Chirps from Center Ice

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Just 16 shots on goal for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins Saturday night but it’s enough to turn the tables on the Charlotte Checkers and results in a 3-2 Penguins win.

Sergei Murashov is 5-0 in the AHL. Wilkes-Barre has important stretches of games over the final half of the season. Murashov is positioning himself as the number one goaltender.

They will break now for the All-Star game. During the third period, it was announced that Owen Pickering was added to the games, joining his teammate Emil Bemstrom.

It ain’t that deep, but Vasily Ponomarev deserves it more. He just does, but it’s a showcase for guys that will be playing in the NHL someday and Pickering has already been there and will be there again. It ain’t that deep.

Here’s how they lined up:

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Lineup Notes: Avery Hayes for Atley Calvert up front; Dan Renouf for Filip Kral.

First Period: Four goals in the period, all before the game was eight minutes old. Vasily Ponomarev, still not an AHL All-Star, scored just :16 in, with this goal…

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Penguins power play after that. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Patrick Giles scores the Checkers 12th shorthanded goal of the season, Charlotte’s fourth against the Penguins alone, to tie the game at one.

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Corey Andonovski scored to push the Penguins back ahead to make it 2-1.

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What a pass right there. Andonovski getting hot is something you want to see.

Will Lockwood would score on back to back nights on the Penguins to even the game at two at 7:31.

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Whew. And I don’t know what Lockwood saw there because Sergei Murashov sure didn’t. Gotta have that.

Second Period: Another slow start for the Penguins, just four shots in the period. Sergei Murashov kept things level, stopping all 11 shots faced. Teams traded power plays but no one scored.

Third Period: Penguins sweat through a Dan Renouf delay of game penalty. I thought Adam Tobias and Mike Sullivan were generally okay this weekend which makes it more frustrating whenever you see Sullivan’s name assigned to the games. He’s so inconsistent.

Anyway, during the penalty kill, Jonathan Gruden won a foot race and stole the puck off goaltender Ken Appleby’s stick and it went straight into the net to give the Penguins a 3-2 lead on a shorthanded goal.

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Later the Checkers would pull Appleby for an extra attacker but they would never find the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Patrick Giles (goal) 2) Corey Andonovski (goal) 1) Jonathan Gruden (goal, assist)

The Good: Nice to see them turn the tables on Charlotte. I think these two teams are headed for a collision course in late April / early May.

The Bad: 16 shots? Really? That. won’t get you very far on most nights but like I said Friday, styles make fights.

Turning Point: Go back and watch that Gruden goal. That’s dogged determination if there ever was any.

Around the Division: Laval clips Hartford in overtime 5-4….Cleveland bests Providence 3-2….Hershey again survives Bridgeport 5-4 and Springfield crushes Iowa 7-2. Lehigh Valley had the weekend off.

Standings: Hershey 61 – Providence and Charlotte 53 – Penguins 52 – Lehigh Valley 48 – Springfield 46 – Hartford 41 – Bridgeport 24

Wheeling Update: Nailers were out in Fort Wayne and lost 5-3. Matthew Quercia had a pair of goals in the loss.

Video Highlights: AHL VideoCenter is your best bet.

AHL Power Rankings will be out Monday. I will be able to finish them Sunday at a reasonable time which is nice with no games.

Enjoy All-Stars and the week off. Talk next Friday for the Weekend Setup.

Let’s Go Pens!