With Charlotte losing in regulation and Norfolk and Hershey both losing in overtime, the Pens are starting to distance themselves from the rest of the East Division. Bears beat writer Tim Leone tweeted something which made me smile:

http://twitter.com/#!/timleone/status/23944743452938242

Anyway, to the matter at hand. Stick tap tonight to goaltender Nolan Schaefer tonight for keeping the last place Providence Bruins relevant tonight in a 2-1 Penguins win in overtime. Schaefer would turn aside 50 shots tonight in the P-Bruins defeat. He was opposed by Brad Thiessen who only turned away 18. More on this in a minute,

First period: Providence would score on its first shot of the game, Jeremy Reich through the five hole :39 seconds in. About midway, Joe Vitale would get like three shots in one shift on Schaefer and the third time was the charm through his five hole. At this point though, Providence was throwing everything they had at us. What is scary though is the fact we only limited them to 19 shots all game.

I don’t even feel like talking about the special teams. Providence has the leagues worst power play and ours wasn’t much better.

Second period: Thiessen made an enormous save on Trent Whitfield on a breakaway. I thought the P-Bruins captain was going to score but Thiessen got the pad over. That was about all for the action in the second. Brett Sterling had a 2 on 1 with Jeffrey but did not score.

Third period: Pens came out flying. Just absolutely smothered the Bruins this period. Schaefer was on his game though, denying chance after chance. The Pens had two power plays but could not convert. The stat which was shocking to me though was that the Bruins only were allowed one shot on goal the entire third period. One. That is shut down hockey. I suppose that if you can’t score on a power play, you don’t allow the opposing team many shots and just overwhelm the other teams goaltender with shot after shot after shot, and the law of averages will catch up with you and you will win.

Overtime: Dustin Jeffrey all alone on Schaefer at 2:58. Ballgame.

Around the Division: Really great night for Wilkes-Barre points wise. Charlotte got smoked by the Springfield Falcons 7-3. The Falcons were up 6-0 at one point. Connecticut beat Norfolk 3-2 in overtime. Hershey lost to Manitoba 4-3 in overtime. The Moose went 3 for 12 on the man advantage. Yikes. Albany beat Syracuse 2-1 Binghamton beat Rochester 2-1 and Adirondack lost in a shootout 3-2 to Abbotsford.

Standings: WBS first to 30 wins, 60 points. Closest team points wise is the stingy Peoria Rivermen with 53 points out West. Their head coach Jared Bednar will co-coach the West All-Stars at the All-Star Classic later this month in Hershey. Norfolk is in second with 47 points, Charlotte is in third with 47 points. Hershey is fourth with 45 points. Binghamton has 40 points in fifth. Syracuse has 32 points in sixth, Albany has 31 points in seventh, and Adirondack has 26 points.

Pens get a week off before playing Providence again in a rematch. Week to work on the power play, for one thing and get guys healthy. I have heard that Veilleux, Strait and Andrew Hutchinson are all close to returning.

Go Pens.

I was a bit under the weather last night and the best remedy for this is sleep, so as soon as I got home from the 5-2 Penguins win over Bridgeport I hit the sack.

Anyway, I am up on Saturday morning feeling better so here we go:

If you missed it, Jesse Boulerice was suspended 10 games by the league for contact with referee Francis Charron. Eric P over at the Wilkes-Blog has video, which you can see over at Bombulie’s postgamer.

John Curry vs. Mikko Koskinen. Joel Martin actually led the Sound Tigers out, which led to early mass confusion.

First period: Tim Wallace scored when Koskinen was screened after a faceoff and Brett Sterling broke his seven game goal drought and scored on a breakaway. I had a piece on The Ticket on Thursday. The first period shots on goal differential was 12-3 in favor of the Penguins.

Second period: Bryan Lerg scored to make it 3-0, on another nifty backhander. He does this at least once a game. More often than not, he scores. Halfway through the game, the SOG were 17-6. Eric Tangradi would score to make it 4-0 then Bridgeport’s mini-comeback was on. Jean Bourbeau would score with 9.1 seconds left in the second to make it 4-1. It was a shothanded goal.

Third period: Referee Ryan Fraser really turned the game at this point into a puppet show, dishing out three consecutive power plays for the Sound Tigers, which would put WBS down on an extended 5 on 3. Mark Katic would score to make it 4-2. At this point, old WBS teams would play not to lose and would end up losing. Not here. Nick Johnson would score to make it 5-2. Wilkes-Barre really stepped on the accelerator after killing off the remainder of the penalties and just took it to the Sound Tigers.

Three Stars: Bryan Lerg, Tim Wallace, Brett Sterling.

As Bombulie mentioned his postgamer, Bridgeport was outgunned, dressing 10 forwards and 8 defensemen. Call ups really stung them tonight. Sound Tigers beat writer Michael Fornabaio live-blogged the game and heard Tom Grace call the game a “dismantling” by Wilkes-Barre.

Around the Division: Charlotte defeated Albany 4-2. Norfolk defeated Connecticut 5-2. From what I saw from my twitter feed from last night, they were close games to the end. Binghamton defeated Syracuse 6-4. In another close game, Hershey defeated Mantioba 4-3. Adirondack lost in a shootout to Abbotsford 4-3.

Standings: WBS has 58 points. The 11 point lead over Charlotte is maintained by them winning. The Checkers have 47 points. Norfolk has 46 points in third. Hershey has 45 points. It’s getting tight. It’s two points separating second and fourth. Binghamton has 38 points in 5th. Syracuse has 32 points for sixth. Albany has 29 points and Adirondack is four points back in last with 25 points.

Let’s Go Pens!

Completely different game tonight as expected and as called by me in the Gameday post earlier. Despite the shot total (43-25 for WBS) a very tight checking game for both sides and a 3-2 Penguins win in a shootout.

Same goaltending matchup as last night, Brad Thiessen vs. Justin Pogge. Geoff Walker was scratched for Ben Street and Jason DeSantis was in for the injured Brian Strait. Radio stated that Strait took a forearm to the head last night.

First period: Pens flying everywhere. Charlotte iced the puck 4 times in a row and I wondered if it was rope a dope hockey. Ryan Craig opened the scoring at 19:01 then a Michal Jordan point shot fluttered onto the stick of Chris Terry who scored at 19:51. The shots on goal at that point were 17-8 for Wilkes-Barre. At this point the Charlotte goal was a fluke goal in my opinion and one that they could not allow to shake them.

Second period: Rough evening for Jason DeSantis, who was burned a few times on the back end but Thiessen up to the challenge. Later, Nicholas Blanchard would get whistled for interference. The Pens power play is downright anemic at this point. Jerome Samson would skate in shorthanded and score. Less than a minute later after the penalty expired, Carl Sneep fired a puck at the net which Chris Collins finds a stick on to even the score at 2. Jesse Boulerice and Jon Matsumoto would trade separate hook and slash calls respectively and the period would end in a 2-2 deadlock with the Pens outshooting the Checkers by a 24-15 margin.

Third period: Brett Sterling needs to learn how to shoot when he has the puck in 2 on 1 situations. He has scored a ton of goals at this level. I want to say that he is almost afraid to shoot. At halfway in the third period the shots were 31-18. Later, Jesse Boulerice would get a stick slashed out of his hands and argue with referee Francis Charron and Charron would assess a 10 minute game misconduct for abuse of officials. That was it as it was an uneventful third period. WBS would outshoot Charlotte 15-7 this period and overall 39-22 to this point.

Overtime: Dustin Jeffrey needs to shoot when he has the puck on a 2 on 1. He was in on one with Sterling and the game went to a shootout…

Shootout: Chris Terry would score first but then Dustin Jeffrey, Nick Johnson and Brett Sterling would all score as Thiessen would deny Drayson Bowman, Jacob Micflikier and Riley Nash for the Pens to go undefeated in a shootout and win the game.

Three stars were Justin Pogge, Chris Collins and Jerome Samson.

Around the division: Adirondack continues its winning ways in a shootout win over Albany 3-2. That was it for the East Division.

Standings: WBS with an 11 point lead up on Charlotte, 56-45. Idle Norfolk is in third with 44 points. Hershey has 43 points in fourth. Binghamton has 36 points in fifth, Syracuse is in sixth with 32 points. The Albany Devils have 29 points in seventh and the Adirondack Phantoms are last but creeping up with 24 points.

Travel / off day tomorrow for the Pens as they settle in for two Atlantic Division opponents in the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Friday and the Providence Bruins Saturday. Outside of the East, WBS is undefeated.

Let’s Go Pens!