Wilkes-Barre lays an egg vs. the defending champion Binghamton Senators tonight and Calder Cup MVP Robin Lehner stands on his head in the third period and the Penguins drop this one 3-1.

Depending on what side you come down on the fence, either a bad loss against the 30th out of 30 AHL teams or an insignificant one with the Pens clinching home use with a Hershey loss in Portland tonight. I’ll tend to lean towards a bad loss. Read on.

Brad Thiessen vs. Robin Lehner – no Black Aces warmed up. Philip Samuelsson took warmups but was scratched.

First Period: Off the hop, the Pens think they score but referee Jeff Smith rules the puck was kicked in. On a power play the Penguins score with Ryan Craig on the doorstep jamming one home past Lehner to put the Pens out ahead 1-0. Later, Mike Hoffman carries a puck in all by himself up the wing and backhands it past Thiessen to put the score even at 1 going into the…

Second Period: Patrick Cannone slices through the WBS defense and fires a wrist shot past Thiessen to put the B-Sens up 2-1. Then a scary moment as Ben Blood knocks over Brian Gibbons in the corner. Blood gets assessed a match penalty for a head check and the Penguins went on a 5:00 power play.

This turned out to be the turning point. The Penguins managed ONE shot on goal during the entire power play. Nothing could get established at all. Binghamton easily killed it. Gibbons was non the worse for wear after a brief visit in the locker room with the trainer.

Third Period: Pens would have the better of the chances by Robin Lehner was making save after save after save. Half of my game tweets in the third were all how Lehner would make great save after great save. Penguins would have a power play be negated by an Alex Grant hook. That would pass and late, the B-Sens would dump a puck in along the corner wall. Thiessen would come out to play it as he has a thousand times before. Only, the puck kicks off of an endplate and right to the stick of David Dziurzynski who had nothing but space and wide open net with Thiessen out of the picture behind the net. He buried it to make it 3-1.

The Penguins would pull Thiessen with about 2:45 left and couldn’t do anything with it.

Three Stars: 3) Ryan Craig (goal, -1) 2) Mike Hoffman (goal, +1) 1) Pat Cannone (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: Norfolk wins its 26th straight, 5-1 over Albany. Hershey loses in Portland 6-4. Syracuse lost 5-1 in Rochester.

Standings: Norfolk 107 / Penguins 93 / Hershey 88 / Syracuse 80 / Binghamton 62

Conference: 1-NOR (107) 2-StJ (92) 3-BRI (87) 4-WBS (93) 5-HER (88) 6-CT (84) 7-SYR (80) 8-POR (79)

First round matchup is set. It’s Wilkes-Barre / Hershey. Game 1 will be next Friday. Game 2 will follow Saturday. The whole schedule will be announced by the League at 11 am Saturday morning.

Bridgeport in tomorrow at 7 for the final regular season home game. The Sound Tigers wrapped up the Northeast Division Championship tonight. Gameday for this will be up at 3 p.m. on the blog.

I’d expect a better effort from the Penguins, but with these final two games pretty much meaningless, they may dress an all Black Aces squad tomorrow.

Let’s Go Pens!

Scott Munroe shuts out the Connecticut Whale for the season, winning this game tonight 3-0. Munroe went 184:56 of shutout hockey against the Whale and will not be on their Christmas Card list. Woe to the Whale if they cross paths with the Penguins in playoffs.

(But Game 1 of that series would be a 5-1 waxing by the Whale on the Penguins, with Munroe probably giving up 4 goals in the first period, as fate may have it)

Scott Munroe vs. Chad Johnson – Philip Samuelsson was recalled earlier in the day and took Joey Mormina’s spot on the blue line.

First Period: After an extended time of back and forth, green flag hockey as I like to call it, Simon Despres scored on a feed from Cal O’Reilly to make it 1-0. After, Alex Grant and Scott Tanski dropped the gloves, then Grant dropped Tanski with a few rights.

Second Period: Bryan Lerg scored on a breakaway about :50 into the start of the period. It was a daft back hander Johnson had no chance on. Then, on the power play, Jason Williams fed Geoff Walker a pass Walker slammed home on the backdoor.

In hindsight, the game was won in the first five and a half minutes of the second for the Penguins. I never got the sense tonight that the Whale were truly into the game, like into it as in “they may score here” into it. Come out in the first five minutes, get a breakaway goal and finish a power play goal before it even starts and you deflate a lot of teams hopes.

Helping much, was a point in the game that I noticed that for the period, the Whale had only two shots on goal. They ended the period with four. That is a great way to ensure you protect the lead and insulate your goaltender.

Third Period: Uneventful but for the moment at 8:26 of the period when Simon Despres was trying to dig a puck out from behind Connecticut’s net in the corner while getting cross checked in the back by Jared Nightengale multiple times. Referee Graham Skilliter is right on top of the play and calls nothing. In flies Colin McDonald who jumps Nightengale. Huge scrum. Robert Bortuzzo pulls Nightengale out of the scrum and fights him. Somewhere in there Andre Deveaux was involved. He got tossed with McDonald.

Connecticut tried to get something going late but never got one behind Munroe, who when called upon, did make some fantastic saves.

Three Stars: 3) Bryan Lerg (goal, +2) 2) Simon Despres (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Scott Munroe (27 save shutout)

Around the Division: Syracuse beats Hershey 3-2 in a shootout. The Bears lose the game in hand against the Penguins when they host the Whale Easter Sunday. Norfolk wins its TWENTY-FIFTH game in a row 4-1 vs. the Binghamton Senators. Stop me if you have heard this tune before: The Admirals are in a tight game late, until they get one goal, then the floodgates open. Most playoff games are like this.

Standings: Norfolk 107 / Penguins 93 / Hershey 88 / Syracuse 80 / Binghamton 62

Conference: 1-NOR (107) 2-StJ (90) 3-BRI (87) 4-WBS (93) 5-HER (88) 6-CT (82) 7-SYR (80) 8-MCH (77)

Elsewhere, in the ECHL the Wheeling Nailers season is over. They lost 3-2 to the Kalamazoo Wings in Michigan tonight and 3-1 in the series. I would expect at some point after meetings and such that we get a ton of reinforcements in from Wheeling. But that’s another blog post for another day.

Pens are off until next Friday. Have no idea what I am going to do with myself until then. I will try to run what I can based on allowable content. As always, we can mix it up on the Twitter side.

Let’s Go Pens!