vs.          

5                                                6

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Teams on long losing streaks inevitably always find ways to win games. It always happens. The subsequent win always is an ugly one.

Tonight, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins were involved in a seven goal third period and manage to eke by the now sliding Hershey Bears, losers of three straight by a final score of 6-5.

Eric Hartzell started this game in goal for the Penguins. He did not finish it. Ironically, he received his January Goaltender of the Month Award by the Pens executives. Feburary has been nothing short of a disaster for the rookie goaltender, who doesn’t seem to be exuding any type of confidence whatsoever. I would not be surprised to see him sent to Wheeling to slow down the game again for him, and a recall of Peter Mannino.

But I don’t coach the team, I just blog about it.

Hartzell was opposed by David Leggio. Barry Goers and Denver Manderson, both up from Wheeling, were in for the recalled to Pittsburgh Simon Despres and Brian Gibbons.

First Period: Tale of two periods for the Penguins. Come out gangbuster, Mike Carman finishes a behind the net pass from Bobby Farnham to put the Pens on the board 1-0.

Then, the Pens start taking penalties. Pierre Leblond on a goaltender interference call. Dane Byers gets a piece of a deflected puck past Hartzell and its a 1-1 game.

Spencer Machacek trip. Pens kill it, but a second later Casey Wellman rips one past Hartzell for a 2-1 Bears lead.

Here’s how bad the situation was for Hartzell: One save on three shots. Three.
Here’s how bad the situation was for the Penguins in whole: They dominate the period, and kill all momentum by taking avoidable penalties.

It seemed like the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lacked swagger.

Second Period: Okay. Back to basics. Penguins cycled the puck and possessed it for a large part of the period. Bobby Farnham scores on a rebound of a Pierre Leblond shot to make it even again 2-2. Control the pace, dominate on defense. Limit chances. It was exactly what was needed and the Pens outshot the Bears 14-4 in the period and the score was 2-2 heading into the…

Third Period: Dane Byers. :28 in. Whips a shot past Hartzell.

All goaltenders get scored on. Name one who has never been. When they do, it doesn’t look like they just let in the game winning goal in game seven of a quadruple overtime game. It looked like it on Hartzell tonight.

Little did he or anyone else know that this Byers goal would be a preview of coming attractions.

Three straight goals by Wilkes-Barre. Brendan Mikkelson shorthanded laser beam to tie it at three again. Then, Dustin Gazley clips Mike Carman with a high stick and draws blood. A 4:00 power play to the Penguins, who waste no time because :43 later, the Pens tack on two more goals and its a 5-3 Wilkes-Barre lead.

The Hershey Bears would have none of it.

Jeff Taffe. Snaps a shot that Hartzell gets some of, but not all. What he didn’t ended up in the net.

Hynes said enough. Enter Jeff Deslauriers. Hartzell to this point stopped 12 of 16. He has looked shaky all night and Hershey still had 9:59 left to work with to get the fifth and sixth goals.

They only got the fifth. But not before the Pens found their sixth, a Spencer Machacek boomer to put the Pens up two again.

Nic Deschamps for the visitors. 6-5 Penguins.

After a goal extravaganza, Pens calmed down and defended the lead. They get a penalty kill and keep Hershey from scoring with the extra attacker and hold on.

Probably the easiest three save win in Jeff Deslauriers career. He was the goaltender of record tonight and will pick up the win.

Three Stars: 3) Dane Byers (two goals, even) 2) Andrew Ebbett (goal, two assists) 1) Spencer Machacek (two goals, -2)

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Pens lose six straight but still trail Binghamton by five points and sit in second: Binghamton 70 — Penguins 65 — Norfolk 64 — Hershey 64 — Syracuse 49

Conference: 1) MCH (80) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (68) 5) ALB (66) 6) WBS (65) 7) PRO (65) 8) NOR (64)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers did not play tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Here they are.

Pens now off until Friday. Binghamton plays Toronto tomorrow and Norfolk plays Charlotte. Other than that, everyone is back Friday.

Content wise, I will have a photo blog of the Penguins Hall of Fame probably sometime tomorrow which I will run here as a buffer between tonights game and Friday’s one in Syracuse. Check back then.

Let’s Go Pens!!

          vs.       

  4                                           3

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Looked like they almost had it, didn’t they?

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lose again, this their sixth loss in a row, this time 4-3 in a shootout to the Providence Bruins.

The Penguins losses in this streak have gone like this:

— A 4-3 OTL to Hershey February 9 (acceptable)
— A 6-2 loss to the Binghamton Senators (unacceptable)
— A 5-4 loss to the Hershey Bears (unacceptable)
— A 3-1 loss to the Hershey Bears (acceptable)
— A 4-3 OTL to the Binghamton Senators (acceptable)
— A 4-3 SOL to the Providence Bruins (acceptable)

The 5-4 loss to the Bears was unacceptable because the final score did not indicate the actual result. The 3-1 loss to the Bears the next night was acceptable because compared to the the prior two, it could have and should have been a lot worse.

So two unacceptable losses out of a possible six. Three points out of twelve. Right now, back in playoffs. Okay, I’ll take it.

Look, all teams in the AHL go through losing streaks. All of them. I know this because I pay attention to all other 29 teams. This just doesn’t happen to the Penguins. It’s great coaching, great defense and great goaltending with timely scoring that helps the team win. When it doesn’t they lose. When you get in a losing streak it’s hard to get out of, tonight being no different.

Or, it could be quality of opponent. No other AHL team has scored more goals than the Binghamton Senators. The Hershey Bears are a resurgent group. The Providence Bruins are a hell of a hockey team. The Penguins were in all of these last six games except for two. Hey, it happens.

The Pens inducted Kevin Blaum, Alain Nasreddine and Dennis Bonvie into their inaugural Hall of Fame class tonight. I will probably do a picture blog of all the horrible pictures I took on my phone later in the week. Pens brass tells me that there will be a display present at the Arena at some point, as early as Tuesday likely and when it is, I’ll have pictures of that for the blog piece.

Jeff Deslauriers opposed Niklas Svedberg.

First Period: Pens really step on the gas to open and don’t allow the Bruins a shot on goal for a good 12+ minutes. Jayson Megna does his best Trevor Smith impersonation from Game 6 of the Conference Semifinals last year and scores on a wraparound to put the Pens ahead 1-0. It was eerily similar to the shot that Smith scored on to force a Game 7 last year.

Second Period: Pierre Leblond and Bobby Robins fought in a spirited battle, with Leblond splitting Robins’ forehead open with a punch. Robins is as tough a customer as they come for the Bruins.

Then, Brian Gibbons gets called for a slash. Seven seconds later Providence ties it on a nifty cross ice finish by Craig Cunningham who roofed it over the pad of Deslauriers for a tie game.

Later, Nick Drazenovic pumps a puck in from center red on a routine dump and chase play that Penguins fans have seen a million times. Only this time, the puck hits the zamboni door and pops right in front of Spencer Machacek who has a wide open net to shoot into top put the Pens back ahead 2-1. Svedberg had left the net to play the puck and got burned by doing so.

Late, puck goes in off of Philip Samuelsson’s skate to make it a 2-2 game again.

Third Period: Bad D zone coverage by the Bruins, Spencer Machacek scores his second of the night to make it 3-2 Pens.

Then Providence took the game over. The Pens only had two shots on goal this entire period.

Justin Florek bar down and in for a tie game at three.

Then, later, Bruins score. Clearly, off of a face-off win. Linesman Leo Boylan, who handled the face-off, tells refs Trevor Hanson and Nic Leduc that the puck bounced off of a glove to the favor of the Bruins, and the goal was disallowed.

Huuuuuge break for the Pens, who then have to kill a Samuelsson delay of game penalty and do to force….

Overtime: Pens don’t allow the Bruins a shot but don’t score on the two that Svedberg saved, so it was onto….

Shootout: Craig Cunningham (34pts.), Alexander Khokhlachev (34 pts.) Ryan Spooner (25 pts.) scored for the P-Bruins in the shootout. Jared Knight (15 pts.) did not. Harry Zolnierczyk (29 pts.) Andrew Ebbett (19 pts.) Nick Drazenovic (31 pts.) Tom Kostopoulos (37 pts.) and Jayson Megna (11 pts.) went for the Pens in the shootout. Only Ebbett and Drazenovic scored for the Penguins.

What I am trying to point out is that the P-Bruins were DEEP when it came to who they chose to take the shootout chances. Point scorers. Granted, everybody but Kostopoulos has NHL time for the Pens, no one with less than 25 AHL points failed to score in the shootout for the visitors.

Three Stars: 3) Jayson Megna (goal, +1) 2) Spencer Machacek (two goals, +2) and 1) Ryan Spooner (shootout game winning goal, assist, even)

Around the Division: Nice night for the Pens really, as Binghamton lost to Utica 3-2, Norfolk lost to Albany 4-1 and Hershey gets shutout and sees their 12 game home winning streak end to the Syracuse Crunch 5-0.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Hershey 64 — Penguins 63 — Norfolk 62 — Syracuse 47

Conference: 1) MCH (78) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (66) 5) PRO (65) 6) HER (64) 7) ALB (64) 8) WBS (63)

Ten games on the schedule tomorrow. Albany, Providence, Norfolk, St. John’s and Hershey all in action tomorrow so it’ll be another Sunday of scoreboard watching and a blog update after of where the idle Penguins shake out in all of the games. Basically, you want all of the teams I just listed to lose.

Wheeling Update: Nailers beat the Elmira Jackals in New York tonight 3-1. Denver Manderson and Cody Sylvester scored goals for the Nailers in the win.

SendToNews Highlights: Huh. It’s 11:51 p.m. on a Saturday as I type right now. They aren’t up yet. I would’ve sworn they would have been.

Anyway, check back tomorrow to see how the teams around the Pens did. Also check out the Week 21 AHL Power Rankings Monday at 4 p.m. too.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

          vs.      

  4                                        3

–

The Penguins looked better tonight, but let a 3-1 lead slip away only to lose 4-3 :30 in to the Binghamton Senators Wednesday evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.

Six weeks ago, it’s a 3-1 lead that the Penguins protect but in the here and now, the Penguins really had no answer for the relentless attack set forth by the B-Sens after being down 3-1.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. Andrew Hammond

First Period: Corey Cowick put the B-Sens on the board very early on a shot that either screened Deslauriers or that defenseman Scott Harrington got a piece of and deflected or changed up the velocity of to put Binghamton on the board first.

Harry Zolnierczyk, fresh off of a healthy scratch Sunday vs. Hershey, tied the game for the Pens on a nice backdoor pass from Nick Drazenovic. Later, Pens would score a power play goal from a Drazenovic shot from the point off of a nice centering pass by Brian Gibbons.

Second Period: Brendan Mikkelson shot from the point on the power play finds its way in to put the Penguins ahead 3-1. This was the last of the offense for the Penguins as the B-sens really began to bring it. They get to within one when Matt Puempel blasts home a shot on a busted Wilkes-Barre D zone exit.

Third Period: Really a period dominated by the B-Sens, but the shot chart (an even 8 shots a piece in the third) doesn’t really paint the picture. Mark Stone flips in a shot in front of Deslauriers cage to finish a nice tic-tac-toe passing display by the visitors to tie the game at three all.

Binghamton was really looking for the kill shot. With 22.8 left in regulation, Spencer Machacek goes to the penalty box for high sticking to put the B-Sens on the power play. But before that….

Overtime: Point, firmly in hand for the Penguins, Chris Wideman whips home a wrist shot from the top of the circles to end it in favor of the East Division leaders :30 into overtime.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostpoulos (two assists, +1) 2) Nick Drazenovic (goal, two assists, +1) and 1) Chris Wideman (overtime game winner, -1)

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Binghamton 68 — Hershey 64 — Norfolk 62 — Penguins 62 — Syracuse 44

Conference: 1) MCH (75) 2) SPR (69) 3) BNG (68) 4) HER (64) 5) PRO (63) 6) NOR (62) 7) STJ (62) 8) WBS (62)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers beat Reading 4-1 in Reading tonight. Cody Sylvester had a goal and two assists, and was named first star of the game.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

The post mortem on this one will be a very good Binghamton team with a never-say-die attitude against a Penguins team in in a funk. The Penguins will dig their way out of this and should shape up to be fine.

No game Friday. Unless I can think of something worthwhile to write about, the next blog update will be the Saturday Gameday setup vs. Providence on Hall of Fame Night.

Let’s Go Pens!!!