Chirps from Center Ice

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I’ll use the lede in my Rapid Recap one post down for the lede here.

The Penguins were cruising in the third period of tonight’s game and heading to a power play up 3-0.

Then the bottom fell out.

A 4-3 shootout loss for the Penguins tonight to the Toronto Marlies. The game leading in was dubbed as a matchup between two heavyweight teams that were about as evenly matched from top to bottom. Even so in goal with the Penguins bringing in Casey DeSmith from the Wheeling Nailers this morning and the Marlies signing Ray Emery to a PTO hours before puck drop. It was a battle backups tonight in goal with Brian Foster squaring off against Antoine Bibeau.

To see it end in a shootout is mildly disappointing, to say the least.

The lineups were unchanged forward wise and defense wise. But in case you forgot…

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

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

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

First Period: Wilkes-Barre would jump out to a 2-0 lead but not before a long 5-on-3 for the Penguins that seemed rushed, panicked and disorganized. Brian Foster was called into the game early, denying a Nikita Soshnikov breakaway attempt on the 5-on-3.

Clark Seymour scored on a rocket of a shot from the top of the circles to give the Penguins an early 1-0 lead…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678014373772808197]

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Scott Wilson would double the Penguins lead when he outworked Stuart Percy on this play…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/678014146374430720]

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At this point the Penguins were firing on all eight cylinders. They wanted to win for their coach Jay Leach, the injured Tristan Jarry and probably for Brian Foster in goal.

First Intermission: I always look for people to give me insight as to what they are seeing. There is a man by the name of John that I always visit on the concourse of nearly every home game. After the first period, I went over and visited. He cautioned me that the Penguins were getting worn down by the Marlies and that it was something that the Penguins used to do to opponents all the time. It was just something he gave me to watch out for as the game went on.

Second Period: The Marlies were working the Penguins again, forechecking them hard, but about half way through, Toronto was without a shot. The Penguins outshot the Marlies 16-7 in the period but were not able to extend the lead further.

Third Period: Penguins cash on a power play when Derrick Pouliot gets one past Bibeau to make it 3-0. The Pens were rolling and about to head on another power play.

Then my buddy John’s premonition came true.

Mark Arcobello scored on a wired wrist shot that beat Foster at 4:38 and the Marlies were on the board. The goal snapped a shutout streak of 225:07 that the Penguins as a team were on.

Hockey is a funny game. You can go three full games without allowing a goal, then give up two in the span of :39, while killing the same penalty.

That’s what Nikita Soshnikov did when he scored to make it 3-2.

The Penguins would not score on that power play, but Mark Arcobello gift wrapped another for them immediately after the one they got scored on twice shorthanded expired.

You knew it was coming…

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/678032092148707328]

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Rich Clune got a step on a Penguin defender and slipped it past Foster and the game was tied.

Collectively, you simply cannot allow something like this to happen. You just can’t.

Quick, blame the goaltender!

Wrong.

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/678057720881274881]

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The Penguins took that eight cylinder car I referenced in the first period and got it to the end of regulation overheating, with a crack in the windshield, a busted tail light and three flat tires heading into…

Overtime: Penguins would have to kill a too many men on the ice call and did. It was onto a…

Shootout: Dominik Simon’s attempt was poke checked away, Scott Wilson missed his chance high and J-S Dea’s chance went wide. Foster stopped Arcobello on a shot that went wide, William Nylander when he tried the five hole but wasn’t able to stop Soshnikov’s attempt…

[tweet https://twitter.com/scottcwheeler/status/678044369828622340]

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Ballgame.

Three Stars: 3) Richard Clune (goal, +1) 2) Scott Wilson (goal, assist, -1) and 1) Nikita Soshnikov (goal, +1 and the game winning shootout goal)

Derrick Pouliot took two penalties tonight and was on the ice for two of the Marlies shorthanded goals. There is a lot of talk about whether he should be in the NHL with Pittsburgh or here. I don’t think he made a case to get called up tomorrow with tonight’s performance.

Around the Division: Utica beats Springfield 7-4…Hershey coughs up a 3-1 lead in Allentown and loses 6-4 to the Phantoms…Providence beats Bridgeport 3-2 in overtime and Rochester crushed Hartford 7-1.

Standings: Penguins (.788 percentage points) — Hershey (.630) — Bridgeport (.603) — Portland (.521) — Providence (.519) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Springfield (.444) — Hartford (.429)

Wheeling Update: The only organizational team to win tonight, the Nailers defeated the Quad City Mallards 4-1 tonight in Moline, IL. Anton Zlobin played and had an assist. Derek Army and John McCarron both had a goal and an assist in the win. Franky Palazzese stopped 39 of 40 shots to collect his eighth win of the year. The Nailers are now just a point off the idle Toledo Walleye for the top spot in the North Division and rematch the Mallards on Saturday.

Here is the post game infographic…

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/678064778045190148]

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Update on Tristan Jarry as told to Tom:

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/678050273886121984]

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If I see video highlights tomorrow I will edit them in.

Onto Syracuse tomorrow. Gameday setup for this hist the blog Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

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There was an innocuous sequence in the third period in tonight’s game that stood out and stuck with me.

With less than 10 minutes to play in the third period with the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins cruising, the linesmen ruled icing on a questionable call which caught a tired Penguins group on the ice against a Phantoms team looking for anything to build momentum. It was probably the best sequence for the home team to this point.

Off the ensuing face-off, rookie goaltender Tristan Jarry makes a glove save forcing a whistle and allowing the Penguins to make the needed change.

It is that kind of goaltending that you see out of veteran goaltenders, not a rookie playing in his ninth professional game thrust into the starting goaltender role on the best team in the AHL.

Jarry and the Penguins blanked the Lehigh Valley Phantoms again tonight, 3-0 the score. Jarry hasn’t allowed a goal in 144:02, the Penguins haven’t allowed the Phantoms to score a goal on their home ice in 150:33 going back to April 19, 2015 of last season and it is the first time in Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins franchise history that the Penguins have recorded three consecutive shutouts in as many games.

Jarry opposed Jason LaBarbera, making his first start since November 8.

Lines were…

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

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

Tristan Jarry – Brian Foster

The Uher line was untouched. Rust up from the fourth line to the top line. Kuhnhackl from the fourth line to the second with Rowney centering. Dea continued to center the fourth line with Loney up from Wheeling and Archibald back from being a healthy scratch. The defensive pairings were not touched.

Sahir Gill and Harrison Ruopp were the healthy scratches. The vague injury updates were Matia Marcantuoni listed as day to day, Tom Sestito and Steve Oleksy both week to week and Tyler Biggs out “indefinitely” with a lower body injury. All that means is that they haven’t evaluated whether he is day to day or week to week yet. I just wish they would say what they injuries are and stop this goofy hiding behind the curtain nonsense. Anyway.

First Period: The best part of the recent call-ups to Pittsburgh was that existing great role players were going to be given a chance to step into an even bigger role. The plan worked to perfection in the first period. In a word, a dominating period by the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. They won every battle and ran circles around a Phantoms team that either didn’t realize that they were playing in a game or looked totally and completely disinterested in engaging in the contest. Shots were 11-3 Penguins after one and Wilkes-Barre was ahead after one after this goal by Clark Seymour, the Penguins defenseman’s first goal in the AHL:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/677284490914357248]

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Second Period: More of the same for the Penguins. Nothing really going for the Phantoms offensively. The Penguins couldn’t get anything going either with a power play, but then the Penguins tried a dump in, Jason LaBarbera came out to play it, turned over to J-S Dea forechecking hard and this happened…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/677300113316962304]

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Lehigh Valley hit two posts in the sequences that followed. The Penguins continued their dominance, winning battles and getting passes and shots through. LaBarbera wasn’t good to this point, but he was the sole reason that the game was not 6-0.

Third Period: Penguins came out blazing to open the third period, beneficiaries of a carryover power play but did not score and were collectively 0-for-3 on the man advantage for the night. They later took a penalty, and had about three shorthanded chances and didn’t allow the Phantoms a single shot on Jarry on their power play.

Bryan Rust made it 3-0 when he finished off this nice tic tac toe for his first goal of the season…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/677314179964018689]

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Terrible first period by the Phantoms who fell behind 1-0, were outshot 11-3 in the first then matched the Penguins shot for shot the rest of the way for a cumulative total of 25-17.

Three Stars: 3) J-S Dea (goal, +2) 2) Clark Seymour (game winning goal, +1) and 1) Tristan Jarry (17 save shutout)

Around the Division: Portland beat Springfield 5-2. Everyone else in the division was off.

Standings: Penguins (.800 percentage points) — Hershey (.654) — Bridgeport (.607) — Portland (.521) — Providence (.500) — Lehigh Valley (.482) — Springfield (.462) — Hartford (.444)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were idle tonight. They were surpassed in the North Division lead by the Toledo Walleye this morning who beat the Indy Fuel at home in a kids game 5-1. The Nailers travel to Moline, IL to take on the Quad City Mallards for a doubleheader beginning Friday while the Walleye can extend the North Division lead even more Thursday in Brampton when they take on the Beast.

Here is your post game infographic…

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/677321231083900928]

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The Phantoms may put together a highlight package or they may not. If I see it and can edit, it’ll go here.

One more thing before I go, both Seth and Tom confirmed on Twitter that Tom Sestito will get a new PTO.

Let’s Go Pens!

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If you are a Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins fan and were concerned about the great start that the Penguins got off to and worried that with Mike Sullivan being promoted to the NHL to coach the Pittsburgh Penguins, after tonights performance you should not have to worry.

A 4-0 dismantling of an Albany Devils team that had won seven in a row coming into the night and a 22 save shutout by Tristan Jarry, his first as a professional, the eighth different Wilkes-Barre / Scranton goaltender since April 2012 to get one and the first back to back shutouts by different Penguins goaltenders since December 31, 2014 and January 2, 2015.

New Interim Head Coach Jay Leach wins in his debut as a head coach against the team he used to play for.

Now one game does not a coaching tenure make. I have next Friday’s matchup with the Toronto Marlies circled on my calendar, but you should not haver to worry. I’m not.

Jarry opposed Yann Danis.

Lines were the same as last night with one caveat, Clark Seymour was in for Steve Oleksy who injured his hand blocking a shot last night in Allentown.

Before the game, Jason Botterill met with the media. Seth has it covered.

First Period: A few chances both ways in the feeling out process. Dominik Simon clears a puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. Albany put its top ranked unit on the ice. Jim O’Brien hits a cross bar. Tom Kostopoulos trips a guy and the Pens are right back on the kill again. They kill it then bombard Danis with shots. Oskar Sundqvist whiffs on a wide open net on a one time setup.

Finally, Kevin Porter scored to make it 1-0 Penguins. Dominik Simon led a two on one charge and dropped a pass to Porter who kicked the puck to his stick and in one fluid motion wired it past Danis to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead.

Second Period: Tom Kostopoulos scored at :22 and the Penguins doubled their lead. Niclas Andersen shot a puck at Danis, who spilled the rebound right at Kostopoulos who pounced on it and scored to make it 2-0.

Albany went to the power play for the third straight time and the Penguins completely shut down their attempts and had about five shorthanded chances. The Penguins were really on the come after the kill, with chance after chance.

Finally Kevin Porter added his second of the night when Dominik Simon picked the pocket of a Devil trying to get it out of the zone and passed to Porter who scored it to make it 3-0 Penguins. That was three straight multi point games for Dominik Simon dating back to Wednesday against Syracuse. Simon is and should be a strong contender for AHL Player of the Week.

The story of the night to this point was the Penguins penalty kill, which was 3-for-3 to this point on the Devils top rated power play.

Third Period: Will O’Neill thinks he scores on a delayed Devils power play. Referee Peter Tarnaris awarded the goal but took it away upon video review. The Penguins had also thought they scored in the second period when Tarnaris waved off a shot that hit the crossbar. He reviewed that one and confirmed his call then.

It didn’t matter though as Scott Wilson scored on the power play anyway and it was 4-0 Penguins.

One thing I will say about Clark Seymour making his debut for the Penguins tonight is that he blocked a lot of shots and made his defensive partner Derrick Pouliot stand out. He also fought ex-Penguin Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond in the second period.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, assist, +1) 2) Kevin Porter (two goals, +2) and 1) Tristan Jarry (22 save shutout)

Around the Division: Hartford beats Bridgeport 4-2…Hershey beats Binghamton 5-3…Portland beats Providence on a last second shot in overtime by ex-Penguin Rob Schremp 3-2…Lehigh Valley beats Springfield 5-4 in a shootout.

Standings: Penguins (.792 percentage points) — Hershey (.640) — Bridgeport (.611) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Portland (.500) — Springfield (.480) — Providence (.480) — Hartford (.462)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers beat the Toledo Walleye tonight by a score of 6-2. Coach Clark Donatelli’s Nailers lead the North Division by a point now over the Walleye. Brian Foster stopped 21 of 23. John McCarron had two goals. Harrison Ruopp had a goal and an assist.

Imagine for a second you are Associate General Manager Jason Botterill. You have Jay Leach that just won in his head coaching debut in convincing fashion over an excellent Albany Devils team. You have Clark Donatelli in the ECHL guiding the Wheeling Nailers to the top of the North Division with a win over Toledo. You have tons of qualified guys looking to get in the door for an interview. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Here is the postgame infographic:

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/675889027904577536]

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And one more final takeaway:

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/675886444200742912]

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What a whirlwind day.

Here are the video highlights:

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

Blog wise, I’ll have an update to the charts sometime Sunday afternoon and the Week 10 AHL Power Rankings will hit the blog Monday at 4.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Apologies to anyone who relies on me for coverage of the Penguins on a full time basis tonight. I was out at dinner with my big boy job and thus unable to tweet the Penguins game tonight in Allentown, a 4-0 Wilkes-Barre win, another Matt Murray shutout, his fourth of the season and just one off the all time WBS team lead in shutouts held by Brad Thiessen.

The Penguins went 7-for-7 on the penalty kill tonight and fixed their power play woes by scoring two, one by Dominik Simon and the other by Scott Wilson. The duo had a pair of goals total.

I’ll do my best to piece all of this together from the top so here goes….

Matt Murray opposed Anthony Stolarz, who has been playing some really great hockey as of late. Stolarz stymied the Penguins last weekend and the Phantoms as a whole were on a bit of an uptick, 8-4-1 in their last 13 games coming in. The Penguins had the feeling of, “what if” tonight with what happened last weekend. Not to discount anything that the Syracuse Crunch are about, but the Penguins were, are and will be the better team however you slice that matchup.

Lines were….

Scott Wilson – Kael Mouillierat – Conor Sheary
Carter Rowney – Kevin Porter – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Tom Kuhnhackl – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust

Derrick Pouliot – Steve Oleksy
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Tristan Jarry

Josh Archibald was scratched again along with Tyler Biggs and Clark Seymour.

Tom Kostopoulos appeared in his 500th game for Wilkes-Barre / Scranton…

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/675467647329415168]

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First Period: Dominik Simon got the first of his two goals with a redirection of a Tim Erixon shot from the point that went in for a 1-0 Penguins lead. Wilkes-Barre would double the lead about twelve minutes later when Scott Wilson got the first of his two goals of the night with a one time shot on a power play that broke an 0-for-24 skid for the Penguins. Shots after one were 8-6.

Second Period: Pens would continue the parade to the penalty box but not allow the Phantoms to score; then Dominik Simon scored again even strength to make it 3-0. Prior to, Murray was making some big time stops with the defenders in front of him gassed. The Penguins were outclassed in the period, thanks in large part to constantly going on the kill in the period, and the Phantoms outshot Wilkes-Barre 12-6 in the period.

Third Period: Scott Wilson collected his second goal of the night, this time on the power play. Conor Sheary made a spin pass to Kostopoulos, who found Wilson on the redirect for a 4-0 Penguins lead. Lehigh Valley tried to press, but the Penguins limited them to just three shots late through the third, and outshot them 6-5 in the period.

Total shots were 23-20 Phantoms.

Random Stuff: 11 goals total for Dominik Simon, 4 in the last two games….Four of Matt Murray’s 16 shutouts have come against Lehigh Valley. I think he has three against Springfield.

Three Stars: Scott Wilson (two goals, even) 2) Matt Murray (23 save shutout) and 1) Dominik Simon (two goals, +2)

Around the Division: Bridgeport beat Portland 3-1…Springfield beat Binghamton 4-3…Providence beat Hartford 3-1…Hershey was the lone Atlantic Division team off tonight.

Standings: Penguins (.783 percentage points) — Bridgeport (.635) — Hershey (.625) — Lehigh Valley (.481) — Springfield (.479) — Providence (.479) — Portland (.477) — Hartford (.440)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost to the Toledo Walleye 2-1 in a shootout. The two team space back to West Virginia to pay off the back end of the home and home tomorrow night.

Here is the post game infographic:

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/675526764974768130]

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Albany is in tomorrow for what is shaping up to be a good one. The Devils have won seven in a row. The last team to beat them? The Penguins on November 21 in Albany. Gameday setup for that will hit the blog Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins floundered through three divisional games last weekend and couldn’t wait for the weekend of woe to end, one where they only scored three goals total.

But the schedule wears on. Teams keep rolling in now that we are a quarter of the way into the season.

The Syracuse Crunch were exactly what the doctor ordered.

The Crunch have been crushed by injuries, call-ups and just a general lack of cohesiveness and direction of late. Ask any Crunch fan. If there ever was a perfect opponent to cure whatever it was that was ailing the Penguins as a team, it was a rudderless Crunch team.

The Penguins dominated tonight and rolled to an easy 6-2 win.

Matt Murray opposed Kristers Gudlevskis.

With this being a work night for me, I am again taking the veteran option on the line rushes:

[tweet https://twitter.com/MikeOBrienWBS/status/674734619711901696]

[tweet https://twitter.com/MikeOBrienWBS/status/674735096990142465]

Tristan Jarry backed up Murray. Josh Archibald skated the extra body in warmups.

Tom Kostopoulos was back into the lineup, after missing Sunday’s game in Hershey with a lower body injury. Sullivan told the media yesterday that the Penguins captain was not day to day but not week to week either. He played tonight.

First Period: Penguins jumped out to a 3-0 lead. Bryan Rust stole a puck at the Crunch blueline, danced around a few Syracuse defenders and dished to Tom Kuhnhackl who wrested one home for a 1-0 Penguins lead. :40 later, Tom Kostopoulos steals a puck and scores to double the Penguins lead. Crunch were on their heels and called a time out.

Conor Sheary with the nastiest goal of the season. Two angles here, essentially the same, my amateurish video and a GIF from the AHL. Mine first…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/674747569390690306]

[tweet https://twitter.com/TheAHL/status/674749007441346561]

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Sheary walked through four Crunch defenders and went bar down on Gudlevskis. Absolute filth.

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/674747840179118081]

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Second Period: Jeff Tambellini scored on the front end of a Kostopoulos double minor for high sticking and the Crunch were on the board. This was the best period Syracuse played because the Penguins were not able to cash on their own double minor. Crunch seemed to inch closer and the feeling in the building was that the next goal would be big.

Third Period: Started out with end to end action with plenty of chances both ways. Finally, Kevin Porter, playing in his 500th professional game, walked a puck from behind the Crunch net, found a lane and shot the puck at Gudlevskis who made the save but spilled a rebound right to Dominik Simon who, in close quarters, roofed the puck over the Crunch netminders shoulder for a 4-1 Penguin lead.

So the Penguins exceed the goal scoring total from three games in one weekend in one game on a Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre. Hockey is a funny sport.

Dominik Simon scored on a breakaway when the puck hit the post behind Gudlevskis and bounced off of him and in for a 5-1 Penguin lead.

Dominik Uher added his first of the season when he sprung free of the Crunch defenders and went upstairs on Gudlevskis to make it 6-1. Uher was really working on trying to score all game and finally it clicked for him.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, +2) 2) Matt Murray (30 saves on 32 shots) and 1) Dominik Simon (two goals, +2)

Nice bounce back game for everyone, notably Derrick Pouliot, who was +4.

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley fights back from a 0-2 deficit in Allentown and wins in overtime 3-2 over the Bears….Portland blasted Springfield 5-1.

Standings: Penguins (.773 percentage points) — HErshey (.625) — Bridgeport (.620) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Portland (.500) — Hartford (.458) — Springfield (.457) — Providence (.457)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off, they are in Indianapolis tomorrow for a game against the Indy Fuel. I will have coverage of that here on the blog.

Here is the post game infographic….

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/674808261875507200]

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And the post game highlights…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-8WHAdnI4&feature=youtu.be]

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Pens are on the road Friday against Lehigh Valley then back home Saturday against Albany.

Let’s Go Pens!!

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We were laughing at ourselves when we learned last Monday that Bryan Rust was being re-assigned to the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins with news that Tom Kuhnhackl was getting close to retuning and that Olli Maatta up top was getting healthy which meant that David Warsofsky would be heading back soon. I tweeted this at the time…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/671332911057125376]

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After this weekend, we all may as well be bankrupt. The Penguins lost Sunday to the Hershey Bears by a score of 4-1. Three goals scored all weekend, 0-for-15 on the power play, no center man can win a face-off, and on and on and on and on.

Sometimes you are the frog, sometimes you are the fly. The Penguins were the fly this weekend.

If you follow the AHL closely like I do, you will know that the Grand Rapids Griffins were the odds on favorites to win the Calder Cup this season. They started the campaign 1-8-0-1. Things were bleak there. I had them as the 30th team in my weekly AHL Power Rankings for weeks. A team that is the odds on favorite to win it all is 1-8?

The opponents don’t care. When the whistle blows and the puck is dropped, you have to execute.

Oh, by the way, the Griffins have won nine straight and, spoiler alert! Will be the number one team in this weeks Power Rankings come Monday afternoon.

Sometimes you are the fly, sometimes, you are the frog. The Griffins are a big ol’ toad in a swamp right now.

Anyway, enough with metaphors. Matt Murray opposed Justin Peters.

Lines were shaken up. Let’s take a look.

Scott Wilson – Kael Mouillierat – Conor Sheary
Carter Rowney – Kevin Porter – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tyler Biggs
Tom Kuhnhackl – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust

Derrick Pouliot – Steve Oleksy
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Tristan Jarry

Lineup Changes: Both Bryan Rust and Tom Kuhnhackl were in the lineup. For them, Josh Archibald was swapped to for Bryan Rust and Tom Kostopoulos made way for Tyler Biggs. The first and second lines and defensive pairings remained the same. Seth mentioned before the game that Kostopoulos wasn’t moving around very well after the Hartford game Saturday and Obie said on radio that he’s, “day to day” with a lower body injury. Today would have been Kostopoulos’ 499th game in a Penguin uniform.

First Period: Teams traded early power plays to no avail. Then, Bears defenseman Erik Burgdoerfer scored his third AHL goal of his career. Why did I mention this? Because the other two have come against the Penguins. This guy mat loves playing the Pens. The play may have been offsides though…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/673629484822732802]

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You can’t challenge offside plays in the AHL like you can the NHL in case you were wondering like I was at the time.

Second Period: To sum up the weekend to this point, read this tweet…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/673643932610375681]

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Penguins would get some nice looks on a power play later on, Dominik Simon would setup a Tom Kuhnhackl tip, but Kuhnhackl put the puck wide.

Connor Carrick scored to double the Bears lead when he was lost by Derrick Pouliot. Pouliot couldn’t decide on pinching on a play on the far half wall. When he did, it was too late and Sean Collins led a rush up ice with Carrick the trailer and he cashed on a backhander at 12:34.

Seemed to me at the time the Penguins were building to tie the game, then Pouliot lost Carrick and the Bears went up 2-0 and the Penguins never recovered in the period.

Third Period: The Penguins needed to generate offense. They needed to get shots towards Peters. The Pens started with a power play, but like we have seen all weekend, they lose the face-off and the opposing team shoots the puck 200 feet down the other way and kill off about 15 seconds.

Not only that, the Bears had a few shorthanded chances here when Nathan Walker stripped Tim Erixon along the far wall and skated in for a shorthanded chance.

Seemingly every rush that built up got blown down for offsides. Every good look at a shot resulted in a broken stick or a whiff on a shot. Sometimes the breaks just mount.

Through 13 minutes, the Penguins had only two or three shots on goal.

With Murray pulled, Tim Erixon scored when a puck deflected off of Travis Boyd and in to spoil the Peters would-be shutout.

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/673662406363607041]

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The Penguins pulled Murray again, lost out on an icing race and Nathan Walker scored to make it 3-1 and ice the game away. Check out the sequence.

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/673663178178437120]

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Look, I get that it’s the third game in as many nights and you are in the third period. But you are not only battling your biggest rival in a game in their building, but you are battling to get back into the NHL where you belong. Derrick Pouliot has been downright bad for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins and this goal seemed to crown the jewel on his weekend.

Oh, five seconds later, Chris Bourque hit another empty net. This was predicated by Coach Mike Sullivan calling a time out. So the Pens go out, lose a face-off to Bourque who scores to make it 4-1 and ice the game away.

Three Stars: 3) Nathan Walker (goal, assist, +2) 2) Erik Burgdoerfer (goal, +3) and 1) Justin Peters (22 saves on 23 shots)

Around the Division: Providence crushes Springfield 6-1…Bridgeport downs Hartford thanks to a Joe Whitney hat trick 4-2…Lehigh Valley and Portland were idle.

Standings: Penguins (.762 percentage points) — Hershey (.630) — Bridgeport (.620) — Lehigh Valley (.479) — Springfield (.477) — Portland (.475) — Hartford (.458) — Providence (.457)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers dropped a shootout to the Elmira Jackals 3-2. Casey DeSmith made the start and stopped 22 of 24. Derek Army had a goal and an assist.

Here’s the video highlights.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uCMklfdSkY]

My Week 9 AHL Power Rankings hit the blog Monday at 4. I’ll also work on my chart stat board later tonight and get that updated as well.

Maybe it is good that the Penguins lose all three games this week to see what Coach Mike Sullivan has up his sleeve now that his team has hit adversity for the first time all season after being the toast of the AHL for a month and a half. We’ll see Wednesday when Syracuse makes a trip in.

Let’s Go Pens!