Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Category Archives: WBS

Whitewashed – Pens LOSE 6-0

1 Comment Posted by on December 27, 2011

Actually fun when, before I sit down to do this, I have a number of headlines in my head to run for the post game recap. Here is the alternative post I was going to run:

Eliminate the Igloo – Pens LOSE 6-0.

I thought the better of it as Pittsburgh Civic Center Arena (thank you Chad in comments section below) where the Pittsburgh Penguins used to play, better known as the “Igloo” is being demolished. I thought that had I run that people would see the headline and see me as heartless.

Regardless, the Pens are now 0-for-the season when they skate out of the inflatable igloo at the beginning of games at home. Hockey players are superstitious. Surely, this has been brought to their attention. Loyal blog reader and twitter follower Shannon took it to the Pens Facebook page:

I may or may not have offered Shannon financial compensation for the blog plug, but the kindness is well appreciated.

Anyway. Oh yeah, the reason you are here! The hockey game! The Pens lost this game in the first five minutes of the game and tried to win it in the second period. They stopped trying in the third and thus were embarrassed on home ice.

Brad Thiessen vs. Braden Holtby

First Period: Pens had to kill a early Hershey power play with Boris Valabik in the box for interference just :28 in. The Pens easily killed the power play. Right after, however, a Hershey dump in saw Tomas Kundratek camped out at the front of the net when Scott Ford tried a wraparound. Thiessen made the initial save but Kundratek stuffed it home. Then, Valabik took a slash to the hand or arm and went to the locker room. He’d return briefly for the second but wasn’t seen afterwards. Julien Brouliette scored from the left dot while Thiessen was screened and it was 2-0. Then things settled a bit, but Hershey went back to the power play late when Cody Wild was in the penalty box for a high stick and Patrick McNeill had all day to pick a spot on Thiessen off of a Christian Hanson feed.

In between the Brouillette and McNeiil goals the Pens had two chances to get on the scoresheet with Colin McDonald and Bryan Lerg both denied on mini breakaways.

Second Period: The Pens outshot the Bears this period 9-3. They would have outshot them more if about seven of the attempts at goal were actually on goal, but I digress. I’m going to let my tweets summarize the events in the order of which they came:

Sometimes you need luck to win hockey games. Tonight, Lady Luck was wearing Chocolate and White.

Third Period: Pens lost all chances to get back in when Jacob Micflikier scored to make it 4-0 on the power play. Cody Eakin scored two goals after that for good measure and the Bears skated away the victors 6-0. The teams rematch tomorrow.

Recaps from WBS Official here and the Hershey fan blog Sweetest Hockey on Earth here.

Three Stars: 3) Cody Eakin (2 goals, +4) 2) Julien Brouillette (goal, assist, +2) and 1) Braden Holtby (28 save shutout)

Around the Division: Norfolk, Binghamton and Syracuse all watched us tonight as they were not in action.

Standings: Bears open a four point lead over the Penguins and Norfolk. With the next meeting between the Bears and Penguins not until February after tomorrow, things could get out of reach soon. 1) HER 41 2) NOR 37 3) WBS 37 4) SYR 27 5) BNG 26

Conference: 1-HER (41) 2-StJ (40) 2-CT (40) 3-MCH (40) 4-StJ (39) 5-NOR (37) 6-WBS (37) 7-WOR (34) 8-ALB (33)

Penguins and Bears rematch tomorrow at 7 p.m. from Hershey. Gameday up here on the blog at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

Postgamer

GAMEDAY: vs. Hershey 12/27

Comments Off on GAMEDAY: vs. Hershey 12/27 Posted by on December 27, 2011

vs. 

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Home Game: 14

AHL Game: 454

Who: Hershey Bears

Where: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza

When: 7:05 p.m. EST

Media Kit

Last Game: Last Tuesday at home the Pens lost to the Albany Devils 2-1. Ben Street had the lone goal. For Hershey, last Wednesday at home vs. Syracuse, the Bears won 5-2. Julien Brouillette and Patrick McNeill had a goal and an assist each and Dany Sabourin made 38 saves.

Last Meeting: December 10 in Hershey the Pens won 4-2. Bryan Lerg and Eric Tangradi had a goal and an assist each in the win and Scott Munroe made 33 saves.

Record: For WBS: 16-9-1-4 (37 pts., 3rd place East Division) For HER: 17-8-3-2 (39 pts., 1st place East Division)

Why you should care: First game back for both teams from the extended Christmas holiday. The Pens need this one to even up the points and get back even with the Bears.

Referee(s): Darcy Burchell / David Banfield

Linesmen: Matt McNulty / Scott Adams

Twitter: @wbspenguins / @TheHersheyBears

Beat Writers: @CVBombulie / @timleone

Broadcasters: WBS: Tom Grace @TGracePens and Mike O’Brien @MikeOBrienWBS / HER: Scott Stuccio @ScottStuccio

Fan Bloggers: @nafsnep / @SweetestHockey

Radio: For WBS: 102.3 The Mountain / For Hershey: 1460 The Ticket

Television: AHL Live

Promotion(s): None

Other Game to Watch: Albany visits Connecticut in a battle of the Atlantic Division leaders.

Next Five Games: @ HER 12/28, BRI 12/31, NOR 1/4, RCH 1/6, SYR 1/7

Gameday

These Three Things…

Comments Off on These Three Things… Posted by on December 22, 2011

Three-pack of information on a Thursday:

–> Deryk Engelland was suspended three games. Here’s the video explaining the reasoning.

–> So a recall from Wilkes-Barre will be made. Who? Looks like it may be Brian Strait:

https://twitter.com/EricP55/status/149968368978501633

–> Hershey beat Syracuse last night 5-3. The Bears hit the Christmas break atop the East Division standings with 39 points and sit second in the conference overall.

I’m really dragging out the blog updates. I may or may not have anything else AHL wise until after Christmas. Who knows. Keep checking back.

Let’s Go Pens!

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Here, Boy! Here!

Comments Off on Here, Boy! Here! Posted by on December 21, 2011

Pittsburgh announced today that Eric Tangradi was reassigned to Wilkes-Barre / Scranton.

Color me shocked for a few reasons: 1) Roster freeze in effect, I didn’t think teams were allowed to send guys down. 2) Surely Tangradi would have gotten a better look than what he did in his current recall, which wasn’t much. I get having to earn the right and all to play in the National Hockey League, but it doesn’t seem like he’s even being given the chance to step on the ice. Last night’s game vs. Chicago he was a scratch.

Seth Rorabaugh or @emptynetters on Twitter tweeted this afternoon:

I saw some responses to his tweet on this and the feeling I have had all along regarding Tangradi is slowly growing on others and that limb I have been on has some added weight on it. What’s the feeling?

Trade bait.

I hope I am wrong.

Elsewhere, look for me on Twitter later later with a recap of the Bears / Crunch tilt from Hershey tonight at 7.* If the Bears win, they have outright number one in the division going into the Christmas break.

Let’s Go Pens!

* – actually probably a Scott Stuccio, Tim Leone or Hershey Bears retweet on the final score. May do all three, may do one, may do none. Depends on conciseness / creativity.

Pittsburgh, WBS

Coastal Reassignments

Comments Off on Coastal Reassignments Posted by on December 20, 2011

In moves that shouldn’t surprise anyone, Wilkes-Barre announced today that they have returned Chris Barton to Wheeling and released Dan Henningson and Peter Merth. Henningson will go back to the ECHL’s Chicago Express and Merth will rejoin the Wheeling Nailers.

Merth and Henningson did well while they were here. That said, I hope that they aren’t needed again. I’m not knocking them by saying this, I’m simply stating that I hope that Pittsburgh gets healthy enough to the point to where signing guys to tryouts in the middle of the season isn’t needed again.

Barton didn’t really stand out much to me. I meant yeah, the kid worked hard and he was probably a product of his environment in his two games (both WBS losses) here but I don’t know. If you come up from the ECHL and work hard you are bound for a second look, no?

I’ll be playing casual observer tomorrow night watching Bears vs. Crunch. Should be interesting and fun.

Let’s Go Pens!

WBS, Wheeling

Bedeviled – Pens LOSE 2-1

1 Comment Posted by on December 19, 2011

I’ve been getting into the practice of running some pregame nuggets on the opponent for the evening vs. the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. Let’s take a look at a few from tonights contest vs. the Albany Devils:

Well, tonight the Pens lost for the first time ever vs. a New Jersey Devils AHL franchise by the score of 2-1. The Pens were 0-for-5 on the power play tonight.

They also couldn’t win a face-off to save themselves tonight and that malady cost them the game ultimately.

Scott Munroe vs. Jeff Frazee. Brain Strait, Carl Sneep and Paul Thompson were in for Peter Merth, Dan Henningson and Ryan Schnell.

First Period: Pens took two consecutive penalties but killed them easily, as I mentioned in the nuggets that Albany has only scored on four road power plays all season. The face-off trouble reared its head early, as Munroe was forced to make three tough saves after the Pens could not win the battle in the dot. The period would end with no score.

Second Period: Mike Hoeffel scored a laser beam goal over Munroe’s glove to put the Devils out front 1-0 at 7:49. Then, Boris Valabik and Harry Young both fought to the dislike of the crowd as they both had a hold of each other where the other was not allowed to get a square punch in. The fans actually booed!

Third Period: While the side were 4-on-4, Ben Street scored on a 2-on-1 break with Colin McDonald to even things at one. Then, a scary incident when a WBS player crashed the Albany net and right into Jeff Frazee. Frazee appeared to have injured his arm but would remain in the game, but in obvious pain. Brian Gibbons then had a good chance while being pulled down and actually hit the bottom of the post but the puck did not go in. After an icing call, the Penguins don’t win the face-off and Mike Hoeffel scores his second of th game to put the Devils up late. Brad Mills would sit for a late high stick on Boris Valabik but the Pens with Munroe pulled were unable to get one past Frazee and lost.

The pessimist in me is going to say that the Penguins couldn’t beat a team they have mastered in previous attempts and score on a one armed goaltender when they needed to. The optimist says that they learn from this, better to make these mistakes now than in May.

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Frazee (25 saves on 26 shots) 2) Ben Street (goal, +1) and 1) Mike Hoeffel (two goals, +2)

Around the Division: We were the only game in town division, and league wide.

Standings: 1-HER (37) 2-NOR (37) 3-WBS (37)4-SYR (27) 5-BNG (24)

Strange, how percentage points work in hockey. Penguins go from second to first yesterday when Norfolk beat Hershey. Now, with the loss and same amount of points and the Bears and Admirals, drop to third.

Conference: 1-StJ (39) 2-HER (37) 3-CT (36) 4-MCH (38) 5-NOR (37) 6-WBS (37) 7-WOR (32) 8-ADK (32)

Looking Ahead: WBS breaks for Christmas and is off again until next Tuesday nights game vs. Hershey. This week, Hershey hosts Syracuse on Wednesday. Norfolk is already off.

Expect blog updates to be scarce between now and then. I’ll probably run a brief recap of the Bears / Crunch game. I’ll have no news on demotions to Pittsburgh because the NHL roster freeze is in effect until December 27. That means Pittsburgh can call up whoever they want, but can’t send anyone down until the 27th at midnight.

Let’s Go Pens!

Postgamer

GAMEDAY: vs. Albany 12/19

Comments Off on GAMEDAY: vs. Albany 12/19 Posted by on December 19, 2011

vs. 

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Home Game: 13

AHL Game: 432

Who: Albany Devils

Where: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza

When: 7:05 p.m. EST

Media Kit

Last Game: Saturday at home, the Pens lost 5-2 to the Norfolk Admirals. Boris Valabik finally made his debut in the game. For Albany, they lost in an 11-round shootout 2-1 to the Springfield Falcons. Darcy Zajac had the lone goal for the Devils in the loss.

Record: For WBS: 16-8-1-4 (37 pts.,  1st place East Division) — For ALB: 12-11-3-2 (29 pts., 3rd place Northeast Division)

Why you should care: These aren’t your uncle’s Albany Devils. This is a much improved Albany team this season. While Wilkes-Barre has never lost to a Devils AHL affiliate, the Penguins are going to have to work extra hard tonight with a good majority of its corps on recall to Pittsburgh.

Referee(s): Francis Charron / Jarrod Ragusin

Linesmen: Alex Stagnone / Francis Trempe

Twitter: @wbspenguins / @AlbanyDevils

Beat Writers: @CVBombulie / @Bill_Cain_

Broadcasters: For WBS: Tom Grace @TGracePens and Mike O’Brien @MikeOBrienWBS / For ALB: Josh Heller @Josh_Heller

Fan Bloggers: @nafsnep / @tel915

Radio: For WBS: 102.3 The Mountain / For Albany: ESPN Radio 104.5 The Team

Television: AHL Live

Promotion(s): None

Other Game to Watch: This is the only game on the AHL slate, so you’re stuck with it. Sorry!

Next Five Games: HER 12/27, @ HER 12/28, BRI 12/31, NOR 1/4, RCH 1/6

Gameday

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