Chirps from Center Ice

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They spoiled a dazzling display in goal by Casey DeSmith.

After going up 2-0 in the first period, DeSmith shut down the Bears in the second period, which I felt at the time was Hershey’s best attempt to get back in the game, after the physical war the Bears were in all weekend with Lehigh Valley on Friday and Saturday. No way that the Bears, in the final period of a weekend three in three, mount a comeback against that Penguins defense.

Wrong! Bears get two to tie in the third, force overtime and Joe Snively’s goal in overtime give Hershey a 3-2 overtime win against the Penguins Sunday.

I found out in the third that the Penguins were missing one of their better defensemen in Zach Trotman who left the game and didn’t return. That may have had a part in it.

DeSmith opposed Pheonix Copley.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Joseph Blandisi was reassigned by Pittsburgh Sunday morning. Jordy Bellerive went out of the lineup to make room, Jan Drozg went to the top line where he ended up Saturday night. Defense pairings were intact.

First Period: Hot start for Wilkes-Barre / Scranton, who went up two goals in a span of about two minutes just before half way.

Sam Miletic scored on a ridiculous feed by Andreas Martinsen that put the Pens on the board.

Then Anthony Angello scored from the slot which doubled the visitors lead.

Miletic nearly had a second goal on this sequence but Copley was lucky enough to not let it beat him.

Casey DeSmith, not to be outdone, had this ten bell save on Joe Snively in the final knockings of the period.

Second Period: Eighteen shots by Hershey but no goals to show. Casey DeSmith stood on his head, had the Bears hit two posts, but no one scored. Penguins had :31 of two man advantage but weren’t able to score.

Third Period: Hershey finally breaks through on a power play goal scored by Matt Mouslon. A shot by Bobby Nardella was saved by DeSmith but not covered up and Mouslon who was screening in front swept it across the line.

The Bears power play is 30th out of 31 teams in the AHL but somehow always scores against the Penguins. It was the fourth (of ten successes) power play goals scored against the Penguins this season.

Christian Djoos had a low, seeing eye shot beat DeSmith which tied the game at two.

Then a super soft call by Mitch Dunning and Michael Markovic. We had these two referees Saturday at home and I thought they did a fine job. They did a fine job Sunday too but for the following sequence.

That’s 6’5 Anthony Angello decleating 5’11 Shane Gersich who was skating with his head down with a clean body hit. Nothing at the head, nothing dirty, a clean hit delivered. Referees call roughing. Thankfully, Hershey didn’t score on the ensuing power play.

Dunning and Markovic repaid the Penguins with a soft hooking call against the Bears but the Penguins didn’t score there.

Overtime: Sam Miletic had a chance to end it in OT but Copley flicked out the pad.

Snively put home a rebound of a Mike Sgarbossa shot.

Here’s another look:

Game. Set. Match. A perfect 3-0 weekend for Hershey. Only one point for Wilkes-Barre / Scranton.

Three stars: 3) Matt Moulson (goal) 2) Christian Djoos (goal, assist) 1) Joe Snively (overtime game winning goal)

The Good: The hot start by the Penguins.

The Bad: Losing Trotman to injury had to play into the Bears relentless comeback in the third.

Turning Point: :31 of two man advantage reared no goals for the Penguins. A three, possibly four goal lead at the time would have been way too much for a tired Bears team to overcome no matter who was missing from the Penguins lineup.

Around the Division: One other game, the Hartford Wolf Pack complete a perfect 3-0 weekend with a 4-1 win over the Atlantic Division leader Providence Bruins in Providence.

Standings: Hartford 35 — Providence 35 — Penguins 30 — Hershey 29 — Springfield 28 — Lehigh Valley 25 — Charlotte 23 — Bridgeport 22

Wheeling Update: Nailers were off.

Video Highlights: 

The Pens are in Rochester taking on old buddy J-S Dea and the Americans Wednesday. Blue Cross Arena has been a house of horrors for the Penguins of late.

The stat board has been updated. You can click over to that at the top of the blog, or just click here.

Mailbag Monday is back, send in questions or I will shelve the feature entirely.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I am not going to bury the turning point in this game recap, I’ll give it to you here.

After the Penguins third goal of the game and of the second period, Texas Stars head coach Derek Laxdal called his time out to settle his group. His side, still at the bottom of the Central Division and only winners of two road games all season, were seeing a decent start to the game slip away after the Penguins scored back to back power play goals.

It worked. The Penguins didn’t score another goal, Texas would tie the game later in the period then score just :15 into the third period to go on to win 5-3 Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre.

The game will be remembered for some fighting at the end, including Emil Larmi’s halfhearted attempt to fight Stars starting goaltender Landon Bow. They didn’t and, at 10:45 p.m. on this Saturday night where I am typing these words, the game sheet still is not final on the AHL’s website.

Second loss in a row for the Penguins. Consider the opponent. Texas was in for the first time ever as an opponent from the Western Conference which we rarely see. Are they two games that you’d like to win? Sure, Texas was awful coming in and in last in the Central. But in the bigger picture you’d rather lose to out of division teams vs. teams like Hershey or Providence.

Lines were…

Texas didn’t post lines and there are no GIFs of any goals. I’ll do my best in describing them for you, use your imagination.

Lineup Notes: Jan Drozg was recalled from Wheeling Saturday afternoon. He replaced Adam Johnson who picked up a knock last night on Jon Lizotte’s clearing attempt. For what it’s worth they listed Johnson on the injury report. Andreas Martinsen was slotted on the top line but didn’t stay there, as he was replaced by Drozg.

First Period: Better start for the Penguins, but it was Jason Robertson scoring twice in the period from two on one goals which beat Larmi. The second came with just .8 seconds left to play in the period.

Second Period: David Warsofsky’s shot at goal was deflected by Sam Miletic which triggered the annual teddy bear toss. After a brief delay, play resumed and the Penguins found themselves on a five on three for 1:41.

Warsofsky’s shot this time went in without anyone touching it and it was a tie game. There was still time left over from the Dillon Heatherington double minor of a high stick on Andrew Agozzino, and the Penguins connected on that to take the lead at 3-2. Zach Trotman scored on a hell of a shot.

Here is where that time out by Laxdal came in. There was still more than half of the game yet to be played. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. This time it did.

Joel L’Esperance scored on a power play goal late in the period which tied the game at three. I believe Larmi was screened.

Third Period: Weird play to open the period. Heatherington’s shot at goal kicked off of Niclas Almari’s skates and died in the slot. Joel Kiviranta was in the right place at the right time, put a move on Larmi to get him out of position and scored to give the Stars the lead again.

Penguins had more than a few good looks at Bow and the Stars net but were unable to find the equalizer.

An empty net goal by Nicholas Caamano set off a melee of penalties. David Warsofsky slashed Caamano and received a 5:00 penalty for it and a game misconduct.

Jamie Devane picked up a roughing and fighting major as did Rhett Gardner.

After that was sorted out, Macoy Erkamps didn’t like Riley Tufte’s attempt at scoring a goal on Larmi at the end of the game, so they picked up roughing and misconduct penalties.

Emil Larmi got a penalty for traveling beyond the center red line (it is actually a penalty) and a misconduct for attempting to fight Landon Bow.

Bow, for a second, thought about it but smiled and skated away.

Three Stars: 3) Sam Miletic (goal, assist) 2) Jason Robertson (two goals) 1) Joel Kiviranta (game winning goal)

The Good: The power play came to life when it needed to and picked the Penguins off the mat and back into the game.

The Bad: They couldn’t hold a lead against a team which had only won twice coming in. But I think it’s a different Stars team. You could see it if you watched the games this weekend. They are a good team which are buried under bad luck. When the two teams meet again in January, it probably won’t be with Texas in last in the Central Division.

Turning Point: Go back to the top and read the lede again.

Around the Division: It’s always fun to watch the Penguins two biggest rivals, Hershey and Lehigh Valley, beat the hell out of each other. It happened this weekend in a war between the two teams. Hershey wins 1-0 at home. They will probably be missing a few guys Sunday when the Penguins come calling and may be, just may be, emotionally spent and ripe for the picking.

Elsewhere, Syracuse beats Bridgeport 5-2, Providence beats Utica in a shootout 3-2, Charlotte ends Rochester’s long point streak 3-1, Laval had a nice comeback and beats Springfield 4-3 and Hartford beats up Binghamton 5-2.

Standings: Providence 35 — Hartford 33 — Penguins 29 — Springfield 28 — Hershey 27 — Lehigh Valley 25 — Charlotte 23 — Bridgeport 22

Wheeling Update: Nailers lost 4-1 at home in a rematch with Kalamazoo. Yushi Hirano had the only goal for the Nailers Saturday.

Video Highlights: 

Pens close out the weekend three in three with a game in Hershey Sunday at 5. Gameday setup hits the blog Sunday at 1.

Let’s Go Pens!

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A Pikkujoulut is a Finnish term for “Little Christmas” and goes hand in hand with Finnish Independence Day, which also happens to fall on December 6 every season. December 6 is the first time that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins and Texas Stars met up in a competitive ice hockey game for the first time ever.

Joel Kiviranta is Finnish. His two goals in the second period propel the Texas Stars to a 4-3 win over the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins Friday night.

It’s a bad loss for the Penguins for a number of reasons. First, the Texas Stars had one road win all season coming into tonights game. Second, the Stars are in last place in the Central Division. Third, that Central Division is in the Western Conference, a Conference which the Penguins do not play in. Fourth, with Friday’s results, the Penguins drop to third in the Atlantic Division in a race which is as tight as ever here in December.

Casey DeSmith opposed Jake Oettinger.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Lucchini slotted in the top line replacing Noesen, Martinsen replaced Noesen as the veteran and David Warsofsky returned. Matt Abt took the warmup.

First Period: The Penguins came out extremely flat and the Stars were really to play.

Riley Tufte led a charge up ice, put a shot on and Michael Mersch was there to collect the rebound and put it in to give the Stars an early 1-0 lead.

Andreas Martinsen took a puck off of Oettinger and wrapped around and tucked him his first as a Penguin that tied the game at one.

There was calamity in front of DeSmith’s net. David Warsofsky blew a tire, gifting a puck to the Stars who, in three attempts by my count, don’t score on a prone DeSmith on his belly.

Shots were 12-7 Stars, with a  majority of them coming early on in the first.

Second Period: Stars jumped out of the gate with another goal when Joe Cecconi drove to the net and dished to Kiviranta who was boxing out Niclas Almari for an early tap in that made it 2-1.

Penguins had about a minute of two man advantage, but it was a block party by Texas who easily killed the penalty. I don’t think the Penguins had a shot on the power play.

Stars would tack on a third goal. Kiviranta again on his country’s Independence Day, with a quick move through a few defenders and it was 3-1 Texas.

Wilkes-Barre would score two goals in a span of :38 to get even again.

Andrew Agozzino finished off a one timer with David Warsofsky on a power play.

Pierre-Olivier Joseph’s first professional goal tied it at three.

Quite the turn of events. Penguins go from rattled to tied in a span of about a minute.

Third Period: Nicholas Caamano’s goal in the opening minutes of the period made it 4-3 Stars. Five hole on DeSmith.

This was right as a penalty expired.

The Stars got 14 saves from Oettinger in the period and rode it out for just their second win on the road this season.

Three Stars: 3) Pierre-Olivier Joseph (goal, assist) 2) Joel Kiviranta (two goals) 1) Nicholas Caamano (game winning goal)

Off ice guys got it wrong in my opinion. Michael Mersch had a goal and two assists.

The Good: The Penguins picked themselves off the mat in the second period and erased a two goal deficit.

The Bad: Continuing with the fight card analogy, they lost on points when they weren’t able to get another goal to tie it.

Turning Point: That sequence where the Penguins were on a five on three in the second period and didn’t negotiate anything resembling a threat against a team coming in with just one road win sticks out.

Expect a better response tomorrow for the Penguins. The Stars didn’t score quickly despite the hot start in the first, but got goals in the first two minutes of the second and third, where the third period goal stood up for the remainder of crunch time.

Around the Division: Bridgeport takes down Utica in a shootout 5-4….Hershey beats Lehigh Valley in a contentious game in Allentown 2-1. Those teams rematch Saturday in Hershey….Providence crushes Binghamton 6-2….Rochester shuts out Charlotte 4-0….Hartford beats Springfield 5-2.

Standings: Providence 33 — Hartford 31 — Penguins 29 — Springfield 28 — Hershey and Lehigh Valley 25 — Bridgeport 22 — Charlotte 21

Wheeling Update: Nailers beat Kalamazoo 6-2. Brandon Hawkins had a had trick.

Video Highlights: 

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Rematch Saturday. Gameday setup here Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!