Chirps from Center Ice

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The last time these two teams met a few weeks ago, Joel Blomqvist was pulled and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lost in overtime.

Fast forward to Friday night and Blomqvist goes the full 60, stops 22 shots and his Penguins team holds on for a 3-2 win.

Goals by Atley Calvert, Villa Koivunen, playing in his 300th professional game and Aidan McDonough.

Here’s how they lined up…

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Lineup Notes: Joona Koppanen and Zach Gallant for Filip Hållander and Melvin Fernstrom up front and Alex Alexeyev and Chase Pietila for Finn Harding and Emil Pieniniemi on defense. Hållander was recalled after his conditioning stint and Fernstrom is day to day with an upper body injury suffered last Sunday in Bridgeport.

First Period: Zach Gallant with a beautiful setup to Atley Calvert who scores on a backhand to put the Penguins up 1-0 early.

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Then a setup behind the net by Rutger McGroarty to Ville Koivunen for a slam dunk goal that extended the Penguins lead to 2-0.

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These goals come :45 apart.

Cleveland settled in from there and the flood of goals stopped.

Second Period: The Penguins took four consecutive penalties, three in this period alone and on the final power play for the Monsters on a heavily disputed too many men on the ice call against the Penguins, Luca Del Bel Belluz scores :04 into a Monsters power play that cut the deficit to one.

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But then in the final minute of the period, Aidan McDonough with a huge goal that made it 3-1 Wilkes-Barre at the end of a large offensive zone setup by Wilkes-Barre.

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Third Period: Referees Koletrane Wilson and Stephen Huff flipped the script on the teams and started calling penalties against the Monsters. Despite this, the Penguins were unable to score.

The game tightened up when. Guillaume Richard scored just 1:15 into the period to make it a one goal game again.

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Unfortunate bounce off of the skate of Owen Pickering.

Joel Blomqvist stopped a James Malatesta. breakaway bid about halfway through.

This was a game where you could almost feel it being a one goal game.

With Zach Sawchenko pulled, the Pens iced the puck a bunch but Cleveland never found the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Rutger McGroarty (assist) 2) Atley Clavert (goal) 1) Aidan McDonough (goal)

The Good: Two points on the road and Blomqvist had a hell of a game, you can argue he stole one against the Monsters tonight.

The Bad: Special teams continues to be a major concern and they were careless again.

Turning Point: The McDonough goal gets it here.

Around the Division: Hershey is out in Rockford and at about 9:50 p.m. on a Friday that game is 1-1. Box here…..Charlotte clips Springfield in overtime 3-2.

Standings: Providence 79 – Penguins 77 – Charlotte 64 – Hershey (will remain in fourth no matter what happens in Rockford with either 54 (loss) 55 (point) or 56 (win) points – Bridgeport 51 – Lehigh Valley 50 – Springfield 47 – Hartford 44

Wheeling Update: Nailers with a 7-2 win at home against Kalamazoo. The K-Wings were held to just 10 shots on goal the entire game. Taylor Gauthier got the win, Nolan Renwick with a goal, Ryan McAllister a goal and two assists, Danial Laatsch had a goal and Zach Urdahl had two assists. 10 shots. That’s something.

Video Highlights: Why didn’t someone tell me to just go to teams YouTube pages earlier???

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Back at it again in Cleveland at 4 p.m. Don’t be late!

Let’s Go Pens!