They have a loaded March schedule. They play Lehigh Valley five times, the most out of any of the teams, in March. Utica is in there. Syracuse too. They have Cleveland’s number and are out there twice. Charlotte starts them off for a pair next weekend.
I think Pittsburgh’s goose is unfortunately cooked. I don’t see them making playoffs. Unless Kyle Dubas can make a trade with Father Time, they are only going to get older. Sidney Crosby is a Hall of Famer, Evgeni Malkin is too and so is Kris Letting, but they can’t do it all. Does Dubas get cute and trade assets now for one last ditch run now or does he sit tight and do nothing? It’s a fine line. I think that Wilkes-Barre should get through this relatively unscathed and should, if anything, get stronger as the season reaches its conclusion.
Music to Set the Mood…
Keep marching. Keep pushing.
The Setup…
A Wednesday game against Lehigh Valley, a road trip to Hershey Friday night and then home against Bridgeport for the first time this season.
The Penguins went to Toronto and pounded the Marlies on a Wednesday afternoon game in Ontario. Jack St. Ivany had a pair of goals. They bottled up Toronto and had their way with them.
Then they went to Rochester on Friday and ran into a hot goalie who does this all the time it appears and lost. It stunk, because Magnus Hellberg struggled again in goal.
They hosted the Laval Rocket and battled and won. 4 of 6 points from the week. You can take that.
Lehigh Valley had one game this past week and lost at home against Syracuse 2-1.
Hershey beat Toronto in overtime on Saturday then beat Belleville clean on Monday. They close out their Canada trip in Laval on Wednesday.
Bridgeport upset Providence 3-2 on Friday, lost to Hartford in overtime on Saturday and beat Laval in overtime on Saturday. In the last three games, they have only allowed five goals. The Islanders will be in Hartford on Wednesday.
Records
The Penguins are 26-17-6-1, good for 59 points in third in the Atlantic Division.
The Phantoms are 20-19-5-2, 27 points and seventh in the Atlantic.
Hershey is 39-9-0-2, 80 points and first place overall in the AHL.
Bridgeport is 15-26-6-1, 37 points and last in the Atlantic.
Who’s Up? Who’s Down? Who’s Out?
I think I am going to consider Jansen Harkins up for good. He’s only played 11 AHL games and hasn’t been here since November.
Colin White and Valtteri Puustinen are up also. Puustinen went up with Vinnie Hinostroza and Jonathan Gruden, but those two (Hinostroza and Gruden) were sent back Sunday.
Wilkes-Barre has Justin Addamo, Max Cajkovic, Owen Headrick, Dillon Hamaliuk, Raivis Ansons and Lukas Svejkovsky up from Wheeling.
Garrett Sparks is down in Wheeling, having been assigned last week.
Jack St. Ivany is back off the injured list.
Remaining injured are Sam Houde, Avery Hayes, Sam Poulin and Marc Johnstone. Out of those, I am hoping that Hayes and Poulin are closest to returning.
What can we learn from the Penguins this week?
How good is their backup goaltending and when exactly do we see Magnus Hellberg in goal for the Penguins? Does he go Wednesday and Saturday? Do you save Joel Blomqvist for the Hershey Bears?
Hellberg hasn’t been good. He’s been adequate, but this is a good league. You can’t win when good to great teams run out at you every night with average goaltending.
Interesting setup this week. Do you go Hellberg against the two non playoff teams and give Blomqvist the whole week to prepare straight up against Hershey, the one team the Penguins will have to go through if they want to make it out of the Division? I don’t know. You need to get the points to keep pace with Providence and stay ahead of the Hartford Wolf Pack. If you want to make that march, like I said at the top, every point matters.
Who’s in Goal?
Ha! I love how this is flowing this week. I’ll go Blomqvist, Hellberg and whoever has played better to get the net Saturday against Bridgeport.
Parker Gahagen, Hunter Shepard and Henrik Tikkanen for the Phantoms, Bears and Islanders respectively. With my recent trend of misses with these predictions, expect the opposite.
Who’s Running the Show?
Jim Curtain and Mason Riley are the refs on Wednesday with Patrick Dapuzzo and J.P. Waleski on the lines.
Nothing on the Friday or Saturday crews yet. This is the last Wednesday game until the middle of March, hopefully we have the full crews when we do this next week.
Looking ahead…
You could just go back to the top of this piece to get that but since you are nice enough to read this far I will remind you that they host the Charlotte Checkers for a pair of games next weekend for Friday and Saturday.
Give us a bold prediction…
Beating this drum, but Blomqvist gets his first shutout of the season Saturday against Bridgeport.
WBS News
Chirps from Center Ice 
Do you think they bring up Gauthier at any time? I’d really like to see him given a chance.
Not for as long as Wheeling stays hot, no. I don’t see that happening.