Chirps from Center Ice

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Penguins have now dropped 5 of 6 games since the Thanksgiving break.

They haven’t scored a power play goal in for as long as I can remember.

They continue to give up shorthanded goals.

Results are expected, a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of the undermanned at defense Lehigh Valley Phantoms tonight in Allentown. First time that the Penguins have been shutout this season.

Anthony Peters opposed Dustin Tokarski

Lines were…

Adam Johnson – Colin Smith – Dominik Simon
Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Josh Archibald
Garrett Wilson – Gage Quinney – Daniel Sprong
Tom Sestito – Teddy Blueger – Thomas Di Pauli

Lineup Notes: On Wednesday morning, the Penguins shipped Forwards Freddie Tiffels and Troy Josephs along with defenseman Ethan Prow and goaltender Colin Stevens to the Wheeling Nailers. The Nailers visited the Reading Royals so it was a short trip for the quartet. Also, at noon Wednesday, it was learned that Gregg McKegg was placed on waivers by Pittsburgh. If no one claims him, he’ll report to Wilkes-Barre. It’s roster jockeying by Jim Rutherford in the wake of the injury to Justin Schultz last night against the New York Rangers. As a precaution, defenseman Frank Corrado was a healthy scratch for Wilkes-Barre tonight.

Adam Johnson slotted in at left wing with Colin Smith and Dominik Simon on the top line, Tom Sestito went back to the fourth line with Blueger and DiPauli. Chris Summers jumped in on defense with Corrado likely to be recalled.

First Period: Strong opening start by the Penguin, outshooting the Phantoms 4-0 through the first five minutes. Phantoms would find themselves on a power play, didn’t score on it, but rode tat momentum into a 3-0 lead after the first period.

Pass to Mikhail Vorobyev from behind the net to him in front and all he did was directed the puck past Peters and in. 1-0.

Turnover in front of the net by Dominik Simon found Corban Knight’s stick and past Peters for a 2-0 lead. Peters got most of it, but it squirted through the pads and rolled harmlessly across the line.

Daniel Sprong tried to force a pass at the blueline which sprung Corban Knight and Oskar Lindblom on a two on one. 3-0.

So it was a positive start by the Penguins that snowballed into a 3-0 deficit in a span of 3:44 after the first period.

Second Period: Tyrell Goulbourne scored shorthanded on teh Penguins first power play of the game and that ended Anthony Peters night. Peters stopped 15 of 19 shots and the Penguins allowed their 7th shorthanded goal of the season. They only had 4 last year.

Wilkes-Barre wasn’t doing themselves any favors, only having one shot on goal for a good portion of the opening half of the period.

On another power play, Head Coach Clark Donatelli decided to put his fourth line out on a power play unit.

Maguire stopped all seven shots faced in the period.

Penguins to this point were playing well enough to win but were not helping themselves with turnovers and shorthanded goals and were just unable to solve Tokarski to this point.

Third Period: Penguins put up 14 shots on Dustin Tokarski, but he stopped them all. A shot was blocked by Andrey Pedan but the puck caromed to Matt Read who scored on Maguire to extend the lead to 5-0.

Wilkes-Barre’s inability to score on the power play and inability to score on Tokarski were all that the Phantoms needed to coast to the easy victory.

Three Stars: 3) Tyrell Goulbourne (goal, +1) 2) Corban Knight (goal, assist, +3) and 1) Dustin Tokarski (39 save shutout)

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Penguins (.667 percentage points) — Providence (.667) — Lehigh Valley (.646) — Charlotte (.630) — Bridgeport (.591) — Hershey (.521) — Hartford (.417) — Springfield (.380)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers fell in Reading tonight 2-1. Hunter Fejes had the only goal for the Nailers.

Depending on schedules, I may have a blog on more moves in Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling. If not, check back for the Gameday setup Friday at 3 against the Charlotte Checkers.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Milwaukee tried this analogy Friday and it nearly paid off.

Rochester didn’t need to Saturday.

Hershey played the parable to perfection Sunday and won 4-3 in overtime against the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

If you don’t get the analogy, the proper way to boil a frog is just let it slowly warm itself in a pot of cold water until the water reaches a boil and it’s too late for the frog to do anything.

Metaphorically speaking, it’s an inability or unwillingness of someone or something to react to or be aware of threats that arise gradually.

How does this apply to today’s game? The Penguins jumped out to a 2-0 lead, then got lulled into a trance that the Hershey Bears put them in with a ton of time left on the clock. After a Liam O’Brien goal set off Hershey’s annual teddy bear toss, it was only a matter of time before the Bears tied the game. At that point it was just a matter of whether the game would end in regulation or overtime.

It looked for a minute that the Bears would win in regulation after a failed Penguin clear, but :55 later Tom Sestito scored to send it to overtime. Chris Bourque ended it in overtime on a power play goal.

Simply put, Penguins had the early jump but were never able to put away the Bears, despite the two goal lead early. Hershey started punching back and the Penguins never countered.

3 out of 6 points for the weekend with no actual Penguin goaltender under contract to NHL Pittsburgh is something we would have all signed up for the minute Tyler tweeted on Thursday that Sean Maguire was sick and could miss the weekend.

Anthony Peters opposed Pheonix Copley.

Lines were…

Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Josh Archibald
Tom Sestito – Colin Smith – Christian Thomas
Garrett Wilson – Gage Quinney – Daniel Sprong
Jarrett Burton – Teddy Blueger – Thomas Di Pauli

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Alright, so before you say it, I will say it for you. The Penguins didn’t have an issue in goal tonight.

Anthony Peters started the game for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins tonight and looked solid in goal. After a scoreless first period and the Penguins jumping out to a 1-0 lead after a Teddy Blueger tip in of an Andrey Pedan shot that set off the abalone of stuffed teddy bears, the Penguins would normally settle in and take control of a game in which they had the lead.

Only it didn’t happen that way.

Here’s how the goals were scored by the Americans tonight and I will do my best to deflect away from it being the goalies fault because the goalie isn’t named Casey DeSmith.

Goal #1: Eric Cornel scored on a rebound when Frank Corrado lost his man in the corner and Nick Baptiste got alone in front of Peters. Baptiste put a shot on that Pters stopped, but the rebound bled to Rodrigues for a tie game at one.

Goal #2: Seth Griffith breaks in behind the defense, doesn’t have the puck under control enough to shoot a good shot, stops, waits for his trailer to come down the line, makes a pass that is slammed home for a 2-1 Rochester lead. It’s a high skill play that you rarely see in the AHL because guys in that situation will just shoot it to see what happens or make a bad pass to the trailing teammate. Evan Rodrigues had the goal.

Goal #3: Garret Ross scored when Peters was down and out after making a skate save. Ross found the puck and put it over Peters for a 3-1 lead.

Goal #4: On a 5-on-3 power play, Rodrigues is planted in front of the net and a pass from C.J. Smith deflects off of Rodrigues’ skate and right under Peters and in.

All of the goals for the Americans came in the second period. They would add an empty net goal with Peters pulled when Smith beat Andrey Pedan to an icing call and flipped the puck into the vacated space to make it a 5-2 final score.

If you want to be mad that the Penguins lost tonight, by all means be my guest. Blame the officials, who I thought were particularly awful tonight, completely unaware how to handle a face-off and letting the game get out of hand. Blame the Penguins lack of urgency at times but be sure to credit Rochester’s defense, who did an excellent job of containing the Penguins dangerous offense tonight. Just please don’t blame the goaltending.

Penguins got their second goal when Teddy Blueguer chased down Rochester goaltender Linus Ullmark forcing him into a turnover that Blueger put into an empty net for at the time a 4-2 lead for the Amerks.

I mean, that’s it. Rochester had seven power plays to the Pens one, but the Amerks only scored on one power play after the Penguins were deep in the hole. Dominik Simon left the game after the first period when he blocked a shot in the first. He looked OK after, but most likely for precautionary reasons, they kept him out the rest of teh way. Clark Donatelli told Tyler postgame that he didn’t have an update.

No decision on who starts Sunday afternoon in Hershey.

Here are the goals the Penguins scored in GIF format.

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Here were the lines…

Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Ryan Haggerty
Dominik Simon – Colin Smith – Christian Thomas
Garrett Wilson – Adam Johnson – Josh Archibald
Thomas Di Pauli – Teddy Blueger – Daniel Sprong

Andrey Pedan – Kevin Czuczman
Chris Summers – Zach Trotman
Jarred Tinordi – Frank Corrado

Anthony Peters – Colin Stevens

Sprong and Tom Sestito swapped spots on the fourth line, Summers and Lukas Bengtsson did the same on the back end.

Around the Division: Toronto beats Hartford in overtime 4-3…Utica edges Bridgeport in a shootout 2-1…Hershey shuts out Milwaukee 3-0…Lehigh Valley loses in overtime to Laval 4-3 and Providence beats Binghamton 4-2. Springfield and Charlotte had the night off, they meet Sunday afternoon in Charlotte.

Standings: Penguins (.711 percentage points) — Providence (.650) — Lehigh Valley (.630) — Bridgeport (.619) — Charlotte (.614) — Hershey (.500) — Hartford (.417) — Springfield (.396)

Wheeling Update: win in overtime against Reading 5-4.Nailers Garrett Meurs potted the game winner 2:10 into the extra session. Will King picked up the win. Nailers host Fort Wayne Sunday at 3:05.

Pens travel to Hershey for a 5 p.m. start against the Bears. Gameday setup will hit the blog Sunday afternoon at 1.

Let’s Go Pens!