Chirps from Center Ice

They were originally slated to play this game on Monday, but because of the snow, moved it to Sunday. Hey, at least it wasn’t because of a COVID related something.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins traveled to Newark, NJ where the Binghamton Devils will play their 2021 home campaign from this season and win 5-1. Not bad for a team together for about 72 hours, having opened training camp this past Friday.

Here’s how they lined up for the game, just their third game together as training camp started Friday:

Hashtag overload.

Devils didn’t post lines, or else I would have added them here. Evan Cormier started for Binghamton in goal. Both goalies played the entire game.

Again, with this being preseason, and the first one to boot, regular names like Jordan Nolan and others weren’t involved in the contest. Expect that to change when they do this for real, or as real as it can get in the middle of a pandemic, this Saturday.

First Period: They withstood an early push from the Devils to start, then Tim Schaller, in camp on a PTO, scored on the Penguins first shot of the game.

Thank you again to Taylor for allowing me to embed the goals and stuff in the blog pieces. It is appreciated.

Pens had a power play which looked about as good as you would expect from a team who are historically bad at them, just three days together as a unit.

Scare later in the period where Binghamton found itself on :31 of five on three. Emil Larmi made a save through a pile of bodies and the penalty killing unit made it out unscathed.

Second Period: Josh Maniscalco’s shot from the point beats Evan Cormier which extended the Penguins lead to two.

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Evan Cormier was really keeping his team in the game, stopping Justin Almeida and Michael Joly on breakaway attempts. The Penguins killed off two more penalties in the period.

Third Period: Chase Berger sets up Zach Nastasiuk who beats Cormier five hole and the Penguins went ahead 3-0.

Binghamton gets on the board when Riley Walsh picks off Emil Larmi out of his net and scores to make it 3-1.

Cormier vacated for the extra attacker and Tim Schaller hit a post but Jordy Bellerive was there to push the puck into the empty net.

Pens get a gaol from John Gruden who grinds one past Cormier to make it 5-1 Penguins for good measure.

Thoughts: The feed was horrible. They are playing in a practice rink so there are nets everywhere. They are not going to take the net down for games so expect that when you play Binghamton in Newark this year. Jon Lizotte played a solid game. They looked good, Larmi played well and Binghamton was chasing the game from the very beginning. Nice way to clamp down and not let the Devils back into the game, killing off those early penalties and the like.

They are back at it again Tuesday down in Allentown, suspect weather permitting. I did not see any place where the Phantoms would be doing a Facebook Live, so it will probably be radio only, so that means I will drop in and do my best to recap what I can for you here Tuesday. They get going for real on Saturday.

Let’s Go Pens!

Stay safe.