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If the Penguins lose out on a playoff spot in a month or an East Division Championship by one point, they will know exactly where to drive to find it.

That location is the Utica Memorial Auditorium. With 7.2 seconds left and the Comets net minder pulled, Utica scores on Peter Mannino to tie the game and go on to win in the shootout Friday night.

Okay. The Penguins lick their wounds over the border, and hand Hamilton a 4-2 loss on Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon in Toronto, the roles of Friday were reversed.

Ol’ buddy Trevor Smith picked Scott Harrington’s pocket as the Penguins defenseman was exiting the zone. We saw first hand last season what Trevor Smith does with time and space. He does not miss. 3-2 Marlies late.

Wilkes-Barre, in scramble mode, later pull starting goalie Jeff Deslauriers for the extra attacker. Andrew Ebbett, cool as a cucumber, makes a blind cross crease pass to Nick Drazenovic who buries it to tie the game at three again.

Overtime proved uneventful, and the Penguins get goals from Tom Kostopoulos, Drazenovic and Ebbett and skate out of Canada winners 4-3 and back to the top of the East Division in a tie with the Norfolk Admirals, after the Binghamton Senators coughed up another late lead to the Syracuse Crunch in Central New York by a score of 4-3 as well. The B-Sens have lost six straight.

Lineup wise, Mike Carman was out and is day to day with a “needs to be evaluated” upper body injury. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin, coming off of injury, was given the day off. Anton Zlobin and Barry Goers filled in respectively.

Drew MacIntyre was in net for the Toronto Marlies, an extremely tough nut to crack as MacIntyre leads or is at the top of just about every statistical goaltending category in the AHL.

Scott Harrington scored this fluky goal to put the Pens up 1-0 late in the first.

Then the Penguins took the second period over, outshooting the Marlies 19-4 in the period. Toronto got tremendous goaltending by Drew MacIntyre which seemed to have glue on his jersey as everything stuck to him.

The only blemish was a Jerry D’Amigo pick off of a Wilkes-Barre D to D pass while the Pens were on a power play. D’Amigo passed to Kenny Ryan who whipped one in from between the rings to tie the game at one.

But Wilkes-Barre’s inability to score on a power play, all eight of them, proved to be the difference in why this game was not a Wilkes-Barre blowout.

Finally Anton Zlobin crashed the net late in the second and pushed the Penguins ahead 2-1. It was an earned goal for Wilkes-Barre, who seemingly did everything but score in this period.

The third period was a role reversal for both teams seeing Toronto outshoot the Penguins 13-5. Toronto gets a power play in the third period in what seemed like forever for them and Spencer Abbott makes the Penguins pay. Jeff Deslauriers was screened badly.

I really wrote this post game recap with the best stuff, which was the last stuff to happen in the game, first. Go back to the top and look again, if you haven’t. Ha.

Standings: Norfolk 72 — Penguins 72 — Binghamton 71 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse 55

Conference: 1) MCH (86) 2) SPR (78) 3) NOR (72) 4) STJ (76) 5) WBS (72) 6) PRO (72) 7) BNG (71) 8) ALB (70)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Penguins will probably get a few much needed days off and will have a full week of practice to prepare for an important weekend with Hamilton and Norfolk. Both dangerous games for the Pens and here is why. Look past the Bulldogs to focus on the Admirals who own the Mohegan Sun Arena as of late. Lose to the Bulldogs and then to the Admirals. Binghamton finds its sea legs and a bunch of other teams win and Wilkes-Barre may be on the outside looking in again. That’s why it’s a dangerous weekend.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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Penguins with a much needed 4-2 win in Hamilton tonight. Your best players need to be your best players. Andrew Ebbett is certainly one of them. His 2-1-3 tonight and Wilkes-Barre’s bend-but-not-break defense in the third period help the Pens skate out of the Canadian version of the Steel City on a Saturday night.

How about Peter Mannino? As the games go by the Wilkes-Barre goal crease looks firmer and firmer. Only three goals allowed on this road trip (I don’t think they count shootout goals scored in goals against average) and some stability returning to the crease.

Mannino opposed Robert Mayer. The Pens scratched Barry Goers for Nick D’Agostino and Anton Zlobin for Adam Payerl.

First Period: Balanced period for both teams. Shots were 10-9. One of those for Hamilton went in when born set-up man, Martin St. Pierre assisted on a Gabriel Dumont goal late in the third.

Second Period: Pens had a carryover power play from the first. They must have spent the entire first intermission talking about it and drawing up a play as Andrew Ebbett got his first of the night to tie the game at 1-1.

Then, a Marty St. Pierre hook at 2:18. Penguins power play. :03 later, on a face-off win from Ebbett, Tom Kostopoulos whips one home for a 2-1 Penguins lead.

Later, Denver Manderson stuffs in a puck on the post to put the Pens ahead 3-1.

Much needed shot of offense for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, who only had one goal to show for the road trip when stepping on the FirstOntario Centre ice for the second period.

Third Period: Mike Blunden scores on a power play and it was a 3-2 game. Penguins were on their heels all game long, being outshot in the period 11-5 and it felt like it.

But time became the canine’s enemy. With Mayer pulled, Tom Kostopoulos intercepts a pass at center ice and skates in and dishes to Ebbett who deposits the empty net goal, sending the Penguins to victory.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, assist, +1) 2) Gabriel Dumont (goal, assist, even) 1) Andrew Ebbett (two goals, assist, +1)

Around the Division: Binghamton yaks up a 5-2 lead to lose in a shootout to the Utica Comets 6-5….Norfolk wins a wild one at Scope over Hershey 3-1…and Syracuse loses 5-3 to Rochester at home.

Standings: Norfolk 72 — Binghamton 71 — Penguins 70 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse 53

Conference: 1) MCH (84) 2) SPR (76) 3) NOR (72) 4) STJ (76) 5) BNG (71) 6) WBS (70) 7) PRO 70 8) ALB (69)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Wheeling Update: Nailers win in overtime up in Elmira, 3-2.

Pens travel to Toronto for a 3 p.m. start. Gameday will be up here 11 a.m.

Don’t forget to set your clocks forward.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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Textbook Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins hockey tonight for 59:52 tonight.

Up 1-0 late in third, with under a minute left and Comets G Joacim Eriksson pulled, ol’ buddy Brandon DeFazio slips one under G Peter Mannino through a crowd. A lifeless Utica Comets crowd was alive.

Overtime solves nothing, probably the most even set between the two teams, with an even three shots each.

Then, in the bottom of the fifth round of the shootout, another ol’ buddy, this time Cal O’Reilly is staring down Peter Mannino. Neither team to this point scored a single shootout goal.

The Utica Comets were wearing green jerseys. It was an Irish themed night, in March, with St. Patricks day a week or so away.

So you can guess how this one ended up with O’Reilly, a common Irish name, on Mannino, whom I am assuming has some Italian in him, what with the vowel at the end of his name.

Utica wins 2-1 in the shootout. The Pens leave a huge point behind in the Mohawk Valley.

Four big things to takeaway from this game:

1) Brian Dumoulin was back from injury.
2) Chuck Kobasew was not on the trip. Russ Hryvnak tweeted that he will join the team next week.
3) Peter Mannino was great in net, but…
4) The Wilkes-Barre defense bottled up the Comets, allowing them only 10 shots through two periods.

Utica got a few more shots in the third, with the Pens playing prevent and the Comets in all out desperation mode.

Spencer Machacek took a nice pass from Jayson Megna, camped out behind Eriksson’s net and zipped one in 1:12 into the second period.

I wasn’t able to watch much of the game or listen, but it seemed that the Wilkes-Barre defense simply just limited Utica to not much and whatever they did, Mannino was there.

Three stars went went DeFazio (game tying goal) O’Reilly (shootout GWG) & Eriksson (32 saves on 33 shots) — laughable that Peter Mannino didn’t get a star but with the setup of a late game tying goal and shootout game winner and a goalie that stops all 5 shooters, I can see the reasoning.

Rest of the Division, Standings and Conference look like this:

Around the Division: Binghamton off. Hershey beats Norfolk 3-2 in regulation to end their six game losing streak. Syracuse loses 4-1 in Rochester.

Other Game of Note: Albany yaks up a 3-1 lead in Maine to the Pirates but manage to eke out a 4-3 shootout win.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 70 — Penguins 68 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse — 53

Conference: 1) MCH (82) 2) SPR (74) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (74) 5) NOR (70) 6) PRO (70) 7) ALB (69) 8) WBS (68)

Binghamton is in the cat bird seat, with at least a game in hand on everyone in the top eight.

Wheeling Update: Tom Kuhnhackl and Harrison Ruopp were sent to Wheeling this morning. The Nailers were in Reading tonight and lost 5-4. Kuhnhackl had a goal. Carter Rowney had a goal and an assist.

SendToNews Highlights: Aren’t up yet. I may check for a link tomorrow.

Pens travel to Hamilton for a date with the Bulldogs tomorrow at 7 p.m. Gameday for that will be up at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!