Chirps from Center Ice

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I am assuming that you saw this tweet this afternoon about a former Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins alum.

Tristan Jarry sure did.

Facing a sudden uncertain future with the organization he plays for, Jarry goes out and pitches a gem as the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins take down the American Hockey League’s best team 5-1 tonight in Charlotte.

That’s four straight wins for Tristan Jarry. If you were wondering, like me, how the Penguins netminder would respond in his next game in the wake of the DeSmith extension against the best team in the AHL, you have your answer.

Jarry can ball. He should get the start again Saturday in the rematch against a likely pissed off Checkers team to really show his value, but that decision rests with Clark Donatelli, not this writer.

He opposed Scott Darling.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Cam Brown goes top line with Blueger and Angello. Hayes goes 2RW with Johnson and Lafferty. Cramarossa drops from first to third with Dea and Haggerty. Scarfo goes in w Ölund and Burton. On defense, Chad Ruhwedel was recalled after his 14 day stay on conditioning so Jeff Taylor jumped in and was paired with Tim Erixon.

Garrett Wilson was recalled earlier in the week when Zach Aston-Reese broke his hand in a fight and Patric Hornqvist left Pittsburgh’s last game with a concussion. Aston-Reese was placed on injured reserve.

First Period: I said in my Gameday setup that the Penguins almost needed to play a perfect game against Charlotte if they wanted to have success. Well, they got it in the period. Here is how.

1) Relentless forechecking.
2) Great special teams.
3) Solid goaltending.

Jarrett Burton would open the scoring when an Ethan Prow shot is blocked and the rebound is collected and a pass swept over to Jarrett Burton to give the Pens a 1-0 lead.

Linus Ölund would score short handed to give Wilkes-Barre a 2-0 lead.

Tristan Jarry was making saves like a ninja in the crease to keep the highly potent Checkers offense in the cold with saves like these.

And Anthony Angello, who had been stymied by Scott Darling, with this fitting goal here that would end Darling’s evening and gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead.

Enter Alex Nedeljkovic.

Second Period: Penguins score quickly out of the gate when Cam Brown dropped a pass to Teddy Blueger on a three on one that Blueger finished off for a 4-0 Penguins lead.

Just defensive breakdowns by the Checkers all over the place. The Penguins to this point were reading all of the passes like they knew where they were going to go before they were even made.

Checkers finally go on the board when Andrew Poturalski scored on a two on none to cut Charlotte’s deficit to three.

Wilkes-Barre managed to kill a penalty soon after the goal scored against without any issues. Charlotte found themselves in late penalty trouble. You would have like to have seen the Penguins score a goal here to really ice the game away, but they could not.

Third Period: You wanted to see the Penguins maintain the pressure and keep pushing vs. playing to protect a lead or as I sometimes like to say, “playing not to lose.” It was working. Wilkes-Barre continued to apply pressure and get good looks throughout the period.

Wilkes-Barre would be the beneficiary of two power plays in the period and finally cashed on this J-S Dea marker that would essentially ice the game away late and made it 5-1.

The Good: Penguins played that perfect game that I mentioned in the Gameday setup this afternoon. I don’t think there is any doubt that the Penguins play better depending on the quality of the opponent. Charlotte is a team that only lost eight games in regulation coming into tonight.

The Bad: Nitpicking again cause they got one and the game really wasn’t close, but the power play could have iced this game away way earlier than with less than ten minutes to play in regulation.

Three Stars:

Around the Division: Bridgeport beats Utica 4-3 in overtime. Big win for the Sound Tigers who were winless in their last three straight comings in….Lehigh Valley loses 2-1 at home to a suddenly hot Binghamton Devils team….Springfield beats Hershey 6-2 and Providence doubles up Hartford 6-3.

Standings: Charlotte 57 – Bridgeport 50 – Lehigh Valley 43 – Penguins 43 – Springfield 42 – Providence 39 – Hartford 38 – Hershey 32

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout 3-0 at home by the Utah Grizzlies.

Video Highlights: 

Pens and Checkers are back at it again Saturday at 6 o’clock. Gameday setup is yours here on the blog Saturday at 2.

Let’s Go Pens!

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If you were in attendance at Saturday’s game agains the Milwaukee Admirals, you may be thinking that the referees, Alex Ross and Mitch Dunning were awful and cost the Penguins the game. One that the Penguins lose 5-3.

Here is where I am going to tell you you are dead wrong.

Let me set it up for you. The Penguins were in a 4-1 hole early in the third period when J-S Dea and Teddy Blueger scored goals a little over 90 seconds apart from one another and it’s a one goal game all of a sudden. Wilkes-Barre was rolling and the Admirals heads were spinning. Milwaukee head coach Karl Taylor called time out to try to calm things down a bit.

Then, Emil Pettersson puts this shot on net.

I am sorry. That shot needs to be stopped.

Those are not spectacular numbers from your back up. The Penguins play a bunch of Friday-Saturday hockey games in the month of January with the exception being a 1:05 start on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and a 10:30 Wednesday kids day road start in Bridgeport on January 23. The moral of the story is that if I am Clark Donatelli, I tell Tristan Jarry that he better eat his Wheaties cause it’s his net from now on.

The Penguins are in a dogfight for a playoff spot. They are in an OK spot for now, but it’s games like these that will have Wilkes-Barre kicking itself if it is mid-April and a playoff spot still isn’t sewn up. With numbers like Peters has been giving you lately, you have to take the option and either let Tristan Jarry play all the games or call up your NHL contracted goaltender in John Muse from Wheeling and let Muse back up or get starts.

On Peters, the Cincinnati Cyclones own his ECHL rights, so the Penguins can’t just send him to Wheeling. The Cyclones and Nailers play in the same division so sending Peters down is a fighting with your family situation. Unless the Penguins flip Peters in a trade, they are in a precarious position unless Peters can regain the magic of old.

He opposed Troy Grosenick.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Haggerty and Cramarossa swap spots. Burton up to third with Dea and Haggerty, Cam Brown yields to Linus Ölund on fourth line.

First Period: Patrick McGrath and Mathieu Olivier fought. A draw in my book but you can be the judge.

Anthony Angello connected on a power play goal on a double minor to Jeremy Gregoire for high sticking and the Pens were on the board first.

Off the post and in.

Second Period: Pens give up a shorthanded goal to Emil Pettersson which tied the game at one.

Frederic Allard hooked Sam Lafferty down on a breakaway and the Penguins were on the power play. A power play which included Jimmy Hayes getting ice time which I cannot explain, but Allard served his two minutes, was sprung on yet another breakaway against given up by Wilkes-Barre but was denied by Peters. Yet, Nicholas Baptiste was there to clean up the wreckage and the Admirals went on top 2-1.

Refs Ross and Dunning may have or may not have, depending on your view, started losing control of the game. They called Anthony Angello for a cross checking penalty when a linesman couldn’t drop a puck the right way. That set the Penguins off a bit because it seemed at the time that the game was spiraling out of control and the Admirals were getting all the calls.

Ex-Penguin and current Admirals captain Jarred Tinordi scored in a pile with players draped all over Peters that made it 3-1.

Third Period: Tanner Jeannot connected with a power play goal on the front end of a Sam Lafferty double minor for high sticking and it was 4-1.

J-S Dea and Teddy Blueger score on top of one another and it’s 4-3…

Nice setup from Jimmy Hayes.

Blueger hits the post, Anthony Angello collects the puck and feeds Blueger again for the goal. Nice play.

You already know from the lede what happened next. Emil Pettersson from the slot and it’s a hole that Wilkes-Barre can’t dig out of.

Jarrett Burton fans on a wide open net on a nice feed which could have maybe changed the complexion of the game. Burton has to bury that chance.

Ben Sexton got crushed on an open ice hit and left the game with a probable concussion.

Matt Abt had a nice hit.

Big deal. That will probably get him a few more games when Chad Ruhwedel gets recalled at the end of his conditioning stint. He’s been questionable too, even paired up with the All-Star Ethan Prow.

The Good: The fight that the Penguins showed in the third period early is a promising sign. It was game that they should have won.

The Bad: The backup goaltending is a mess. You have a guy in Peters on an AHL deal that can’t get sent to your ECHL affiliate because of a technicality and a NHL contracted goaltender buried in the ECHL. Sorry, there is no time to “play your way” out of a funk especially with how tight things are now for the #3, #4 and #5 spots in the Atlantic and most especially with a road trip to Charlotte coming up next weekend. If a plan is to give Tristan Jarry only one game next weekend, then call up Muse and bring him to Charlotte and have he and Jarry split Friday / Saturday. Anthony Peters should not see the net in a live fire game for the rest of the month, in this writers opinion.

But like I say countless times before, I just blog about this team, I don’t coach it.

Three Stars: 

Around the Division: Charlotte wins again with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen in Belleville 6-3. That team is just not fair….Bridgeport drops its third straight, this time in Binghamton 3-2…Lehigh Valley loses in Hartford 3-1…Springfield beats Providence 5-3 and Hershey beats Grand Rapids 6-4.

Standings: Charlotte 55 — Bridgeport 48 — Lehigh Valley 41 — Penguins 41 — Springfield 39 — Hartford 38 — Providence 35 — Hershey 32

Lehigh Valley and Springfield play Sunday. You just hope that it doesn’t get to overtime.

Wheeling Update: 

Box here. John Muse stops 29 of 31 shots and was names third star.

Video Highlights: 

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Pens are off until next Friday in Charlotte. If there are news and notes I will note it here. Power Rankings next Thursday for sure.

Let’s Go Pens!

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In stark contrast to last Friday around this time, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins put up and displayed a fight to them all night against the Grand Rapids Griffins from the Central Division.

The Griffins will bury you offensively if you let them. Any team will, really but not many are as stacked as Grand Rapids is. Chris Terry leads the AHL in goals scored. Turner Elson or Carter Camper is usually there setting him up for all that success. They are a deep team and a team that had points in five straight games coming in.

Make it six, but just an overtime point as the Penguins take down the Griffins in a shootout, 3-2. It was a classic knockdown, drag out game from the jump. The teams started out nice to each other then the competitive juices started flowing and they hated each other at the end of the night. And Terry, Elson and Camper had company in the forms of Ryan Haggerty (two goals) Joseph Cramarossa (shootout goal and one of his finer performances) and Teddy Blueger.

It’s two teams that you wish would play more, because it was a game that brought the best out of both sides.

Tristan Jarry opposed Patrik Rybar.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Garrett Wilson serves the first of his two game suspension, Ryan Haggerty went to the top line with Blueger and Angello. Joseph Cramarossa returned from his one game suspension and took Ryan Haggerty’s third line spot with Jimmy Hayes and J-S Dea. Jarrett Burton went in for Linus Ölund on the third line. Jeff Taylor yielded to Tim Erixon on defense.

First Period: The Penguins got the game started off on the right foot just :17 when Ryan Haggerty deflected a shot from the point that put the Penguins ahead 1-0.

Grand Rapids would counter and Matt Ford snapped in a shot off of a face-off play that made it 1-1.

That’s Wade Megan on the face-off win. You won’t see it in the clip above, but Megan gave Ford a look seconds before as if they knew what was up.

Second Period: Griffins go for a clear that doesn’t make it past center ice and Ryan Haggerty collects and skates in and snaps a shot from in between the circles to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead.

Have to wonder if Grand Rapids played more regular games in Wilkes-Barre and the players were more familiar with the building that clear goes further and the completion of the game changes entirely.

Griffins answer a few minutes later when Libor Sulak puts a shot on net that caroms off Jarry to the stick of Turner Elson for a goal that made it 2-2.

Jarry, pretty sharp all evening, was dull on that sequence. I think he lost sight of the puck.

The Penguins had a chance to get ahead when Dylan McIlrath was tagged for concurrent penalties which gave the Penguins a 4:00 power play. They buried the Griffins in their zone for a good three minutes, had a guy break a stick but the Griffins held the fort and killed the entire four minutes. A hell of a kill that could have swung momentum in their favor heading into the third.

Third Period: The Penguins took three penalties in the period, and their penalty kill held firm. Grand Rapids outshot the Penguins 9-4 in the period and overall dominated chances. But they didn’t finish.

Overtime: Thrill a minute. Adam Johnson had a pair of breakaways. Sam Lafferty had one which was sprung by a hand pass from Tristan Jarry.

But no dice in overtime. You would have loved to see the teams just play another period and keep playing until a winner was decided.

Maybe someday, like an early June summer. For now, it was off to the shootout.

Shootout: Joseph Cramarossa scored in the bottom of the third using his move that won it for the Penguins a few weeks back in Hershey in the bottom of the ninth.

Jarry stopped Chris Terry, Axel Holmstrom and Dominic Turgeon. Rybar stopped Adam Johnson and J-S Dea before succumbing to Haggerty.

Three Stars: 

Around the Division: Great night for the Penguins overall. Of course Charlotte wins with a man short in Belleville 4-1. Bridgeport loses in Syracuse 3-1, just third time in two months the Sound Tigers have gone without a win….Providence beats Lehigh Valley 4-2…Hartford beats Springfield 3-1. Hershey was off.

Standings: Charlotte 53 — Bridgeport 48 — Lehigh Valley 41 — Penguins 41 — Springfield 37 — Hartford 36 — Providence 35 — Hershey 30

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were beaten in Indianapolis tonight 3-2 by the Indy Fuel. Renars Krastenbergs scored for the Nailers in the loss.

Video Highlights: 

Pens are back in action Saturday against the Milwaukee Admirals, who were idol tonight. Gameday setup hits the blog Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!