vs.       

  5                                          4

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That extra point that the Phantoms took home with them tonight may come back and haunt the Penguins.

That is because, after being up 4-3 to start the third with a full 2:00 of a power play to start with, the Penguins don’t score on the man advantage and then allow the Phantoms to rattle off 7 shots in a row and ultimately lose 5-4 in a shootout to Lehigh Valley tonight. The Penguins haven’t won a shootout all season.

With Hershey continuing to roll, winning tonight, the Penguins are now three points back of the Bears. Hershey burns off one of its three games in hand Sunday in Bridgeport.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Rob Zepp.

Lineup the same, just swap out Adam Payerl for Pierre Leblond, with Lehigh Valley having both Jay Rosehill and Zack Stortini in the lineup.

First Period: If you were at the game or watched on AHL Live, you saw Zatkoff struggle with rebounds. Finally Taylor Leier pounced on one and opened the scoring.

But the Penguins went on a power play when Darroll Powe took a delay of game penalty. The Penguins are really using the power play to their advantage of recent and capitalized here, with Tom Kostopoulos getting a piece of a Brian Dumoulin shot for a tie game. The Penguins really pushed back after the Leier goal and were in control…

…until a lax defensive clear that left the puck on a tee for Adam Comrie who went high glove on Zatkoff to make it 2-1 Phantoms going into the…

Second Period: Conor Sheary scores :57 in sneaking in past the Phantoms D to tie the game at 2.

Penguins would find themselves on a 1:58 5-on-3 and Bryan Rust scored to make it 3-2 Penguins. But the see-saw would trend down for the Pens and they would see Jason Akeson score on a power play that tied the game at three again.

To this point, the game had a, “last shot wins” feel to it.

Bobby Farnham scored on a tip of a Nick D’Agostino shot to put the Pens ahead 4-3 going into the…

Third Period: Penguins had a full 2:00 of power play to work with, couldn’t manage a shot. They couldn’t manage a shot for about the first ten minutes. They took two straight penalties and killed them. They took a third and didn’t. Tie game again. Shades of Hershey a week ago it seemed. Things settled a bit after that. I had to collect my Jayson Megna pink jersey and was surrounded by clueless interns that held us in the zamboni den so I couldn’t see much of the second half of the third or any of…

Overtime: With about a minute left, the intern said, “let’s go out now” – but before that I asked to go out to watch overtime but was told that we couldn’t because the doors that the zambonis came out of were closed. Yes, hello. There is a door. This is me complaining. I hate complainers. You are perpetually unhappy if all you do is complain. I am not perpetually unhappy, nor a complainer. No one scored in overtime so it was onto the….

Shootout: Hynes went Wilson (no) Rust (yes) Ebbett for his first three. It was tied 1-1 after three and the Penguins elected to shoot first so Hynes sent Nick D’Agostino over the boards.

Wait. Nick D’Ago-who? D’Agostino? LOL, really?

Here’s what Hynes told Tom after the game regarding that decision:

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/566802897326055424]

He missed. Taylor Leier didn’t and the Phantoms took home the extra point.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Cousins (three assists, +1) 2) Brian Dumoulin (two assists, even) and 1) Jason Akeson (two goals, -1)

Around the Division: Hershey wins 5-2 at home against Portland….Norfolk beat Syracuse 2-1 in overtime. Binghamton was off.

Standings: Hershey 65 — Penguins 62 — Lehigh Valley 51 — Norfolk 47 — Binghamton 44

Conference: 1) MCH (68) 2) SYR (66) 3) HER (65) 4) SPR (62) 5) WBS (62) 6) HFD (61) 7) WOR (57) 8) PRO (57)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost in Toledo 5-2. Josh Archibald had an assist. J-S Dea had a goal.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. I don’t know if Coal Street will add YouTube highlights or not.

Penguins off until next Saturday against Providence. During that time a lot of games will be played and the scoreboard will be watched. Hershey will burn off two games on the Penguins. I’ll look around the conference and see who else has games in hand on the Pens and may likely have blog pieces about that this week for content. Week 19 AHL Power Rankings will hit the blog at 11 a.m. Monday because there are four games played on President’s Day. My chart refresh will probably go up sometime Sunday.

Oh, if you were wondering what the exchange was between me and Megna when he game me the jersey…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/566794160590426115]

I must be getting old. He called me sir.

Let’s Go Pens!

            vs.            

 0                                                3

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A two goal night by Scott Wilson, the Penguins go 2-for-4 on the power play and another shutout, this time 23 saves and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins beat the Portland Pirates by a score of 3-0.

Some bullet points:

• Add the Portland Pirates to the list of teams that have yet to score a goal on the Penguins this season. Jeff Zatkoff shutout the Pirates in November, by a score of 2-0.
• The Penguins are on a season high point streak (4-0-1-0) and have points in their last ten games (8-1-1-0)
• The Pirates have not beat the Penguins since way back in 2010.
• Oh, Matt Murray’s sixth shutout, leads the AHL. There is some guy in Pittsburgh named Marc-Andre Fleury that leads the NHL with 8 shutouts.

It was Matt Murray vs. Mike Lee, making his first AHL start of the season.

Lines were…

Dominik Uher – Matia Marcantuoni – Bobby Farnham
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Adam Payerl
Conor Sheary – Andrew Ebbett – Bryan Rust
Scott Wilson – Jayson Megna – Tom Kostopoulos

Taylor Chorney – Brian Dumoulin
Reid McNeill – Scott Harrington
Nick D’Agostino – Barry Goers

Matt Murray – Jeff Zatkoff

Alex Boak took warmups but was scratched. Adam Payerl was in for Nick Drazenovic, who was listed among the injured players.

First Period: Nothing for scoring. Penguins trailed Portland 6-1 in shots at one point but then the Pens pushed back and rattled off eight straight to end the period.

Second Period: Was developing into a defensive battle with two teams in the top four in defense. Mark Louis trips a Penguin, leading to a Wilkes-Barre power play. Scott Wilson scores to make it 1-0 Penguins.

Third Period: Penguins get another power play and Scott Wilson gets another goal. Nice circle to circle pass from Sheary to set it up. Then. Bryan Rust does his patented power move to the net and dishes to Andrew Ebbett who scored to make it 3-0.

At this point, it was more about preserving the shutout Murray had going than it was anything else. Murray to his credit wasn’t tested much but when he was, he was fantastic.

Team record for shutouts is seven, by Brad Thiessen.

Three Stars: 3) Brian Dumoulin (three assists, +1) 2) Matt Murray (23 save shutout) and 1) Scott Wilson (two goals, even)

Around the Division: Philipp Grubauer and the Hershey Bears shutout the Albany Devils by a score of 1-0. It was Grubauer’s fifth shutout of the season….Binghamton beat Lehigh Valley in Allentown by a score of 3-2 and Norfolk beat Syracuse 2-0 as Jason LaBarbera had an 18 save shutout also. Good night to be an AHL East Division goaltender, I guess.

Standings: Hershey 63 — Penguins 61 — Lehigh Valley 49 — Norfolk 45 — Binghamton 44

Conference: 1) MCH (66) 2) SYR (65) 3) HER (61) 4) WBS (61) 5) SPR (60) 6) HFD (59) 7) PRO (56) 8) WOR (55)

Good night for the Penguins conference wise. Springfield lost. Hartford was idle. The Wolf Pack have three games in hand though. If the Pens can’t catch Hershey for the division, staying above the best of the rest is the spot to be.

Wheeling Update: Nailers win 3-2 in overtime. Eric Hartzell picked up the win. Josh Archibald and J-S Dea were pointless, but Archibald had 7 shots on goal and Dea 3.

SendToNews Highlights: YouTube instead…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GjVkiEs9Mk&feature=youtu.be]

One more thing before I go, the 50/50 pot was $9,800. That thing will go to over $10,000 when the place sells out, I am sure of it. It is catching on. I didn’t win yet, though.

Pens welcome in the Lehigh Valley Phantoms tomorrow at 7:05. Gameday setup for that will be here on the blog at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

          vs.      

  1                                       4

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A 4-1 statement win by the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins tonight and statements made by three players who, ironically, were the three stars tonight. Let’s have a look:

3) Jeff Zatkoff: 26 saves on 27 shots for Zatkoff who picks up the win tonight, his first in 2015. Zatkoff has slipped to number two in the goaltending rotation with the stellar play of Matt Murray. His saves came at key moments of the game tonight when the B-Sens were pressing for a goal to swing the momentum. He was beat late in the second on an Aaron Johnson breakaway that broke up any hope for a shutout. You could argue that he was the reason the Penguins won the game tonight.

2) Bobby Farnham: a goal, an assist and a +3 rating for Farnham who buried the B-Sens when Binghamton was building momentum. After the Penguins scored their first goal, Binghamton was pressing in the offensive zone and you could feel the goal coming. But Farnham intercepts a pass in his defensive zone, races out at breakneck speed and sets up a fast developing two on one with Dominik Uher. Uher scored it, making it 2-0 at the time and you could feel some of the air being let out of the Senators sails at that moment.

The other moment that Farnham setup was this time late in the third period with a goal on a two on one with Marcantuoni. It was 3-1 at the time and all the momentum at this moment was with the Senators. His goal that made it 4-1 basically ended any comeback chances the B-Sens had.

1) Dominik Uher: two goals, an assist, and a +3 rating. Uher has been the thirteenth forward more often than not lately. His two goals in the first period jumpstarted the Penguins and that was all Zatkoff and the defense needed to put away Binghamton.

I called this game in my Gameday setup a trap game for the Penguins. Binghamton is in on a Wednesday night, you get lax here and there and your mistakes end up in your net. That didn’t happen, the Penguins were prepared, and the results show.

Penguins fourth line of Dominik Uher – Bobby Farnham – Matia Marcantuoni was 3-3-6 and a +8 combined tonight. If you get that kind of production out of your fourth line, chances are you win 100% of your games.

Penguins played disciplined tonight against Binghamton, allowing them just two power play opportunities.

Conor Sheary scored on a power play off a nice setup by Tom Kostopoulos in the second period that made it 3-0.

In case you missed it, Matt Murray was named AHL Player of the Week on Monday.

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Hershey 61 — Penguins 59 –Lehigh Valley 49 — Norfolk 43 — Binghamton 42

Hershey has three hames in hand again on Wilkes-Barre. The division isn’t probably high on the minds of the Penguins right now with the way that the Bears are playing at current but the Conference probably is. The Penguins have played 50 games. Just one other team (St. John’s, 51) has played more. So everyone in the Conference pursuing the Penguins in the race has games in hand.

Conference: 1) SYR (65) 2) MCH (64) 30 HER (61) 4) SPR (60) 5) HFD (59) 6) WBS (59) 7) WOR (55) 8) POR (55)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: YouTube instead…

[youtube http://youtu.be/9q6tKng9g0c]

Penguins next host the Portland Pirates Friday then the Lehigh Valley Phantoms Saturday. Unless I can think of anything to blog about on Thursday, look for the next update here on the blog Friday at 3 for the Portland Gameday setup.

Let’s Go Pens!