Chirps from Center Ice

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Adam Johnson’s overtime, penalty shot, game winning goal does the trick for the Wilkes-Barre/ Scranton Penguins who win a wild one in Hartford Saturday night 4-3.

The Penguins never trailed in the game but Hartford, to their credit, exhibited a tenacity that gritted them out the overtime loser point and showed why the Wolf Pack sit in the upper echelon of Atlantic Division teams. They just rack up points.

Penguins bus to Providence for a Sunday matinee which sets up playoff implications. The Penguins and Bruins meet Sunday in Rhode Island then again Wednesday in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Dustin Tokarski opposed Adam Huska.

Lineup: 

Lineup Notes: Was essentially a flip at center between Bellerive and Powell.

First Period: Much like the first periods opening stages against Hershey Friday, a lot of action but not a lot of scoring to show.

Until John Nyberg ripped a shot that Cole Cassels got a piece of that gave the Pens a 1-0 lead.

Second Period: Much like the second period Friday, there were a lot of penalties called against the Penguins. They were able to kill all of them (four) but there was more scoring in the period than last night.

Hartford scored in the first and final minutes and Ryan Scarfo scored his first goal with the Penguins. Here they are in succession.

Nice slam dunk shoot there and an even better pass by Vincent LoVerde.

Tweet says it all. A nice deflection of a Lizotte shot.

So it was a Darren Raddysh shot that Tokarski made the initial stop on that Lettieri collected and deflected off of Tokarski and in. A really sick angle shot for a goal.

Third Period: Kevin Roy scored a nice goal on a rush after the Penguins just killed a penalty that gave the Penguins a 3-2 lead. Nice setup by Adam Johnson to get the whole thing going.

Vitali Kravtsov finds time and space and turns on the jets and scores on this breakaway goal that tied the game at three.

Penguins didn’t do themselves any favors when they took a late puck over glass delay of game penalty but were able to navigate their way out of that and it was off to…

Overtime: Largely uneventful until Adam Johnson went off on a breakaway and was hauled down. A penalty shot was awarded and Johnson didn’t miss…

Three Stars: 

The Good: They were largely unfazed, on the road, against a team that is a point machine and came away with two points.

The Bad: Killer instinct is a moving target. It didn’t look like Hartford had, “it” tonight and had the Wolf Pack won, they would have been lucky.

Turning Point: I don’t know how anyone doesn’t look at the Johnson overtime, penalty shot goal and say that is it.

Around the Division: Hershey and Bridgeport go to a shootout after the Bears were up 4-2. Hershey wins 5-4….Lehigh Valley loses 2-1 in Syracuse….Providence runs over Springfield 7-4….Charlotte ends Binghamton’s winning streak and win 6-3 but the Checkers are probably losing one or both goalies to recall as Carolina lost both goalies in a game they won in Toronto. Imagine being a Maple Leafs fan.

Standings: Hershey 72 — Hartford 69 — Providence 66 — Charlotte 64 — Penguins 62 — Springfield 60 — Lehigh Valley 54 — Bridgeport 45

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose 3-2 in Kalamazoo. Brandon Hawkins and Blake Siebenhaler scored for the Nailers in the loss.

Video Highlights: I doubt Hartford will have them, if Coal Street goes, I will work an edit in.

They are up in Providence tomorrow at 3. Gameday setup hits the blog Sunday at 11 a.m.

Let’s Go Pens!