Derrick Pouliot – Adam Clendening
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

Lineup Notes: Adam Clendening was sent down by Pittsburgh to Wilkes-Barre Thursday morning on a conditioning assignment. He took the place of Clark Seymour paired on the top defensive unit with Derrick Pouliot….John McCarron was called up to Wilkes-Barre yesterday as Matia Marcantuoni was sent down and was in on the fourth line reunited with his Wheeling line mates Ty Loney and Sahir Gill. J-S Dea centered the top line with Kael Mouillierat out with an upper body injury.

First Period: Pens had the games first power play and brought in a unit which was on a long dry spell on power play success. Clendening pumped a shot at net that was tipped in by J-S Dea for a goal and a Penguins lead for the first time in a while, as it was the first goal scored under the Clark Donatelli Era and the first lead too.

Here is a look at it…

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682688422633455616]

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Penguins continued to control the offensive zone. They would set up shop, and just stay there and cycle the puck and pump shots at Vasilevskiy.

But it was becoming apparent that the Crunch were doing a decent enough job at getting sticks in the lanes of where the shots were headed, as seemingly 60% of the shot attempts were either blocked or deflected.

Josh Archibald would then take a questionable goaltender interference penalty and the Crunch would quickly cash on power play when Adam Erne finished off a tic tac toe play in front of Foster for a 1-1 game.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682692050232422402]

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After the Penguins were so dominant to this point, I said this at the time…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/682691184117039104]

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My very next tweet…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/682692280566833152]

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682693228269809665]

It was actually a reversal of the way I called it at the time on Twitter. It was Mike Blunden who scored and Tanner Richard who won the draw. Regardless, it was a 2-1 Crunch lead after what was a pretty good period by the Penguins.

Second Period: Sahir Gill would score on the power play and the terms were even again. Dominik Simon set the whole thing up with a nice pass to Gill who shot it home. Simon collected his AHL leading 28th point for rookies.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682701543406178304]

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1:19 later, Syracuse edged ahead again when Nic Andersen got dumped into the Syracuse bench, turned the puck over. Adam Erne broke down the wing, centered to Cameron Darcy who missed the net entirely, but shot it off the wall where Erne collected and put it past Foster for a 3-2 Crunch lead.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682702301438570496]

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Someone needs to explain to me what the hell Foster was doing in that situation. Syracuse scored three goals on ten shots. Look, I know that the Pens are down their top two goaltenders, but you have to have the ability to make saves at the American Hockey League level. Right now, Foster isn’t that guy.

Saw people clamoring on Twitter for Penguins backup goaltender Casey DeSmith. Here’s his story. He is in his rookie season and is the third goaltender in Wheeling, playing behind Foster and Franky Palazzese. If you aren’t good enough to play your way into a a few games here and there in the ECHL, you aren’t good enough to be relied upon in the AHL for a good team like the Penguins.

Third Period: Here is one of Vasilevskiy’s two monster saves in the third period. This one is on Oskar Sundqvist.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682714009968185344]

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Here is the second one, on J-S Dea. Two looks. Two angles.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682717593162100736]

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682717934729490432]

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Larceny.

Penguins really brought everything they could at the Crunch and Vasilevskiy. They did a good job of insulating Brian Foster but could not solve Vasilevskiy at all. With time dwindling and Foster vacated, the Penguins never found the equalizer and had to watch this shot by Slater Koekkoek drift harmlessly into their net…

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682719667656495105]

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[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/682718388985159682]

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Derrick Pouliot was awful tonight. He may be hurt, discouraged, or slumping. He had three turnovers tonight that led to rushes up ice for the Crunch the other way. I think he misses Steve Oleksy, who he was paired with before Oleksy’s injury…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682711013532262400]

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Three Stars: 3) Mike Blunden (goal, assist, +1) 2) Sahir Gill (goal, even) and 1) Adam Erne (two goals, +1)

Around the Division: The silver lining in the current losing streak that the Penguins is on is that it is being matched by the Hershey Bears, who drop their third straight game, this time a 3-1 setback at home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Portland beat Providence 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.717 points percentage) — Bridgeport (.591) — Portland (.583) — Hershey (.576) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Hartford (.469) — Providence (.465) — Springfield (.419)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost in overtime to the Brampton Beat by a score of 4-3. Anton Zlobin had a goal and an assist, Matia Marcantuoni had a goal.

I don’t think that the Pens will put a postgame infographic up or video highlights. You aren’t missing much that you haven’t seen already here.

Pens are in action again Saturday against Springfield. Look, Syracuse is a good team that has been pillaged by injuries and call-ups. They are resilient and play that way and I think that was full on display tonight. If the Pens lose to the last place Falcons, then I think you will see fans start to get desperate and start demanding answers.

Anyway, Happy New Year and Let’s Go Pens!

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A lot is going to be said online and in other areas about the recent play of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

Forget about the fact that last week they shut out teams in four of five games and hadn’t allowed a single even strength goal in a remarkable 300+ minutes.

Forget about all that.

Focus on a two game set against in-state rivals where you are shut out in both games. 5-0 last night to Hershey and 3-0 today to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

That’s what fans do, right? Bloodthirsty, cup less fans in Wilkes-Barre that still pin losses on Ray Shero and Mike Johnston for messing with the team here in Wilkes-Barre while teams like Hershey, Norfolk, Binghamton and Grand Rapids have parades in June raising a Calder Cup banner.

No, not here. Forget about all that.

Look, you can blame new coach Clark Donatelli all you want, you can pin the blame on Brian Foster all you may in net, but if the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins can’t score a single goal in any given game, they have no chance of winning said game. Period. End of story.

Scoreless now in a span of 134:41. A penalty killing unit that went 2-for-4 last night in Hershey and 1-for-2 tonight. When the offense isn’t there and the special teams struggle, the team as a whole struggles.

Can anyone just say that Phantoms starting goaltender Jason LaBarbera played a hell of a game with an understaffed team crippled by injuries? (The Phantoms played a man short and are missing 10 players due to injury)

35 saves by LaBarbera tonight.

No changes for the Penguins lineup tonight.

First Period: Did everything right, outshot the Phantoms 9-3 until Andrew MacDonald finds himself alone in the high slot and wires a shot past Foster for a 1-0 Phantoms lead:

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I am trying to decide amongst myself where the turning point of the game was. Here at the MacDonald goal, or later in the period when the Penguins had thirteen seconds of 5-on-3 power play.

Second Period: Again controlled play by Wilkes-Barre, then Kael Mouillierat takes a goaltender interference penalty and the Phantoms cash on a power play goal when Niclas Andersen partially screens Foster while skating backwards.

Third Period: Penguins needed to press while chasing a team up two goals on them and be careful in the process because their penalty killing hasn’t been the best. Every shot, it seemed, was right at LaBarbera and he saw it all the way.

Finally, ex-Penguin Colin McDonald skates down the right wing, catches Foster dipping into the butterfly a split second too soon and finds daylight upstairs and extends the Phantoms lead to 3-0 on an NHL caliber snipe.

Penguins couldn’t score on a power play, killed a penalty and could not get one by LaBarbera with an extra attacker with Foster pulled after a time out and that was all she wrote.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Cousins (two assists, +1) 2) Andrew MacDonald (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Jason LaBarbera (35 saves)

Strong games by J-S Dea and Bryan Rust who maximized each shift and really stood out.

Let’s look at some tweets that put this one in perspective…

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Around the Division: Wasn’t a bad weekend for the Penguins insofar as it was an equally bad weekend for the Atlantic Division as a whole. Hershey lost to Binghamton at home tonight 5-3. The B-Sens have won three straight…Portland beat Springfield 5-3…Hartford shutout Rochester 1-0 and Bridgeport beat Providence 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.741 percentage points) — (Hershey .613) — Bridgeport (.591) — Portland (.589) — Lehigh Valley (.484) — Providence (.452) — Hartford (.452) — Springfield (.433)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are feeling the affects also, dropping a 7-4 decision to the Kalamazoo Wings. Cody Wydo and Riley Brace both had two goals.

Here’s the post game infographic…

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Give Donatelli a chance to run a few practices. Bodies will be back soon. It isn’t as bad as you think, despite what you think.

My Week 12 AHL Power Rankings will hit the blog at a special time tomorrow, 1 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!