Last Game: Last night in Binghamton the Pens lost the first game of the season, a 4-3 shootout loss. Tom Kuhnhackl had a goal and was named third star of the game. Norfolk was in Adirondack and shutout the Phantoms 3-0. John Gibson stopped all 38 shots faced and was named first star of the game.
Record: For WBS: 6-0-0-1 (13 pts., 1st place East Division) For NOR: 4-1-0-2 (10 pts., 3rd place East Division)
Why you should care: John Gibson is probably going to start in net. He may be the best goaltender in the East Division. The Pens will need to play a much better game then the one played last night in Binghamton if they want to get by Gibson and the Admirals.
Television:AHL Live / MyNetwork TV (WGMY) in Wilkes-Barre
Promotion(s): Car Magnet (first 5,000 fans)
Other Game to Watch: The Hartford Wolf Pack are going through a rough patch and are in Hershey tonight looking to right things against the Bears, who looking for their second win of the season.
Next Five Games: HER 11/1, @ HER 11/2, SYR 11/6, ALB 11/8, @ SPR 11/10
Comments Off on Shootout on the Southern Tier – Pens LOSE 4-3 (SO)
Posted by nafsnep on October 25, 2013
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Ask me again in 24 hours, when the Penguins play the Norfolk Admirals, who the bigger rival is going to be for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.
The Penguins, coming into this game a perfect 6-0, won all their games in all ways. They go to Binghamton and get handed their first loss of the season, a 4-3 setback in the shootout.
Hey, at least the Springfield Falcons lost in a shootout too tonight, losing 4-3 to the Providence Bruins. There are no more undefeated teams in the AHL. Break out the champagne.
Jeff Deslauriers vs. Nathan Lawson
Delauriers debuted new pads, blocker and glove:
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With Tom Kostopoulos out with injury, and Jayson Megna called up to Pittsburgh, Harry Zolnierczyk and Chris Conner replaced those two up front. Reid McNeill took warmups but was scratched.
First Period: Penguins come out and miss on two opportunities to score. The first was Harry Zolnierczyk on the doorstep of Lawson and him fanning on a puck. The second was a 2-on-1 with Chris Conner and Scott Harrington.
Pens would get a power play early but wouldn’t manage a single shot on goal at Lawson.
Then the Penguins found themselves in penalty trouble. All of a sudden, Binghamton was on a 5-on-3. They scored on all power plays enjoyed last Sunday in Bridgeport. It didn’t take them long to score two here. Stephane Da Costa under the glove of Deslauriers on a strong shot then Matt Puempel finished off the back end.
All of a sudden, the Pens were down 2-0 heading into the…
Second Period: The Pens would then get a chance on a 5-on-3. Tom Kuhnhackl scored to bring the Pens to one and the score was 2-1.
Then some hell broke loose. Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond staples Mike Sdao to the boards. No call. Then Sdao skates up ice and cross checks Bobby Farnham. That was called. The Penguins would get a 5:00 power play and Sdao would get tossed from the game.
Five seconds later, Tom Kuhnhackl is whistled for a hook.
The two minutes pass with no scoring. Then, shorthanded, Cole Schnieder picks off a Brian Dumoulin exit pass and skates in shorthanded to make it 3-1. The next face-off, Paul Thompson appears to score but the goal was later washed out by referee Geoff Miller who ruled interference on the goaltender Lawson.
Third Period: I had a conversation with a nice man who was a B-Sens fan and informed him that the Penguins were the best third period team in all of the AHL. He didn’t believe me.
Harry Zolnierczyk and Brain Gibbons aggressively forechecked the B-Sens and forced a turnover on Lawson. Zolnierczyk scored to make it 3-2. Later, Adam Payerl crashes the net to tie the game at three. The Pens relentlessly forechecked like a pack of dogs the first 5:00 of the third and it showed.
After that, the play opened up. Lots of back and forth. Late, Brian Gibbons was denied by the pad of Lawson on a breakaway. Later, Jeff Deslauriers dives over to stop a B-Sens attempt. It was onto…
Overtime: Uneventful. I will use this space to say that the B-Sens only had four shots on goal in the second and scored on their second shot of the period, the Schneider shorthanded goal.
Shootout: The Penguins don’t score a goal. Stephane Da Costa scored in round one, Matt Puempel in round four. Tom Kuhnhackl, Paul Thompson, Nick Drazenovic and Andrew Ebbett were the shooters for the Penguins.
Three Stars: 3) Tom Kuhnhackl (goal, even) 2) Cole Schneider (goal, +1) and 1) Stephane Da Costa (goal, even)
Wheeling Update: The Nailers did not play tonight.
SendToNews Highlights: I am scrapping the package in favor of the B-Sens package that they put together which is easily embedded on YouTube, which plays nice with my blog:
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Norfolk is in tomorrow. Saw it on Twitter that the Anaheim organization has the best goaltender depth in the NHL, which certainly trickles down to the AHL, with John Gibson pitching a 38 save shutout for the Ads tonight. Gameday for that will be up at 3 p.m.
Last Game: Sunday in Manchester, the Penguins won 4-3 in overtime. Tom Kuhnhackl had the game winning goal. Brian Gibbons factored in on every goal. (2-2-4) For Binghamton, they were in Bridgeport on Sunday and won 6-5 in overtime. Mike Hoffman scored the OT goal for the B-Sens.
Record: For WBS: 6-0-0-0 (12 pts., 1st place East Division) For BNG: 4-2-0-0 (8 pts., 2nd place East Division)
Why you should care: The Penguins are in Binghamton to face off against a sneaky good B-Sens team which is looking to stay at the top of the East Division and take down the undefeated Penguins.
The Megna news really isn’t surprising. Megna to date has been night and day better from last year.
Jonathan had an update today that would lead me to believe that there is going to be a rotation of call-ups between what we have seen already in Chris Conner and Harry Zolnierczyk going up and being sent back, Megna the latest to go up and guys like Zach Sill and Brian Gibbons, who are worthy enough right now to go up. I can certainly see that being the case going forward for as long as James Neal and Beau Bennett are banged up for Pittsburgh.
For Stevenson, it’s a numbers game. Kris Letting is ready to come back for the Penguins, Olli Maatta is staying with the team and Simon Despres is in Wilkes-Barre. It’s an overabundance of blue liners right now so instead of sitting watching, Stevenson will go to Wheeling and play meaningful minutes.
Short of earth shattering news, Gameday for tomorrow’s tilt in Binghamton will be here Friday on the blog at 3 p.m. I will be making the trek up to the Southern Tier. The Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena went through a renovation this summer so it will be nice to see the updates.
EDIT: I hate when they do this. Literally one second after I hit “Publish” on my post, I saw that Coal Street announced a 10 game home TV schedule. The dates are:
Norfolk on 10/26
Hershey on 11/16
Utica on 12/14
Syracuse on 12/21
Manchester on 1/4
Hartford on 1/11
Providence on 2/22
Norfolk on 3/15
Utica on 3/22
Binghamton on 4/12
The immediate takeaway from this is the fact that the Pens don’t play Hershey that much at home on Saturdays, in fact, the 11/16 game will be the only time this year that the Pens and Bears play at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.
Comments Off on Wednesday Update
Posted by nafsnep on October 23, 2013
Just a few things to touch on today since I last blogged….
— To no one’s surprise, someone other than Brian Gibbons was named AHL’s Player of the Week. Gibbons was pointless on Saturday in Worcester, so it’s not unexpected that he was snubbed not nominated.
— In case you don’t have a newspaper subscription to the Citizens’ Voice here’s my game story I did for them Saturday that ran in the Sunday paper.
If there isn’t anything in the can worth blogging about tomorrow, the next update for the blog will be the Gameday setup for the away game in Binghamton on Friday.
Brian Gibbons had 30 points in 70 games last year for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.
He has 11 so far after just 6 games this season.
Aided by a four point performance by Gibbons Sunday afternoon in Manchester, the Penguins defeated the Monarchs 4-3 in overtime and are off to a 6-0 start.
Tops in the East Division? Check.
Tops in the Eastern Conference? Check.
Tops in the entire American Hockey League? Checkmate.
Jeff Deslauriers vs. J-F Berube
Tom Kostopoulous did not play today for the Penguins. He’s day-to-day with a “lower body” injury. Simon Despres was apparently dinged up Friday against Adirondack. Despres played last night in Worcester and took warmups in Manchester but was scratched in favor of Nick D’Agostino.
First Period: Gibbons had a hand in all the scoring plays for the Penguins. He got his party started by scoring a goal on the power play from a ridiculous angle from below the goal line to give the Pens a 1-0 lead.
Penguins had several chances to blow the game wide open in the first, but Manchester hug around and scored a goal late in the period to tie the game at one. Sean Backman finished off a two-on-one to bring the Monarchs even.
Second Period: The whole “Brian Gibbons assisted or scored a goal for the Penguins and the Monarchs would respond later in the period” theme continued. Gibbons this time broke out of the penalty box and hit Andrew Ebbett cutting to the net to put the Pens up 2-1.
Despite getting a power play goal in the first period, the Penguins did not look good future power plays. Two consecutive man advantages for Wilkes-Barre reared more chances for Manchester than it did the Penguins.
Andrew Bodnarchuk rifled home a one timer to bring the Monarchs level with the Penguins again late.
Third Period: Mike Carman, in his second straight game, forechecked the Monarchs forwards and defenseman all afternoon long. His efforts led to Gibbons’ second goal. Gibbons stole the puck and wired home a wrister to put the Penguins up 3-2.
Late, a puck skips Zach Sill’s stick. Manchester breaks out and Nick Deslauriers slams home a rebound of a Jordan Weal blast to even the game again. Manchester wasn’t going away, having been in overtime six times prior to this game.
Three Stars: 3) Brendan Mikkelson (goal, assist, +2) 2) Andrew Bodnarchuk (goal, even) and 1) Brian Gibbons (two goals, two assists, +3)
Around the Division: Binghamton was in Bridgeport and beat the Sound Tigers 6-5 in overtime. That one was a barn burner. The Sound Tigers were down 3-0 at one point in the first.
Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off. They are back at it Saturday in Toledo.
SendToNews Highlights: Here they are for your viewing enjoyment.
If Gibbons had found his way onto the scoresheet Saturday in Worcester, a strong case would need to be made for AHL Player of the Week. We’ll see. I’d be pleasantly surprised if he was named. Normally the League announces the nomination Monday afternoon.
Monday afternoon will also be when the Week 3 AHL Power Rankings will publish. It probably a fair speculation to say that one of the two teams involved in this game today will be at the top. Stay tuned.
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WBS News
Chirps from Center Ice 