Chirps from Center Ice

vs.

5                                 4

–

Better effort. You don’t want to get into a fire fight with the reigning, defending, undisputed Calder Cup Champions.

Penguins lose 5-4 in overtime. Game felt like a rock fight in the first two periods, with the third giving a vibe that the last shot would win. Then the third came and no team scored.

Work night, school night, so let’s move it along.

Here’s how they lined up:

Lineup Changes: Sam Houde (injured) Alex Nylander (ill) Colin White (no idea) were out for Justin Addamo, Jordan Frasca and Matt Filipe. On defense, Libor Hajek was in for Ty Smith.

Can’t fault J.D. Forrest for at least holding guys accountable and shaking things up.

First Period: Joe Snively reaps the rewards of a Valtteri Puustinen turnover and it’s 1-0 Bears less than 90 seconds into the game.

Snively loves playing against the Pens, it would seem.

Puustinen atones for his earlier boffo and scores to make it 1-1.

It was off to the races from there.

Jimmy Huntingdon scores from the slot to make it 2-1.

I wanted to rip the defense here and rightly should, but I’m along for the joyride this week man.

Second Period: Jansen Harkins skates in with Rem Pitlick. Harkins passes to Pitlick. Pitlick misses the net entirely! But wait the puck caroms off the wall right to Harkins who puts it into an empty net!

Momma, there goes that man again.

Jansen Harkins scores again, this time on the power play and the Penguins take the lead for the first time.

But then Jimmy Huntingdon gets his second of the game off of Mark Pysyk’s skate to make it 3-3.

Mark Pysyk isn’t it man. If you are going to stand around and watch the action around you, come up and sit next to me in Section 104.

Like I don’t even know what this was. Pysyk ain’t it.

But again, it’s all about the ride this week, and one hell of a ride it was because Corey Andonovski sets up Jagger Joshua at the net front and Joshua scores to make it 4-4.

Third Period: So after all that scoring, all that action, there was no scoring?

That’s what I am saying.

Give me a chance here to applaud referees Graedy Hamilton and Andrew Bell. They stayed out of the way and only called what they had to. I thought they were fantastic, and caught some serious Jeff Smith vibes off the two of them. Fans paid to see Penguins and Bears and not those two. They got the message and refereed a hell of a game.

Overtime: Alex Limoges scores to give the Bears the extra point.

Three Stars: 3) Alex Limoges (game winning goal, assist) 2) Jansen Harkins (two goals) 1) Jimmy Huntingdon (two goals)

The Good: They play their best when they play Hershey. The rest of their opponent matrix? So-so. Competitive game that they are good to get a point out of, especially with this hellacious stretch of five road games beginning in Providence Friday.

The Bad: This defense corps sucks.

Turning Point: Joshua’s goal gets them the point, but it’s Limoges’ overtime game winner that gets it here.

Around the Division: Hartford beats Springfield 5-1 in a kids day game …. Charlotte is out in San Diego, where the high today was 70 degrees, and that game is still going on when I hit “Publish” on this blog post. Box here.

Standings: I can’t complete this because Charlotte’s score isn’t factored in. The Penguins have 14 points and are in fifth, tied with Charlotte right now. We are all Gulls fans tonight!

Wheeling Update: Nailers played a kids day game also in Toledo and won in a shootout 6-5. Lukas Svejkovsky had a goal and an assist. One of the refs in that game, Liam Maaskant, will be one of the refs Friday in Providence (the AHL posted the weekend refs sometime Wednesday night)

Video Highlights: Are not available and I won’t be able to edit them in because I am in meetings all day Thursday with the big boy job. Better luck next time.

Back at it Friday in Providence. Talk to you then.

Let’s Go Pens!