Chirps from Center Ice

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Syracuse has lost now three straight. The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins made them look like that with a 4-1 handling Wednesday night. Goals scored by Rem Pitlick, Jack Rathbone, Austin Rueschhoff and a beautiful breakaway goal by Matt Filipe had the Penguins off to the races against the Crunch.

Work night, school night, let’s get this over with.

Lineup Notes: 

First Period: Seemed like a sleepy start, until Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates Rem Pitlick scored on a deflection to put the Penguins in front 1-0.

You kind of wanted this type of sleepy start if you were the Penguins with how offensively potent the Crunch are and can be.

Second Period: Penguins stay relentless on a wall battle, it is dug out and over to Jagger Joshua who finds Jack Rathbone at the top of the slot. Rathbone unleashes a shot that beats Matt Tomkins and it’s a 2-0 Penguins lead.

Syracuse gets on the board with a shot off of the face-off from Shawn Element that rings the bar and goes in.

But almost immediately, the Penguins respond for a goal from Austin Rueschhoff off a deflection from Dmitri Samorukov that re-establishes the Penguins two gaol lead.

Good get for Rueschhoff, who I say has two left hands for his lack of finish.

Goal came :20 after the Element score for the Crunch.

Then old buddy Felix Robert draws a penalty (sound familiar?) and the Penguins are off to a penalty kill.

Matt Filipe’s finest work, right here.

Look at that explosion right there. That’s power skating and I don’t even know how. With every stride, he’s losing his defender. He has to finish, and does. Just an all around great play.

Third Period: Penguins went 0/4 on the power play, and had three of those four chances in the third period but didn’t score.

Three Stars: 3) Corey Andonovski (two assists) 2) Matt Filipe (shorthanded goal) 1) Jack Rathbone (goal, assist)

The Good: Team effort, team win. Goals came from all walks of life with half the team on recall. That’s how you do it.

The Bad: Power play was humming, until Wednesday. 0/4 is manageable because you beat a out of division rival, but these are habits you don’t want to fall into.

Turning Point: I love Filipe’s shorthanded goal so much it gets it here. The Rueschhoff goal could get it, but the Filipe shorthanded goal when you have a chance to get back into it if you are Syracuse just deflates you.

Around the Division: Points for all! Hershey beats Providence 3-2 in overtime…Lehigh Valley comes back and beats Charlotte 3-2 in overtime and Springfield needs a shootout to get by Rochester 4-3.

Standings: Hershey 40 – Hartford 33 – Providence 30 – Springfield 28 – Penguins 27 – Lehigh Valley 26 – Charlotte 25 – Bridgeport 13

Wheeling Update: Nailers were off.

Video Highlights: 

Back at it Friday in Utica. Let’s Go Pens!