Chirps from Center Ice

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I’m in the hurry-up with this blog post because it’s a work night for me and I have to see the dentist tomorrow at 7 a.m. He never makes any money off of me anyway, I am blessed to be 37 years old and have never had a cavity ever. But for having my wisdom teeth extracted about 7 years ago, I go twice a year to this guy and he’s disappointed with me for all the right reasons. He didn’t even pull my wisdom teeth, I was referred.

Whoa. How the heck did I get off on that tangent? Anyway, the Pens won tonight at home against Binghamton by a score of 4-1.

It was another methodical win. Binghamton jumps ahead in the first period, Matt Murray locks it down the rest of the way as he stops 32 of 33 and gets offensive help in the form of Dominik Uher who scored twice.

Matt Murray opposed Chris Driedger.

Up front, the lines were unchanged from Sunday, unchanged from Saturday. They were…

Josh Archibald – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Ty Loney – Sahir Gill – Patrick McGrath

Derrick Pouliot – Steve Oleksy
Tim Erixon – Adam Clendening
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Casey Desmith

Coal Street sent Brian Foster to Wheeling Monday. The likelihood that Tristan Jarry retuning this weekend remains a strong possibility. You let Desmith get a few AHL practices and let him back up and learn from Matt Murray. Murray will probably start Friday in Lehigh Valley then it’s anyone’s guess who starts Saturday against Utica.

Steve Oleksy returned and was reunited with Derrick Pouliot. Adam Clendening paired with Tim Erixon. John McCarron skated warmups. Will O’Neill was straight scratched.

First Period: Binghamton took all the ice out from under the Penguins and didn’t allow them any space. Matt Puempel pounced on a juicy rebound left by Murray on a Guillaume Lepine shot which gave the Sens a 1-0 lead at 6:57.

Teams traded power play chances but neither scored. The only other noteworthy thing to happen in the period was the Penguins dressing three A’s, plus Kostopoulos in the C. Rust, Andersen and Oleksy started the period with them, but Andersen had his removed later on.

Second Period: The quick strike offense seen Sunday in Hartford appeared again Tuesday in Wilkes-Barre. Two early goals :57 apart for the Penguins had them ahead 2-1. Reid McNeill had a point shot tipped by Dominik Uher past Driedger for a tie game then Adam Clendening pounced on a Binghamton clear, swept to Sahir Gill who blasted it past Driedger and in for a 2-1 Wilkes-Barre lead.

Pat McGrath fought again. This time Mark Fraser. This is tail end of it video:

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Penguins were all over the B-Sens, out shooting them 11-3 at one point but then Binghamton came alive and outshot the Pens 10-1 with the benefit of two power plays. Murray and the Penguins penalty kill kept them off the scoreboard, but were not able to build on the 2-1 lead heading into the…

Third Period: Penguins needed the intermission to gather themselves and reset. Natural born lteaders usually step up in situations like this:

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Kostopoulos broke up a D to D pass and raced in, fought off the waterskiing defensemen trailing and extended the lead for the Penguins to 3-1.

Penguins clamped down on the Sens. Bend but not break, Matt Murray solid again. Dominik Uher added an empty net goal with Driedger pulled.

Three Stars: Were 3) Sahir Gill (game winning goal, +1) 2) Matt Murray (32 saves on 33 shots) and 1) Dominik Uher (two goals, +3)

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Penguins (.742 percentage points) — Hershey (.600) — Portland (.578) — Bridgeport (.569) — Lehigh Valley (.514) — Providence (.471) — Hartford (.441) — Springfield (.424)

Wheeling Update: They too, watched us.

Here’s the infographic from Coal Street:

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And the video highlights:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0iVujSCh8Y&feature=youtu.be]

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Pens have a scheduled day off tomorrow. I am expecting that the All-Star selections will be made sometime this week, probably Wednesday, so look for the next blog update to come at that time.

Brush daily. Remember to floss. Let’s Go Pens!

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Kind of had the feeling when it was announced after yesterday’s 4-1 win against Springfield that Matt Murray would not make the trip to Hartford, Connecticut for Sunday afternoon’s game that Casey Desmith would get the start over Brian Foster.

Foster has been anything but a question mark in net for the Penguins at the AHL level, so with Matt Murray back from Pittsburgh and the status of Tristan Jarry getting closer and closer to a return, with the benefit of a cushion at the top of the Atlantic Division standings, Head Coach Clark Donatelli penciled in Casey Desmith’s name as the starting goaltender this afternoon.

The plan worked.

A 22 save performance for the undrafted Desmith, who wins in his AHL debut 3-2 and the Penguins have their first AHL winning streak under Donatelli.

It was the aforementioned Casey Desmith vs. Magnus Hellberg

No lineup changes for the Penguins this afternoon in Hartford, the only change being Desmith making his first AHL start.

First Period: Nothing really doing early on with the teams trading chances back and forth. The Penguins easily killed a Hartford power play and out shot the Wolf Pack 13-5 in the period. What Hartford did generate in chances were few and far between but quality overall.

With 8.8 seconds left in the period, Dominik Simon did this…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683748870245986304]

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It was Simon’s team leading 29th point for the Penguins.

Second Period: Penguins would get two quick goals in the first minute of the period kicked off by this rocket of a shot by J-S Dea…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683753368955695104]

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Exactly 15 seconds later and off of the ensuing face-off, the Penguins would score again…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683753872284766208]

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Bryan Rust would get credit when he banked the puck off of a prostrated Tommy Hughes.

The Wolf Pack called time out after that goal.

Then there were some penalties which ended up being a long overlapping power play for Hartford. They managed one shot on goal at Desmith and the rest of the time the Penguins just cleared everything and had a bunch of shorthanded rushes.

There are two automatic goal scorers that I know of that whenever they play the Penguins, you can pencil them in for a goal against Wilkes-Barre. One is defenseman Erik Burgdoerfer in Hershey and the other is Nick Tarnasky on the Hartford Wolf Pack. Tarnasky softly swept this puck past Desmith that spoiled the would be shutout and got Hartford on the board…

[tweet https://twitter.com/TheAHL/status/683757622302912513]

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Desmith looked settled in as the game wore on and made some big saves. The game starting to unfold into another methodical Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins game. That is, get a lead, sit on it, try to build on it and give the opponent nothing. An example of this was about three or four face-offs in the Penguins offensive zone that they won and just fired pucks at Hellberg.

Third Period: Physicality picked up and all ends of the ice were being used. The Wolf Pack would outshoot the Penguins 9-6 in this period and with Hellberg pulled, Chad Nehring would score with 6.1 seconds left in the game that made it 3-2 but there wasn’t enough time for the Wolf Pack to get the equalizer and the Penguins would hold on.

Desmith is probably packing his bags for Wheeling this week no matter what happens with Jarry this week just because, but I think that he has definitely earned a second look with another AHL team, whether that’s Wilkes-Barre or some other team. If not, he should definitely get some more starts in the ECHL.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Tarnasky (goal, -1) 2) Bryan Rust (goal, +1) and 1) J-S Dea (goal, +2)

Around the Division: Hershey blanks Bridgeport on the road by a score of 5-0. Dan Ellis had a 32 save shutout…Lehigh Valley beat Portland in Maine by a score of 2-1 and Providence beat Rochester 5-2.

Standings: Penguins (.734 percentage points) — Hershey (.600) — Portland (.578) — Bridgeport (.578) — Lehigh Valley (.514) — Providence (.471) — Hartford (.441) — Springfield (.424)

Here is the post game infographic from the Penguins…

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/683791227452522496]

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Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost at home to the Norfolk Admirals by a score of 5-3. Anton Zlobin had two goals and an assist.

My Week 13 AHL Power Rankings return to their normal 4 p.m. Monday release time. I’ll also have a refresh of the big board sometime Sunday evening also.

Penguins are back on the ice on Tuesday for a date with the Binghamton Senators in Wilkes-Barre at 7:05.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I think there were three things that led to the outcome tonight, a 4-1 Wilkes-Barre win over the Springfield Falcons.

1. The Penguins are just too good of a team collectively to lose any more than two or three games in a row. There are a lot of bad teams in the AHL and despite these last three games, the Penguins are not one of them.
2. The Return of Matt Murray. Say what you want, the Pens are a different, more confident team, when he is back there tending the nets.
3. The Patrick McGrath Factor. The Shavertown native and local grown product was on the ice tonight and was the fuse that sparked the dynamite which was the Wilkes-Barre offense with a big time tilt with Springfield’s Eric Selleck. Selleck is five inches and 18 pounds heavier than the 5’10, 200 pound McGrath.

It was almost scripted the way that the Selleck-McGrath fight came to be, which I will get to in the story.

Matt Murray opposed Niklas Treutle.

Line were…

Josh Archibald – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Ty Loney – Sahir Gill – Patrick McGrath

Derrick Pouliot – Adam Clendening
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Casey DeSmith

McGrath took the spot of John McCarron on the fourth line as the only lineup change.

First Period: Falcons jumped out ahead at 1:17 when ex-Penguin Dustin Jeffrey knocks home a puck that Derrick Pouliot failed to clear out of in front of Murray’s crease. Later, the Falcons were pressuring in the offensive zone when the puck skipped over a defenseman’s stick and barely out. During the confusion of the fact that everyone needed to get back onsides again, J-S Dea found Josh Archibald for a breakaway that Archibald finished to even the game at one a piece. It was Archibald’s first goal of the season and long overdue.

Then, late, Eric Selleck and Tom Kostopoulous got tangled up in front of the Penguins bench. Pushing and shoving occurred. You knew what came next, eventually McGrath was going to fight Selleck.

Second Period: After another penalty by Derrick Pouliot which was killed by the Penguins, Tim Erixon shot the puck from the point and Tom Kostopoulos deflected it home for a 2-1 Penguins lead.

Then off the face-off, Eric Selleck made a bad choice:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683455111805464576]

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Back to my scripted analogy, you have the bad guy (Selleck) messing with the good guy / legend (Kostopoulos) in the backyard of the hero (McGrath) who also happens to be and play for the local hockey team. The hero pummels the bad guy and the Penguins go on to score two more goals, a Sahir Gill rebound goal of a Reid McNeill shot and then a Bryan Rust power play goal after the Falcons had called a timeout after the Gill goal and the rout was on.

The Penguins were running circles on the Falcons and having fun again. Three goals in the span of 3:17. The local kid playing for the local team with the spark to get it all going. Happy days are here again.

Third Period: Nothing really of substance to note. Wilkes-Barre killed two power plays. Clark Donatelli collected his first AHL win.

Three Stars: 3) Carter Rowney (two assists, +1) 2) Matt Murray (30 saves on 31 shots) and 1) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, even)

Worth noting the following:

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/683484050846253056]

And more importantly…

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/683485757181407232]

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So it will be either Casey DeSmith or Brian Foster in net Sunday in Hartford. I have a feeling it may be DeSmith. Who knows, though.

Around the Division: Hershey beats Binghamton 6-5 in overtime after overcoming a 5-1 deficit….Bridgeport beat Rochester 4-3 in overtime….Albany beat Hartford 4-3 and Portland beat Lehigh Valley 4-3 in overtime up in Maine.

Standings: Penguins (.726 percentage points) — Portland (.597) — Hershey (.588) — Bridgeport (.586) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Providence (.455) — Hartford (.455) — Springfield (.424)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers Thunderbirds beat the Brampton Beast on Throwback Night by a score of 5-1. With Fort Wayne beating Toledo tonight 2-1, that draws Wheeling 4 points behind the Walleye for the North Division lead.

Here are the video highlights from Coal Street:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEyzao6gIS4&feature=youtu.be]

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Pens travel to Hartford for a 3 pm start, with the Gameday setup hitting the blog here Sunday at 11 am.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Tonight’s game, a 4-2 loss to the Syracuse Crunch, was won and lost by the goaltenders tonight.

Brian Foster for Wilkes-Barre stopped just 13 of 16 shots at him tonight and looked generally awful. I had a concern at the start of the year that if the Penguins ever needed to rely on him at any point that they would be in trouble and this is proving to be true. Seth dug this stat up during the game tonight:

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682702943653605381]

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Also…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682691592210247681]

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682678874161967108]

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I will get to my point that he wasn’t very good tonight and cost the Penguins at a real shot at winning the game.

Andrei Vasilevskiy on the other hand, was outstanding. He wasn’t one of the three stars of the game, but he won the game for Syracuse tonight, stopping 28 of 30 and all 16 shots in the third period by the Penguins as they were chasing a one goal deficit. His best work came in the third period and again, I will get to the evidence of that visually in a second.

Lines were as follows…

Josh Archibald – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Ty Loney – Sahir Gill – John McCarron

Derrick Pouliot – Adam Clendening
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

Lineup Notes: Adam Clendening was sent down by Pittsburgh to Wilkes-Barre Thursday morning on a conditioning assignment. He took the place of Clark Seymour paired on the top defensive unit with Derrick Pouliot….John McCarron was called up to Wilkes-Barre yesterday as Matia Marcantuoni was sent down and was in on the fourth line reunited with his Wheeling line mates Ty Loney and Sahir Gill. J-S Dea centered the top line with Kael Mouillierat out with an upper body injury.

First Period: Pens had the games first power play and brought in a unit which was on a long dry spell on power play success. Clendening pumped a shot at net that was tipped in by J-S Dea for a goal and a Penguins lead for the first time in a while, as it was the first goal scored under the Clark Donatelli Era and the first lead too.

Here is a look at it…

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682688422633455616]

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Penguins continued to control the offensive zone. They would set up shop, and just stay there and cycle the puck and pump shots at Vasilevskiy.

But it was becoming apparent that the Crunch were doing a decent enough job at getting sticks in the lanes of where the shots were headed, as seemingly 60% of the shot attempts were either blocked or deflected.

Josh Archibald would then take a questionable goaltender interference penalty and the Crunch would quickly cash on power play when Adam Erne finished off a tic tac toe play in front of Foster for a 1-1 game.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682692050232422402]

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After the Penguins were so dominant to this point, I said this at the time…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/682691184117039104]

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My very next tweet…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/682692280566833152]

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682693228269809665]

It was actually a reversal of the way I called it at the time on Twitter. It was Mike Blunden who scored and Tanner Richard who won the draw. Regardless, it was a 2-1 Crunch lead after what was a pretty good period by the Penguins.

Second Period: Sahir Gill would score on the power play and the terms were even again. Dominik Simon set the whole thing up with a nice pass to Gill who shot it home. Simon collected his AHL leading 28th point for rookies.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682701543406178304]

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1:19 later, Syracuse edged ahead again when Nic Andersen got dumped into the Syracuse bench, turned the puck over. Adam Erne broke down the wing, centered to Cameron Darcy who missed the net entirely, but shot it off the wall where Erne collected and put it past Foster for a 3-2 Crunch lead.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682702301438570496]

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Someone needs to explain to me what the hell Foster was doing in that situation. Syracuse scored three goals on ten shots. Look, I know that the Pens are down their top two goaltenders, but you have to have the ability to make saves at the American Hockey League level. Right now, Foster isn’t that guy.

Saw people clamoring on Twitter for Penguins backup goaltender Casey DeSmith. Here’s his story. He is in his rookie season and is the third goaltender in Wheeling, playing behind Foster and Franky Palazzese. If you aren’t good enough to play your way into a a few games here and there in the ECHL, you aren’t good enough to be relied upon in the AHL for a good team like the Penguins.

Third Period: Here is one of Vasilevskiy’s two monster saves in the third period. This one is on Oskar Sundqvist.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682714009968185344]

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Here is the second one, on J-S Dea. Two looks. Two angles.

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682717593162100736]

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682717934729490432]

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Larceny.

Penguins really brought everything they could at the Crunch and Vasilevskiy. They did a good job of insulating Brian Foster but could not solve Vasilevskiy at all. With time dwindling and Foster vacated, the Penguins never found the equalizer and had to watch this shot by Slater Koekkoek drift harmlessly into their net…

[tweet https://twitter.com/JGHoughtaling/status/682719667656495105]

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[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/682718388985159682]

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Derrick Pouliot was awful tonight. He may be hurt, discouraged, or slumping. He had three turnovers tonight that led to rushes up ice for the Crunch the other way. I think he misses Steve Oleksy, who he was paired with before Oleksy’s injury…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/682711013532262400]

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Three Stars: 3) Mike Blunden (goal, assist, +1) 2) Sahir Gill (goal, even) and 1) Adam Erne (two goals, +1)

Around the Division: The silver lining in the current losing streak that the Penguins is on is that it is being matched by the Hershey Bears, who drop their third straight game, this time a 3-1 setback at home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Portland beat Providence 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.717 points percentage) — Bridgeport (.591) — Portland (.583) — Hershey (.576) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Hartford (.469) — Providence (.465) — Springfield (.419)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost in overtime to the Brampton Beat by a score of 4-3. Anton Zlobin had a goal and an assist, Matia Marcantuoni had a goal.

I don’t think that the Pens will put a postgame infographic up or video highlights. You aren’t missing much that you haven’t seen already here.

Pens are in action again Saturday against Springfield. Look, Syracuse is a good team that has been pillaged by injuries and call-ups. They are resilient and play that way and I think that was full on display tonight. If the Pens lose to the last place Falcons, then I think you will see fans start to get desperate and start demanding answers.

Anyway, Happy New Year and Let’s Go Pens!

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A lot is going to be said online and in other areas about the recent play of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

Forget about the fact that last week they shut out teams in four of five games and hadn’t allowed a single even strength goal in a remarkable 300+ minutes.

Forget about all that.

Focus on a two game set against in-state rivals where you are shut out in both games. 5-0 last night to Hershey and 3-0 today to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

That’s what fans do, right? Bloodthirsty, cup less fans in Wilkes-Barre that still pin losses on Ray Shero and Mike Johnston for messing with the team here in Wilkes-Barre while teams like Hershey, Norfolk, Binghamton and Grand Rapids have parades in June raising a Calder Cup banner.

No, not here. Forget about all that.

Look, you can blame new coach Clark Donatelli all you want, you can pin the blame on Brian Foster all you may in net, but if the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins can’t score a single goal in any given game, they have no chance of winning said game. Period. End of story.

Scoreless now in a span of 134:41. A penalty killing unit that went 2-for-4 last night in Hershey and 1-for-2 tonight. When the offense isn’t there and the special teams struggle, the team as a whole struggles.

Can anyone just say that Phantoms starting goaltender Jason LaBarbera played a hell of a game with an understaffed team crippled by injuries? (The Phantoms played a man short and are missing 10 players due to injury)

35 saves by LaBarbera tonight.

No changes for the Penguins lineup tonight.

First Period: Did everything right, outshot the Phantoms 9-3 until Andrew MacDonald finds himself alone in the high slot and wires a shot past Foster for a 1-0 Phantoms lead:

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I am trying to decide amongst myself where the turning point of the game was. Here at the MacDonald goal, or later in the period when the Penguins had thirteen seconds of 5-on-3 power play.

Second Period: Again controlled play by Wilkes-Barre, then Kael Mouillierat takes a goaltender interference penalty and the Phantoms cash on a power play goal when Niclas Andersen partially screens Foster while skating backwards.

Third Period: Penguins needed to press while chasing a team up two goals on them and be careful in the process because their penalty killing hasn’t been the best. Every shot, it seemed, was right at LaBarbera and he saw it all the way.

Finally, ex-Penguin Colin McDonald skates down the right wing, catches Foster dipping into the butterfly a split second too soon and finds daylight upstairs and extends the Phantoms lead to 3-0 on an NHL caliber snipe.

Penguins couldn’t score on a power play, killed a penalty and could not get one by LaBarbera with an extra attacker with Foster pulled after a time out and that was all she wrote.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Cousins (two assists, +1) 2) Andrew MacDonald (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Jason LaBarbera (35 saves)

Strong games by J-S Dea and Bryan Rust who maximized each shift and really stood out.

Let’s look at some tweets that put this one in perspective…

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Around the Division: Wasn’t a bad weekend for the Penguins insofar as it was an equally bad weekend for the Atlantic Division as a whole. Hershey lost to Binghamton at home tonight 5-3. The B-Sens have won three straight…Portland beat Springfield 5-3…Hartford shutout Rochester 1-0 and Bridgeport beat Providence 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.741 percentage points) — (Hershey .613) — Bridgeport (.591) — Portland (.589) — Lehigh Valley (.484) — Providence (.452) — Hartford (.452) — Springfield (.433)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are feeling the affects also, dropping a 7-4 decision to the Kalamazoo Wings. Cody Wydo and Riley Brace both had two goals.

Here’s the post game infographic…

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Give Donatelli a chance to run a few practices. Bodies will be back soon. It isn’t as bad as you think, despite what you think.

My Week 12 AHL Power Rankings will hit the blog at a special time tomorrow, 1 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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The following tweets by the men that write about this team for a living in the papers should tell you all you need to know about how this one went…

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/680922200132743168] [tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/680921412417273856]

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So it was predictable. A 5-0 shutout, blowout loss ushers in the Clark Donatelli Era for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

Nothing went right tonight. Let’s get right to it.

Lines were…

Josh Archibald – Kael Mouillierat – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Sahir Gill – J-S Dea – Ty Loney

Derrick Pouliot – Clark Seymour
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

Injury Updates: Mike O’Brien stated that Matia Marcantuoni was off of injured reserve and was the healthy scratch as well as Harrison Ruopp. Steve Oleksy and Tom Sestito were, “close” and Tristan Jarry was, “week-to-week.” Tyler Biggs jobs Barry Goers in the, “month-to-month” category.

First Period: Bad first period for the Penguins, who 1:23 into the game, were down 2-0, then later 3-0 on another Bears goal, this time on the power play and the rout was on. Aaron Ness with a bomb of a shot at :34, Chris Brown from high slot at 1:23 then Madison Bowey skating in unmarked on the power play for Hershey. Wilkes-Barre only registered one shot on goal in the games first eight minutes, and the game conceivably could have been 5-0 with the Bears hitting two posts in the process.

Things settled in the games last five minutes and the period ended with the Bears outshooting the Pens 15-7.

Second Period: Penguins couldn’t cash in on their only power play of the period and the Bears cashed on theirs when Paul Carey swept in a rebound left by Foster that made it 4-0. Erik Burgdoerfer scored his goal against the Penguins (all of his goals this year have come against Wilkes-Barre) and it was 5-0.

Donatelli called time out and was very animated on the bench with his team which was in a 5-0 hole on the ice at their biggest rival.

Third Period: Casey DeSmith came in on relief for Brian Foster, faced a power play to open the period then a brief 5-on-3 but was able to keep the Bears out of his net. It was the most settled that the Pens looked all game, but at this point the game was lost.

Pens couldn’t score on a power play, the Bears were blocking tons of shots. Wilkes-Barre later hit a post when Reid McNeill narrowly missed breaking up the Ellis shutout.

Dan Ellis was in some pain with about two minutes to play in the period, but gutted it out for his first shutout of the season, a 22 save performance, and the first time all season that Wilkes-Barre has been shutout all season.

Three Stars: 3) Madison Bowey (goal, assist, even) 2) Carter Camper (three assists, +1) and 1) Dan Ellis (22 save shutout)

Around the Division: Binghamton beat Hartford at home 4-2…Lehigh Valley lost at home to Bridgeport 2-1…Albany beat Providence 4-1…Syracuse beat Springfield 3-1 and Portland was off.

Standings: Penguins (.768 points percentage) — Hershey (.633) — Bridgeport (.578) — Portland (.574) — Lehigh Valley (.467) — Providence (.467) — Springfield (.448) — Hartford (.433)

Wheeling Update: It was Dave Gove’s head coaching debut and that too was a sour one as Gove’s Wheeling Nailers were defeated by the Toledo Walleye in Toledo 4-1. That will cost the Nailers as they will now be seven back of division leader Toledo in the North Division.

Penguins are back in action tomorrow against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at home. Gameday for that will be up on the blog at noon for the 4:05 start.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Looking at the standings in this league, I can tell you that there are a lot of bad teams in the American Hockey League.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are not one of them.

Don’t believe me? The Toronto Marlies came into Wilkes-Barre last night as the second best team in the League and needed a shootout to beat the Penguins. They scored three shorthanded goals to even get to the shootout but how often do you see teams in professional hockey give up three shorthanded goals? It doesn’t happen often.

Anyway, that same Marlies team short of AHL points leader William Nylander and short Antoine Bibeau who was recalled to the parent Maple Leafs today rolled into Hershey tonight with Ray Emery in goal, who just signed his PTO an hour and a half before the start of the game Friday and beat the Bears 6-2. Hershey had won seven in a row at home coming in and were bolstered by the addition of Chris Brown who had cleared waivers earlier Saturday.

A 3-0 shutout in Syracuse tonight against a Crunch team decimated by call ups and injuries. Brian Foster, up from Wheeling and forced into the starting goaltender position with the injury to Tristan Jarry earlier this week in Allentown, recorded his first shutout at the AHL level, the Penguins recorded their fourth shutout in five games and the Penguins have not allowed an even strength goal in 305:29.

Again, there are a lot of bad teams in the AHL. The Penguins aren’t one of them.

Foster was opposed by Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Scott Wilson was recalled by Pittsburgh earlier today as a result of Daniel Sprong getting sent back to his junior team, so it was an all hands on deck situation forward wise for the Penguins. Here is a look at the lines:

Josh Archibald – Kael Mouillierat – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Sahir Gill – J-S Dea – Ty Loney

Derrick Pouliot – Clark Seymour
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

Lineup Notes: With Wilson recalled to Pittsburgh, Josh Archibald was slotted into the top line. The second and third pairs were left untouched and Sahir Gill, making his WBS season debut, took Archibald’s spot in the fourth line. The defense pairing was also untouched.

First Period: Penguins muster not much offense in the period but for this Oskar Sundqvist centering attempt to Tom Kostopoulos that went in:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678368288213237760]

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The Crunch would outshoot Wilkes-Barre 17-3 in the period and go 0-for-2 on the power play, threw everything but the kitchen sink at Foster but were unable to score. It’s the microcosm of the Crunch’s season, really, one that has been crippled by injuries and call ups.

Second Period: Sleepy periods by both teams. Penguins had this would be be power play goal taken away when referee Garrett Rank ruled that the net was knocked free of the moorings before the puck had crossed:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678383092709593088]

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Brian Foster stayed active in net, denying Jeff Tambellini and Philippe Paradis Grade A scoring attempts. The Pens outshot the Crunch 11-6 thanks to an 8-0 headstart to begin the period.

Third Period: Feeling going into the third was that the 1-0 lead was not safe. So what do the Penguins do? Score twice in a span of 1:46.

First, Will O’Neill scored from the blue line when the Crunch turned it over right to him…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678395131460980737]

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Then Carter Rowney with a strong forecheck which forced a turnover which resulted in Tom Kuhnhackl which made it 3-0:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678396189046349824]

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Tampa Bay prospect Anthony DeAngelo is going to have nightmares on the bus to Hershey tonight of Brian Foster. Foster denied him with the pad about halfway into the period…

…then in the dying seconds of the game with Vasilevskiy pulled:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678403112093229057]

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Three Stars: 3) Matthew Peca (no shots, -1) 2) Will O’Neill (goal, +1) and 1) Brian Foster (30 save shutout)

Around the Division: I gave you the Hershey final in the open. The other finals were Hartford beating Utica in a shootout 2-1…Portland beat Bridgeport 2-1…Springfield beat Providence 4-2 and Binghamton beat Lehigh Valley 2-1, speaking of bad teams.

Standings: Penguins (.796 points percentage) — Hershey (.607) — Bridgeport (.583) — Portland (.540) — Providence (.500) — Lehigh Valley (.483) — Springfield .464) — Hartford (.429)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers battled back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game at three all late but lose 5-3 in Moline, IL against the Quad City Mallards. Riley Brace had a goal and two assists, John McCarron had a goal and an assist. Toledo beat Manchester 2-0 at home tonight to expand their lead on the North Division by 4. The Walleye are in Indy tomorrow.

Pens are now off until December 26 in Hershey against the Bears. I’ll have my chart refreshes Sunday and the Week 11 AHL Power Rankings up Monday.

Let’s Go Pens!