Chirps from Center Ice

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I don’t particularly like the dark jerseys at home swap that the AHL does from whites at home to dark mid year, but for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins there may be some kind of special powers inside those dark jerseys.

A 4-0 shutout loss in an otherwise anemic showing for a Penguins team missing a few guys to injury or recall against a stingy Utica team that is now 9-2 and winners of four straight. Sometimes you get beat badly by the better team and the Penguins, despite keeping it close and within arms reach, were beat by a better team than they are at the moment.

Here’s how they lined up:

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Lineup Notes: Max Graham and Lucas Ciona for Rutger McGroarty and Brayden Edwards (upper body, week to week) up front. Harrison Brunicke returned for Owen Pickering (upper body, still evaluating)

First Period: Ex-Penguin Stefan Noesen with a nifty deflection of an Anton Silaev shot and Utica is on the board first.

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Second Period: Utica gummed the Penguins up, Wilkes-Barre killed a late penalty. No scoring otherwise.

Third Period: Xavier Parent puts home a rebound at 2:59 and that was all she wrote from there. The next goal in a game like this was huge and for Utica to come right out and get it in the way it did, the Penguins were never recovering.

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Refs Nolan Bloyer and Mason Riley understood the assignment in staying the hell out of the way for a Tuesday work night game, but the Comets were given more of the power play opportunities.

Desperation set in as the Penguins had an offensive zone face off and with Joel Blomqvist pulled the Penguins lose the face off and Lenni Hämeenaho scores into the empty net. Later, Jack Malone finishes off a two on one to make it 4-0 just because.

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Oof.

Three Stars: 3) Xavier Parent (goal) 2) Stefan Noesen (goal) 1) David Rittich (25 saves)

The Good: Pens went 4/4 on the penalty kill, which is something.

The Bad: Getting shutout at home is always bad.

The Bad II: Whatever the front office is doing to try to get more people in the seats with these promotions and wacky starts times is admirable but it isn’t working. A 6:35 start time on a Tuesday with the understanding that if the Penguins won the game, everyone would get a free ticket to next Wednesday’s game against Milwaukee wasn’t enough to even get the place at 1/4 capacity. Yeah, weekday games don’t normally sell out, but the place felt empty. Perhaps gas being what it is coupled with the insane prices that the Arena charges for pretty much everything plays into the reality that prices are going up which means attendance at a thing like this will go down. Who knows. Stopping short of just giving tickets away for free, I don’t have any idea either on how to get the place full again.

Turning Point: The Parent goal that made it 2-0 is the obvious choice here.

Around the Division: Hartford beats Springfield in a schoolday game 5-2….Charlotte doubles up Providence 4-2.

Standings: Charlotte 19 – Hartford 17 – Hershey 16 – Penguins 15 – Providence 12 – Lehigh Valley and Springfield 11

Florida Update: Everblades are off until Friday.

Video Highlights: 

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Back at it Friday in Hershey.

Let’s Go Pens!