Chirps from Center Ice

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Couple things about this game.

First, I don’t know how anyone will be able to write anything other than what happened late in the third period and beyond in this game. Scoreless after two periods, the Wolf Pack break the ice then the Penguins respond late to tie it, the shootout goes six rounds and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins squeak out a 2-1 shootout win in Hartford.

Second, the headline is a play on the Wolf Pack’s “Howl Yeah” motto for this year and was contributed by defacto correspondent Michael Cignoli, whom you may remember covered the Adirondack Phantoms las year and is now a Copy Editor for the Citizens’ Voice. Some more of his work follows.

Third and finally, I don’t think that the Pens ever “deserve” to win a game, but it would have really been a travesty if they didn’t walk away winners tonight against a downtrodden Hartford team. It was the Pens first shootout win of the season, which I found extremely surprising at first but then realized that half of the offense is still on recall and hurt with Pittsburgh.

Personell wise, Bobby Farnham must be hurt because he was an injury scratch again tonight. Jeff Deslauriers opposed Dov Grumet-Morris.

Pens had to kill an extensive 5-on-3 against early in the first. The first period breezed by.

Pens got close in the second, but weren’t able to score. Hartford didn’t really do much either.

In the third, Sam Klassen unleashes a bomb from the point that Deslauriers gets 95% of. The other 5% goes over his shoulder, deflects off of Brendan Mikkelson and into the net for a 1-0 Hartford lead.

Pens then had a power play, and to fill space, here’s how that went:

— Win face-off in offensive zone. Two passes, intercepted and out.
— Retrieve, entrance pass missed and cleared out.
— Another entrance pass misses.
— Finally in, Nick D’Agostino fans on a one-timer. Out.
— Back in, Tom Kostopoulos near miss. Out again, :30 left in power play.
— In, cycled, pass to defenseman misses. Cleared and killed.

And that was one of the better ones, because there was actual substance rather than the Pens chasing a setup opportunity.

Anyway, Danny Kristo tries to slide a loose puck back to Grumet-Morris, Harry Zolnierczyk reads it like a book and scores to bring the teams even at 1-1.

Pens would outshoot Hartford 16-4 in the third, and it really showed late as it did not appear as if anyone in road black was interested in wanting to fool around with overtime and definitely not a shootout.

Overtime comes and goes. Deslauriers had to fight off a furious Hartford rush.

Pens score in Rounds 3 (Nick Drazenovic) and Round 6 (Paul Thompson) and get out of dodge with the extra point in the standings.

Before we get to Three Stars, Mr. Cignoli snapped this rather hilarious picture during the National Anthem:

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Anyway….

Three Stars: 3) Harry Zolnierczyk (goal, +1) 2) Sam Klassen (goal, even) and 1) Paul Thompson (shootout game winning goal, even)

Around the Division: Binghamton beats Manchester 5-4 in overtime. Adirondack does the same to Hershey by a score of 1-0. Syracuse beats Toronto 6-3 in Canada and Norfolk beats Bridgeport at home 3-1.

Standings: Binghamton 43 — Penguins 42 — Norfolk 39 — Hershey 32 — Syracuse 32

Conference: 1) SPR (50) 2) MCH (50) 3) BNG (43) 4) ALB (43) 5) WBS (42) 6) PRO (42) 7) NOR (39) 8) ADK (36)

Wheeling Update: Nailers win in overtime 3-2 over Elmira at home.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Pens travel home for a 7:05 face-off against the Manchester Monarchs, who are going to be sore from losing tonight to Binghamton in overtime. They’ll probably get to Wilkes-Barre around midnight while the Pens may not get in sometime early Saturday morning. Regardless, Gameday for that will be up on the blog at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins ring out 2013 with a win, 5-2 over the Syracuse Crunch.

After Syracuse scored on two of their first three shots, they chased starting goaltender Eric Hartzell and led 2-1. This was after they had something like nine shots to Syracuse’s three with all the momentum, Hartzell just let in some tough goals.

Put the Penguins persisted, and finally cracked the dam that was the Syracuse defense and starting goaltender Cedrick Desjardins.

Gritty, hard-nosed, tough hockey. That’s what you come to expect when you buy the ticket.

Eric Hartzell vs. Cedrick Desjardins

With Brian Dumoulin and Harry Zolnierczyk back from recall yesterday, the lines looked like this:

…and defensively…

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Bobby Farnham was listed as an injury scratch, despite Coach Hynes telling Jonathan yesterday it was a, “maintenance day.” Also, Wheeling call-up Carter Rowney was a scratch as well.

First Period: Philip Samuelsson chips a puck out of his own zone, lasers a cross ice pass across the ice and banks it off the far boards to Paul Thompson, who zooms in and puts the Penguins on the board early. At one point, the shots were 6-0 in favor of the Penguins, who were all over the place early on. Then, the Crunch score two bang-bang goals. First on a power play then later on a seemingly harmless wrist shot from the point. Both shots seemed to confuse Hartzell. At this point, Jeff Deslauriers name was called.

As a professional goaltender, you always have to be ready, no matter if you are the starting goaltender or coming in cold, at any point of the action. When Deslauiers number was called, he did not let Syracuse score on him, stopping all 21 shots that came his way.

Second Period: The Harry Zolnierczyk / Nick Drazenovic / Tom Kostopoulos was dynamite all night long for Wilkes-Barre. A Philip Samuelsson blast from the point was deflected in front by Nick Drazenovic. It was really a neat deflection. Even neater, was a Tom Kostopoulos goal, on his stomach, sweeping the puck in at Desjardins goal crease.

Essentially, this was all that the Pens needed. Any Syracuse rush was short-lived and snuffed out promptly.

Third Period: Tom Kuhnhackl and Anton Zlobin come in on a 2-on-1. Kuhnhackl shoots, Desjardins leaves a big rebound (he was leaving them everywhere all night) and Zlobin stuffs in the rebound for his first AHL goal of his career for a 4-2 lead.

Another furious Syracuse rush, this time it dies on the pad of Deslauriers who could not be beaten tonight. Cody Sylvester pots an empty netter for a 5-2 win and that was all she wrote.

Three Stars: 3) Anton Zlobin (goal, +2) 2) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, +1) 1) Jeff Deslauriers (21 saves on 21 shots)

Around the Division: Binghamton beats Norfolk 3-2 in the only other divisional action tonight.

Standings: Binghamton 41 — Penguins 40 — Norfolk 37 — Hershey 31 — Syracuse 30

Conference: 1) MCH (49) 2) SPR (48) 3) BNG (41) 4) ALB (42) 5) WBS (40) 6) PRO (40) 7) NOR (37) 8) STJ (35)

Wheeling Update: Nailers have been pillaged by call-ups, and it’s starting to show. A 4-1 loss to the Reading Royals.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Pens will probably skate Thursday before boarding a bus to Hartford for their Friday game vs. the WolfPack. I don’t know if there will be any blog updates till then, Happy New Year! I got my year end report from WordPress this year and my humble blog was viewed nearly 50,000 times during the year. I maintain that if the blog was only viewed by just 10 people all year, I’d still do what I do, so thank you, thank you, thank you for reading, sharing and interacting with me this year. I’m getting a feeling that 2014 will be the best year yet for the Penguins.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I used to dread when the Penguins played the Bears, It used to be one way traffic with the team in Chocolate and White usually having all the fun.

Not anymore.

Face it, the Penguins play their best hockey when they play the Bears. Undermanned or not, call ups be damned, these games between these two teams are fun to watch.

Yesterday, it was all about Norfolk goaltender John Gibson getting the two points for the opposing Admirals. Tonight, Eric Hartzell ground out at least a point and lost his first ever pro shootout, and the Bears skate away with the 2-1 shootout win Saturday night at home.

Eric Hartzell vs. David Leggio, who has appeared in 13 of the last 14 Bears games.

On the blue line, Dustin Stevenson was a scratch, Reid McNeill was back from injury for the Pens so Nick D’Agostino sat in his place. The Pens returned to the more formal 12F-7D format, so Tom Kuhnhackl was back in the lineup.

First Period: More penalty minutes (54) in this period than in all last nights game vs. Norfolk (52). Pens subdue an offensive bombardment by Hershey, then all of a sudden are 2-on-1 the other way and hit a post. Then, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond skates in on a breakaway about six feet behind center ice. In between the fights and fisticuffs in this period, the game had nearly a powder keg feel to it.

Second Period: Mike Carman seems to score some big goals against his former team. He cashed on a rebound from a blast from the point to put the Pens up 1-0.

All of a sudden though, it seemed that the a penguins seemed disinterested in pursuing further action against the Bears. Hershey felt the opposite, and scored from a David Kolomatis boms from the point to make it 1-1. Then the Pens get two power plays handed to them in a row and are unable to convert.

Third Period: Felt like it was all Bears. Both Leggio and Hartzell made some ten bell saves on shooters. Both teams fail to score on power plays and it was onto…

Overtime: For as much as it was all Hershey in the third period, in the overtime period it was all Wilkes-Barre, outshooting the Bears 6-0 at one point. No scoring, so it was onto the…

Shootout: Tom Kostopoulos scores the only goal for the Pens, who roll with Zack Torquato, Brendan Mikkelson, Drazenovic and Anton Zlobin with half their big guns in the NHL. Bears win the shootout 3-1 and get the extra point in the standings.

Three Stars: 3) Mike Carman (goal, even) 2) David Kolomatis (goal, even) and 1) David Leggio (30 saves on 31 shots)

Around the Division: Norfolk beats Syracuse 6-3. Binghamton was off. Big time meeting between the Admirals and Senators looming on New Years Eve.

Standings: Binghamton 39 — Penguins 38 — Norfolk 37 — Hershey 31 — Syracuse 30

Conference: 1) MCH (47) 2) SPR (46) 3) BNG (38) 4) ALB (41) 5) WBS (38) 6) NOR (37) 7) PRO (36) 8) STJ (35)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout tonight by the South Carolina Stingrays 3-0.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Content wise, bodies are finally starting to heal up top in Pittsburgh, so I am expecting some help for the Pens New Years Eve game vs. Syracuse. We will see. If anything major happens, I will have a blog about it when it does. If not, Week 13 AHL Power Rankings will be up Monday at 4. Then the Gameday setup vs. Syracuse Tuesday at 1 p.m., for the 5:00 special start at Mohegan Sun Arena on New Years Eve.

Let’s Go Pens!

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No third period magic tonight.

Rather, it was Norfolk who had it late, and skate out of town with a 3-1 win.

Are the call-ups to Pittsburgh starting to show? I don’t really think so. Every game so far has been close, for the most part. It’s not like Wilkes-Barre is losing games 5-0 or 6-1. They have been close. But you need offense to win games and it just isn’t happening.

I’m actually doing a disservice to Admirals goaltender John Gibson, who was outstanding this evening. He was the reason that Norfolk won the game tonight. He kept his club in it, preserved their lead and made saves when called upon.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. the aforementioned John Gibson.

Personnel wise, Tom Kuhnhackl found himself a healthy scratch, Brad Thiessen for Norfolk was an injury scratch. CJ Severyn was an injury scratch for the Pens as well.

First Period: Nice back and forth between the two teams as it settled into a defensive battle. Then, Ric Rackell shoots from the point and Max Friberg collects the rebound and jams it home for a 1-0 Norfolk lead. Other than two fights, Joe Cramarossa vs. Paul Thompson and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond vs. Zack Stortini, a pretty uneventful period.

Second Period: Nolan Yonkman shoots from the point. As the puck was headed toward the net it deflects off of Cody Sylvester’s stick and changes the angle on Jeff Deslauriers and goes in for a 2-0 Norfolk lead. Nothing you could do about that one.

Then, the Pens stepped on it. Tom Kostopoulos steals a puck from Chris Wagner and scores to make it 2-1.

But Gibson was up to the task. 3 on 1? Save Gibson. Torquato feeding Farnham to a wide open net, right? Tie game you say? No, you’re wrong! Save Gibson. The last 10 minutes was the John Gibson Show.

Third Period: Strong start for the Pens, but Norfolk weathered whatever was thrown at the Penguins. I am half out of my seat waiting for a goal to come but never got up as Dave Steckel rushes down ice along the near board, waits for the traffic to pass, finds Steven Whitney all alone in the slot who scores late to push the Admirals to a 3-1 lead. Ballgame.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, +1) 2) Nolan Yonkman (game winning goal, +2) and 1) John Gibson (26 saves on 27 shots)

Around the Division: Syracuse beats Hershey 3-2, Binghamton gets a late power play goal to push past Utica and win 4-3.

Standings: Binghamton 39 — Penguins 37 — Norfolk 35 — Syracuse 30 — Hershey 29

Conference: 1) MCH (47) 2) SPR (44) 3) BNG (39) 4) ALB (39) 5) WBS (37) 6) PRO (36) 7) NOR (35) 8) STJ (33)

There is little room for error. 9 and 10 are Adirondack and Syracuse respectively with 30 points. Binghamton is off until New Years Eve. With a win tomorrow in Hershey, the Pens will tie the Sens in points again and may lead the division.

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are in the Carolinas this weekend and lost 4-1 to the Gwinnett Gladiators.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Pens go to Hershey tomorrow for what I am expecting to be a very interesting matchup. Hershey seems to be reeling, and the Penguins are slowing down and / or feeling the effects of the call-ups hard. 7 pm start in Chocolatetown which means the Gameday setup drops on the blog at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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In Pittsburgh, they have a motto. It’s, “next man up” meaning that the next guy behind you in the depth chart is supposed to step up and fill your role and not look out of place.

Suffice to say, with the rash of injuries and such to the Pittsburgh organization, “next man up” is being tossed around a lot.

The situation applies, of course, to the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, where all the “men” come “up” from.

The trickle down effect hits Wheeling. Sometimes hard.

Their leading scorer, Zack Torquato, was signed to an AHL contract today by the Penguins and had an immediate impact in the Penguins game vs. the Syracuse Crunch tonight, a 2-1 Wilkes-Barre win. Torquato’s power play goal in the first period was seemingly all the momentum the Penguins needed to get by the Crunch tonight.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. Cedrick Desjardins

Torquato was in for CJ Severyn, who did take warmups but was scratched.

First Period: A lot more pop in the skates of the Penguins, who were flat last night in the first two periods vs. Worcester. Finally, Torquato lets it rip from the top of the near side to give the Pens a 1-0 lead on the power play.

Second Period: Pens seemed to keep the Crunch off the scoreboard via stingy defense and some jumbo saves by Jeff Deslauriers all night long. Many times Syracuse would bear down, make a move and I thought that they would score to tie it, but Deslauriers played outstanding all game. The most interesting thing to happen this period was Dustin Stevenson handily winning a fight with Syracuse Captain Mike Angelidis.

Third Period: With the feeling that one goal would not be enough vs. Syracuse, Brendan Mikkelson scores from a shot from the point while the Pens were on a power play. Yes, that’s right, two power play goals tonight from the Penguins whose special teams unit with the man advantage was 20th in the League, overall. Anyway, Evan Rankin scores on a slam dunk with 1:43 left to spoil any aspirations of a Deslauriers shutout. With a time out by Crunch Head Coach Rob Zettler and Desjardins pulled, Syracuse never found the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Deslauriers (25 saves on 26 shots) 2) Zack Torquato (goal, even) 1) Brendan Mikkelson (goal, -1)

Not listed was Barry Goers, who assisted on both goals.

Around the Division: Binghamton wins 3-2 in overtime over the Albany Devils. Norfolk wins 3-1 over Adirondack and Hershey loses 3-2 to Worcester.

Standings: Penguins 37 — Binghamton 35 — Norfolk 33 — Syracuse 28 — Hershey 27

Conference: 1) MCH (47) 2) SPR (43) 3) WBS (37) 4) ALB (37) 5) BNG (35) 6) PRO (34) 7) STJ (33) 8) NOR (33)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers win 3-2 in overtime at home vs. the Evansville IceMen.

SendtoNews Highlights: Are here. The Pens may run a YouTube highlight package, which I like better anyway because it plays nicer with my blog than the Java mess that is the SendToNews packaging. If they do and I remember to go back and look, I’ll throw up an edit.

Pens all split and head home for the Christmas break. Next game for Wilkes-Barre isn’t until next Friday at home when they host the Norfolk Admirals. There may not be a lot to blog about until then. The Week 12 Chirps from Center Ice AHL Power Rankins will be on the blog Monday at 4. That may be the only thing this week unless I get some kind of content that I feel would be good fodder for the blog during the downtime.

Let’s Go Pens!

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It was bound to happen.

The Penguins finally are starting to feel the ill affects of having half of their offense in Pittsburgh on recall. That, and the third period magic that flat out wins Wilkes-Barre games wasn’t enough to get by a determined Worcester team who skate into town and skate out of it 4-2 winners tonight.

The Penguins outshoot the Sharks 25-20 tonight, with 17 of those shots coming in the third period alone. Now, I’m not going to go all pessimistic on a team that is essentially a rag tag group of ECHL call-ups at this point held together with some rusty wire, but ask yourself the following question, if this was Hershey tonight is the result / shot total any different? I think it might be. You have to play a full 60 minutes and I don’t think any Penguin tonight who played will tell you that they played a full 60 minute game tonight.

Eric Hartzell vs. Harri Sateri.

No healthy scratches for the Pens tonight. It was all hands on deck.

First Period: Sharks come out and just catch the Penguins flatfooted. Outshooting them 10-3 for the period on the shot chart and 1-0 on the scoreboard on a Freddie Hamilton power play goal.

Second Period: You know its a bad night when Jimmy Bonneau, known more for his fists than his wrists, goes bar down and in on you to make it 2-0 Sharks. Penguins got completely bottled up by the Sharks to this point. The prime area seemed to be the slot, where no Penguin player ever was, as Worcester wouldn’t allow them.

Third Period: Penguins come out the sharpest they’d been to date and force the Sharks into multiple icings. But, Worcester would get the backbreaker as Marek Viedensky would deflect a shot from the point past Hartzell and in for a 3-0 Sharks lead.

Penguins continues the onslaught though, Sateri denies Paul Thompson point blank. Finally, Nick Drazenovic did this:

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Yeah, it was a penalty shot goal. After not scoring two in the span of like, 10 years, the Penguins score two in a month. Weird.

Anyway, it wouldn’t be enough, as Sateri would continue to make great saves and Worcester hit an empty net from center ice to seal it.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Drazenovic (penalty shot goal, +1) 2) Harri Sateri (24 saves on 25 shots) and 1) Marek Viedensky (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: Binghamton’s seven game losing streak is over, winners 5-2 in Syracuse. Norfolk loses 5-4 to the Adirondack Phantoms. Hershey was off.

Standings: Penguins 35 — Binghamton 33 — Norfolk 31 — Syracuse 28 — Hershey 27

Conference: 1) MCH (45) 2) SPR (41) 3) WBS (35) 4) ALB (36) 5) BNG (33) 6) PRO (33) 7) STJ (33) 8) NOR (31)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers fared no better tonight being pillaged with call ups of there own here. Wheeling loses 6-3. Chaz Johnson had a goal in the loss.

SendToNews Highlights: Here they are.

Pens stay home and welcome in the Syracuse Crunch tomorrow at 7:05. Gameday hits the blog at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

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In a game delayed about 30 minutes for an ice issue (a zamboni ran over a puck after warmups during the flood and put a rink long gash in the ice) about 6″ of snow in Wilkes-Barre and Nick D’Agostino’s first pro goal and Eric Hartzell’s second AHL shutout, this 1-0 Wilkes-Barre win made for a nice birthday present.

But the eyes of the Wilkes-Barre world will be turning to Pittsburgh again, rather the eyes of the Pittsburgh world will be turning to Wilkes-Barre again, most likely taking two defensemen and possibly a forward.

Wait, huh?!?

Kris Letang was a late injury scratch, Deryk Engelland has an in-person hearing this week for a hit in Pittsburgh’s game against Detroit on Justin Abdelkader and Evgeni Malkin left the game with an apparent leg or lower body injury.

Great. Just great.

But I am taking a stance that I don’t care if injuries or suspensions occur. I don’t. What can you do about them? Nothing. Just let it happen and pray that it doesn’t.

Eventually, bodies heal. All of this time spent in the NHL will be excellent experience for the key elements of this Wilkes-Barre team and we will be better than ever.

Wait. We lead the East Division by four points now.

Bring it on.

As you can see, I’m stalling for space because there really wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to write about tonight. Nick D’Agostino scored on the tail end of a power play for the Penguins just past midway of the third period. The Penguins, in the third, doubled their shot total through the previous 40 minutes of play. The 21-18 shot comparison was a lot farther in favor of the Comets than it looked because the Pens only had 9 shots through two periods. They finally snapped out of what ever it was that it was keeping them from taking control of the game in their best period of hockey.

Hartzell, who is turning out to be a fiery competitor, stopped 21 shots for his second shutout of the season. He may be playing himself into the #1 role here in Wilkes-Barre.

Personnel wise, Reid McNeill injured himself in last nights game and is out again so Barry Goers made his WBS debut. CJ Severyn took warmups but was scratched.

Around the Division: Binghamton is heading in the wrong direction, losing 7-4 to the Hershey Bears. Syracuse wins by its own 1-0 score tonight against Rochester and Norfolk loses 5-2 to Springfield.

Division: Penguins 35 — Binghamton 31 — Norfolk 30 — Syracuse 27 — Hershey 25

Conference: 1) MCH (41) 2) SPR (39) 3) WBS (35) 4) ALB (36) 5) STJ (33) 6) PRO (32) 7) BNG (31) 8) NOR (30)

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose in a shootout to the Florida Everblades by a score of 5-4. Zack Torquato had a goal and two assists. Carter Rowney had three assists for the Nailers.

SendToNews Highlights: I like the YouTube embeds better, but you can click here for the SendToNews package, which in essence is the same thing.

Pittsburgh plays again Monday, so if recalls are made, I’ll have a blurb about it here Sunday. Week 11 AHL Power Rankings out Monday at 4 pm also.

Let’s Go Pens!!