Chirps from Center Ice

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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins sweep the weekend, with a 2-1 win over the Providence Bruins in Rhode Island. The Penguins play just two three in threes this season and this weekend was one of them.

This game was a defensive battle through the first two periods as there was no scoring. Each team was 0/3 on the power play through the first two periods and the Penguins just had a paltry 11 shots.

But in the third period, the Penguins came alive and emptied the tank with a barrage of shots that led to two goals. They were outshooting Providence 14-1 at one point in the third period and got goals from Ty Glover (his first pro goal) and Valtteri Puustinen (his first of the season) which had the Pens up 2-0.

But then a pushback by the Bruins saw Joona Koppanen score a power play goal as the Pens, after they scored the two goals, let off and gave the P-Bruins nearly consecutive power plays. This was the only blemish on an overall good game by the Penguins who I think played about as full of a 60 minute hockey game as you can playing your third game in the stand of about two and and a half days. It also spoiled the would be shutout bid for Dustin Tokarski.

(No GIF on the Providence goal)

The Pens were extra careful with starting goaltender Keith Kinkaid pulled and saw it out to a. perfect 6-for-6 weekend. This dealt the Bruins their first regulation loss.

Nothing more to this one, so let’s get to the lineups and get out of here.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Drake Caggiula and Sam Poulin were recalled to Pittsburgh. They will need the bodies as Pittsburgh is heading to Western Canada this week. Lukas Svejkovsky and Sam Houde went in for them and Jack St. Ivany made his AHL debut in for Mitch Reinke who needs his lower body injury evaluated. He was injured Saturday in Hartford.

Three Stars: 3) Joona Koppanen (goal) 2) Dustin Tokarski (30 saves) 1) Valtteri Puustinen (goal)

The Good: Tokarski is their number one. The team is pretty good, should be interesting to see where this goes.

The Bad: Teams good. Still no shutout for their goaltender. Yes, I am being impatient.

Turning Point: That 14-1 blitzkrieg displayed nay Wilkes-Barre / Scranton to start the third gave the Penguins the momentum to push them to victory, although you can argue that they coasted the final 5-7 minutes and not be wrong.

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley beats Cleveland 5-4 and Bridgeport sweeps their weekend with a 5-2 win against Hartford.

Standings: Charlotte and Bridgeport 8 – Penguins and Providence 7 – Hershey and Lehigh Valley 5 – Springfield 4 – Hartford 2

Wheeling Update: Nailers stared a little later than the Penguins and are in a rematch with the Toledo Walleye as this blog post goes up. Box here.

Video Highlights: I’ll search for them. AHL VideoCenter is here and they seem like they have all the games highlights, across the league.

More Wednesday with the weekend setup teeing up Cleveland, Lehigh Valley and Hershey.

Let’s Go Pens!