Penguins valiant in defeat, bow out of the 2012 Calder Cup Playoffs 3-2 in seven games to the St. John’s Ice Caps.

Penguins played out of a hole all game long, stymied by losing their shut down defenseman Robert Bortuzzo early in the first period due to injury. Tom Grace mentioned post game that Bortuzzo was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

Brad Thiessen vs. Eddie Pasquale – no lineup changes the WBS way. Kevin Clark was in for Carl Klingberg on the STJ side.

First Period: Pens looked fatigued, having played two straight must win games. Paul Postma rung the post. First ten minutes was all IceCaps. Bortuzzo got boarded hard. He went to the room, returned, and John Albert stepped by him, dished to Ray Sawada who scored to make it 1-0 IceCaps. Thiessen really kept the score lower that what it should have been.

Second Period: Eric Tangradi sprung Ryan Craig who scored on a breakaway to even things at one. Then, Brian Gibbons took an interference call and in the ensuing IceCaps power play, Aaron Gagnon scored when he centered it and it banked off of Alex Picard’s skate.

Third Period: Aaron Gagnon again. 3-1 St. John’s. Penguins chased and chased and chased this period. Finally, Ben Street was boarded, and Colin McDonald would score the last goal of the season to bring it to 3-2, but your, my, OUR Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins were never able to find the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Eric Tangradi (two assists, +1) 2) John Albert (assist, +1) and 1) Aaron Gagnon (two goals, +1)

The St. John’s IceCaps are off to face the Norfolk Admirals in the Eastern Conference Finals opening Thursday in Hampton Roads.

Blog content now will be scarce unless someone from St. John’s, Norfolk, Oklahoma City or Toronto wants to hire a WBS Penguin blogger to cover a game or two. I’m cheap. I work for free.

Jonathan Bombulie will likely have the UFA / RFA chart organization wide which I will piggy back on and offer here on the blog. Watch for any signings this year too as I’ll closely document the movement in the offseason.

Firmly believe and will continue to believe that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins will have her day of reckoning one day. That day is not today, or tomorrow. Here’s hoping it is sooner than we think.

Let’s Go Pens!

Penguins ride a strong third period with a muck goal from Zach Sill and a sick goal from Paul Thompson to force a decisive Game 7 tomorrow in St. John’s, winning 4-2.

Game 7 is tomorrow at 6 p.m. Wilkes-Barre time.

Before we get to the recap, I want to share with you a quote from Ryan Craig from this mornings Morning Skate that beat writer Jonathan Bombulie shared in the chat today:

“I think we’re loose. We had a good skate yesterday. It was nice to get in here the day before and have a practice. We had a team meal last night and we’re focused and ready to go. Our focus is only about tonight’s game and our start and trying to build off that.”

“It’s just guys individually sticking to their foundations as a player and doing the things they’ve done throughout the year. We practice hard. We’ve been put in positions. We’ve been challenged all year. It leads to this challenge we face now. We look forward to the game tonight.”

When I was wrapping up my chat with Craig, I told him I thought it was a good idea to talk to the captain on the morning of a big game like this to sort of take the temperature of the room. He said, “Sure. No problem. I’ll see you here at this same time tomorrow.”

If that quote was a woman, I would marry it, I love it that much.

Brad Thiessen vs. Eddie Pasquale – no lineup changes the WBS way. For St. John’s, Arturs Kulda was back in and so was Marco Rosa for Mark Scheifele and Jason DeSantis.

First Period: Jason Williams would open the scoring on the power play by firing a shot off of Spencer Mahachek’s stick. About halfway into the first there was a break and the IceCaps came out firing on all cylinders with chance after chance after chance.

Second Period: Penguins came out flat, and the IceCaps capitalized. After Eric Tangradi took a high sticking call, Paul Postma would fire a puck in from the blueline which would deflect off of Patrice Cormier’s stick and in to even things. Joey Mormina would take a delay of game penalty. The Penguins would kill it. Brian Gibbons would take a questionable trip and Raymond Sawada would waste no time in pushing the IceCaps out ahead 2-1. Then a flurry of penalties to close out the second. In the last minute, Cal O’Reilly would score on a power play to even things at two leading into the….

Third Period: All of the carryover penalties would expire. The Penguins really only got one good shot off during the entire sequence. Then, the Penguins fourth line of Ryan Craig, Zach Sill and Geoff Walker saved the day. Walker fired a shot on net at Pasquale, and Zach Sill swept it in and home past the IceCaps net minder. Then the Penguins chewed up the clock with solid offensive zone time. With under five minutes to go, Paul Thompson stole a puck and flew up the left wing and backhanded a puck in past Pasquale five-hole. St. John’s would pull Pasquale, get a power play via an Alex Picard interference call but no goals came and the Penguins claw back and even the series and force a decisive Game 7.

Three Stars: 3) Derek Meech (assist, -1) 2) Zach Sill (game winning goal, +1) and 1) Brad Thiessen (29 saves on 31 shots)

Gameday for Game Seven will be up tomorrow on the blog at 2:00 p.m.

I have no idea what is going on in the Game 6 between Connecticut and Norfolk, in a game that the Whale need to win to extend that series to a seventh game. Here is the boxscore.

The hashtag on Twitter is #WBSPensIn7 – that is, we are here now at the seventh game. That still can’t be enough. We need to win one more. Now, there is no tomorrow for both teams. Expect one for the ages tomorrow.

Let’s Go Pens!

EDIT: Here’s video highlights from @EricP55 from the Pensblog:

It’s not going to be a race, really. The teams are going to charter back to Newfoundland on Thursday, but it’s past my bedtime. I don’t care, the Penguins are still alive in the playoffs! Simon Despres ended it in double overtime on a backhander of a rebound he created and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are still alive and well after a thrilling double overtime 3-2 victory.

You will hear me beat this drum from now until the series is over: These two teams are evenly matched. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out when you have three consecutive games go into overtime. The games have been decided on bounces. The Penguins finally found one that went their way for once.

Game 6 is Friday.

Brad Thiessen vs. Eddie Pasquale – no lineup changes for WBS. For St. John’s, Jason DeSantis was in for the injured Arturs Kulda.

First Period: That thing I said earlier about bounces? St. John’s got the biggest bounce in the history of bounces when a routine Jason King clear from the top of the left circle in the St. John’s zone was cleared by King along the wall. The puck travels down as if it were intermission and you have a “shoot from center ice into the clowns mouth” contests. The puck hops Thiessens stick at the top of the crease and into the net to give the St. John’s IceCaps the softest, slowest goal you will ever see at this level of professional hockey. Later, St. John’s appears to have scored again but they kicked the puck in and it was disallowed. This first period was all IceCaps.

Second Period: Mr. Moe Mentum changed his address to a Wilkes-Barre one as this period was all Penguins. When the sides were four on four, Paul Thompson picked off a St. John’s clearing bid and roofed one over Pasquale to knot the score at one. St. John’s would get a power play but never get a single shot in on Thiessen. The Pens dominated this period, allowing just three IceCaps shots.

I tweeted this at the end of the period. Using it here because sometimes I admire tweets:

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Third Period: Jason Williams feeds Alex Grant at the high slot and Grant lasered it past Pasquale to put the Pens out ahead 2-1. Eleven seconds later, Geoff Walker took a holding call. Paul Postma shot from the blue line and scored, even though I thought I heard a tip in front and the IceCaps evened it at two. Penguins then looked to not go to over time. Alex Grant buzzed a post, Paul Thompson was stopped in the slot, Ben Street had a good chance. Then, Brad Thiessen got bloodied by Simon Despres’ stick. Trainer Patrick Steidle could not stop the bleeding so enter Scott Munroe. Munroe made two shaky saves before Thiessen re-entered. Observers said that Thiessen looked possessed after that. Ben Street nearly ended it late but it was off to…

Overtime: IceCaps came in on a two on one but did not score. Chances back and forth but it was headed to…

Second Overtime: Longest AHL playoff game of the season, third longest WBS playoff game in team history, at 12:08 of the second overtime, Simon Despres fired a shot from the left circle then chased his own rebound and backhanded it past Pasquale to send the Penguins back to Newfoundland on Friday.

Three Stars: 3) Alex Grant (goal, +1) 2) Paul Thompson (goal, +1) and 1) Simon Despres (game winning double overtime goal, +2)

Notes: Dogged Ben Street on Twitter and here. He had two assists tonight. Philip Samuelsson did not see overtime ice.

Penguins will charter a flight to St. John’s with the IceCaps Thursday.

If you are on Twitter, do the following: Use #WBSPensIn7 as a hashtag and follow me if you aren’t already. We can do this. Still miles to go. St. John’s is going to come out full of vim and vigor looking to end it on Friday at home in front of a sold out crowd. Penguins are out to play world beaters. As far as content goes between then and now, I have no idea what I am running or could run. I think I may have some fun with numbers like I said I would after Game 4. So why don’t we do that. I’ll dive into the numbers and put up a post probably tomorrow or Thursday.

Let’s Go Pens!