Chirps from Center Ice

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6                                  3

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A hat trick for Austin Rueschhoff, four assists for Ty Smith and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have won their fourth game in a row with a 6-3 win in Bridgeport Saturday evening.

The Penguins will keep pace with the Charlotte Checkers, who also won Saturday, and each team has 79 points with six games remaining for each.

Here’s how they lined up, Bridgeport didn’t post lines…

Lineup Notes: Logan Pietila made his AHL debut, replacing Matthew Quercia up front and Owen Headrick replaced Taylor Fedun on defense. If the Penguins can keep rotating decent players in and out of the lineup and get unavailable players back at some point down the line, who knows how far this car can go.

First Period: Penguins struck, and struck swiftly, for three goals before the Islanders recorded their first shot of the game. Wilkes-Barre strikes for not one, but two power play goals that give themselves a 3-0 lead quite quickly.

Vinnie Hinostroza with a power play goal that deflected off of starting goalie Jakub Skarek, off Seth Helgeson and in for a 1-0 Penguins lead.

Then Evan Vierling keeps his goal streak going with his second goal of the weekend with a tap in from a feed from Corey Andonovski that made it 2-0 Penguins.

Then Austin Rueschhoff scored a power play goal on a relentless display for the Penguins who kept the puck in the Islanders zone the entire time and Rueschhoff struck far side with a roof job that made it 3-0 and the rout was seemingly on.

Until it wasn’t.

The Islanders got a late goal from Daylan Kuefler that got the Islanders on the board and gave them a 3-1 deficit heading into the…

Second Period: Whatever vibe they had in the first where everything was going their way and every puck they shot was going in, was gone baby gone. Three penalties taken by the Penguins in the period. Bridgeport has, if you can believe it, a worse power play than the Penguins (dead last at 32nd) and didn’t score, but William Dufour scored to bring the Islanders back within one with a great second effort here.

+1 for the pun use there.

One other thing. Ken Appleby replaced Jakub Skarek in  goal at some point that wasn’t featured on TV and mentioned late by Penguins play by play man Nick Hart.

The Islanders were eating this elephant one bite at a time.

Third Period: It’s hard to eat a whole elephant.

Austin Rueschhoff, in beast mode, scores his second of the game off a nice feed by Ty Smith, his fourth assist of the game, that gives the Penguins some breathing room and a 4-2 lead.

Later, Xavier Ouellet scored off a face-off win that gave the Pens a 5-2 lead.

Good to see this. They were reeling, and they rely on their leaders and glue guys to pull them out the mud.

But Bridgeport wasn’t going away, never seemed out of it. Ruslan Ishakov shot blocked to Matthew Maggio who scores the Islanders goal on their first shot of the period that makes it 5-3.

The Islanders, if they were going to get back into it, weren’t doing themselves favors by taking penalties late that gave the Penguins a brief two man advantage.

Wilkes-Barre didn’t score, but they did get a third goal from Austin Rueschhoff who scored it on an empty Bridgeport net.

Three Stars: 3) William Dufour (goal, assist) 2) Ty Smith (four assists) 1) Austin Rueschhoff (hat trick)

The Good: They battled and came out on top on the road. That’s all you can ask for.

The Bad: A last place Islanders had no business having it be as close as it was at times against this Penguins team. It may be nitpicky, but you aren’t going to have teams like Bridgeport come late April and beyond.

Turning Point: The second Rueschhoff goal gets it here and took some of the heat off the Pens who were reeling.

Around the Division: Springfield loses in Laval 7-4…Charlotte shuts out Hartford 4-0.

In the later games, Herhsey beats Iowa in a shootout 3-2….Cleveland shuts out Lehigh Valley 3-0….Rochester beats Providence 3-2 in overtime.

Standings: Hershey 105 – Providence 85 – Penguins and Checkers 79 – Hartford 70 – Lehigh Valley 67 – Springfield 63 – Bridgeport 55

Wheeling Update: Nailers were off.

Video Highlights: AHL VideoCenter is your best bet here.

Lehigh Valley Sunday afternoon at home. More then.

Let’s Go Pens!