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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!!!

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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!!!

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Didn’t have to wait long to hear when the Penguins last lost three straight games. As soon as I got to my truck in the Mohegan Sun Arena parking lot, I heard play-by-play man Mike O’Brien say it. It was in November. Think about that. There are 30 teams in this league. Many have fans that I follow on Twitter that just accept losing. Losing three straight games are pretty standard in places like Hartford, Albany, Utica and others. Not Wilkes-Barre.

It’ll happen to every team. This weekend was the Penguins turn.

After getting Adam Payerl back from injury and Brian Gibbons and Jayson Megna back from NHL duty, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins go 0-for-3 on the weekend with a 3-1 loss to the Hershey Bears.

I can accept this loss more than I can the losses this weekend to Binghamton Friday and Hershey last night. The Pens were in it all the way to the third period, when there was no score.

Ex-Penguin Jeff Taffe broke the deadlock at 9:05 of the third on a nice tip of a Casey Wellman shot from the point. About four minutes later, with the Penguins needing the next goal, Ryan Potulny collects a cross ice pass and does not miss an open net for a 2-0 Bears lead. The Pens would get on the board with the Brian Gibbons Breakaway of the Game™ this time shorthanded and scored to put the Pens on the board and the deficit cut to one. But the Bears answered less than a minute later when Michael Latta draws Jeff Deslauriers out of his crease and passed to Peter Leblanc who scored to put it away for the Bears at 3-1. A huge answer goal by the Chocolate and White and all of the momentum was out of the building.

That last paragraph summed up the game. Jeff Deslauriers opposed David Leggio. Harry Zolnierczyk was a healthy scratch. Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond and Tom Kuhnhackl were back in. Eric Hartzell seemed fine from last nights scare. He backed up and looked fine in warmups.

I can’t recall anything else memorable.

There stars were Brian Gibbons with a goal and +1, Jeff Taffe with a goal and +1 and Ryan Potulny with a goal.

We were the only game in the division. Binghamton, Norfolk and Syracuse were off.

Standings look like this: Binghamton 66 — Hershey 64 — Norfolk 62 — Penguins 61 — Syracuse 44

Conference: 1) Manchester with 75 points, Springfield in second with 69, Binghamton the division leader in the East with 66, the Bears in fourth with 64, Providence in fifth with 63, Norfolk sixth with 62. Penguins have 61 points in seventh and St. John’s in the eighth and final spot with 60 points.

Nine back is Albany with 60. Worcester is in tenth with 50 points. I don’t expect the Sharks or anyone behind them to make a push, but you never know. So it’s 9 teams for 8 spots in the middle of February.

The game in hand situation looks like this based on the Pens that have 52 games played. Division, Bingo and Noroflk have 2 games in hand. Hershey, Albany and St. John’s have one. Pens have a game in hand on Providence.

Wheeling played tonight and lost to Fort Wayne in Indiana 4-3. Denver Manderson had two assists.

Penguins haven’t posted the SendToNews Highlights. If or when they do, I will have a link.

President’s Day tomorrow. Do you have to work? I do. Anyway, the Week 20 AHL Power Rankings will be up at noon tomorrow in advance of the 1 p.m. games. Then the Pens play Binghamton Wednesday. If anything breaks between now and then I’ll have it on the blog.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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If you were out tonight and didn’t pay attention to what went on tonight in Hershey for your Penguins and saw the score, a 5-4 loss for the Penguins, you probably think that it was a close game.

You couldn’t be more wrong, actually.

After scoring the first goal, a Bobby Farnham back door tap in in the first period, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins allow five straight goals, two on the power play, and get obliterated by the Bears who have won 12 straight at home.

Eric Hartzell left the game with either an injury, a cramp, or embarrassment in the third period, after giving up the fourth goal to Dane Byers, who crashed the net hard and appeared to kick the puck in. Initially it was waved off, but after review the goal stood.

Dustin Gazley is a stone in the shoe to the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. This 5’9, 154 pound pipsqueak has 8 AHL goals this season. 4 of them have come against the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. He scored on both goaltenders tonight, Hartzell and Deslauriers and loves to play against the Penguins. You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

After last night’s embarrassment in Binghamton, the Penguins made some line changes. Just the fourth line was left intact. Nick D’Agostino was in for Harrison Ruopp was the only lineup change for Coach John Hynes.

Eric Hartzell vs. Philipp Grubauer

First Period: All Penguins to start, who were rewarded with the Farnham goal. Brian Gibbons forced a turnover to Brendan Mikkelson who found Farnham cutting back door for the goal.

After the center ice face-off, all Hershey. No really. All Hershey.

Casey Welllman scored in the final minute on the power play to tie the game at one.

Second Period: Dustin Gazley scored :32 and the Bears ran away with it. Nine minutes of puck possession by the Chocolate and White. With :25 left, Ryan Potulny put in a rebound to make it 3-1 Bears.

Third Period: Pens open with early pop. Then Hartzell makes a save and goes down in a heap. Turns out it may have been a cramp or could have been more. Trainer Kyle Moore was oiut to attend to Hartzell who stayed in and got a fresh water bottle. He’s had issues this season with cramping.

Dane Byers crashes and the puck goes in. Initially the goal was waved off by referee Terry Koharski but after review the goal was allowed to stand and it was 4-1 Bears. Hartzell signaled to the bench that he was done. Enter Jeff Deslauriers. Ignoring the fights between Dane Byers and Bobby Farnham and Michael Latta and Spencer Machacek Dustin Gazley scored a power play goal that would end up being the game winner to make it 5-1 Hershey.

Pens would then get three quick goals. Nick Drazenovic even strength. Brian Gibbons on a 5-on-3 power play and Jayson Megna with Deslauriers pulled with :16 left. They never got equal.

Three Stars: 3) Casey Wellman (goal, assist, +1) 2) Dustin Gazley (two goals, +1) and 1) Dane Byers (goal, assist, +1)

Around the Division: Hide your eyes. Binghamton wins 8-0 at home against Worcester. The first shutout for the B-Sens this season. The Big B Machine is runnin’ wild on the Southern Tier….Norfolk beats Syracuse 2-1.

Standings: Binghamton 66 — Hershey 62 — Norfolk 62 — Penguins 61 — Syracuse 44

Conference: 1) MCH (73) 2) SPR (67) 3) BNG (66) 4) HER (62) 5) NOR (62) 6) WBS (61) 7) PRO (61) 8) ALB (60)

From 9 back you have St. John’s with 59 points, then Worcester with 50 at 10. Pens aren’t that bad, yet. But there are nine teams that can conceivably make playoffs at this point.

Wheeling Update: Nailers go eight rounds in a shootout with the Elmira Jackals and win 2-1. Peter Mannino stopped 26 of 27 and 2 of 8 in the shootout for first star honors.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Pens can get back to second in the division tomorrow with the rematch vs. the Bears at 4:05. Gameday for this will be up at noon Sunday.

Let’s Go Pens!!!