Chirps from Center Ice

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Woof.

 That’s the best way to describe this 5-1 dismantling at the hands of the Binghamton Senators tonight.

You can blame the officiating. David Banfield and Trent Knorr let things get out of hand and whenever that occurs, bad things happen.

You can blame the Penguins defense, because before the madness with the officiating began, two defensive gaffes occurred and one of them ended up in the back of the Penguins net. Things rapidly went down hill from there.

The B-Sens have the Penguins number this season. The Penguins are 1-6 vs. Binghamton this season. Bingo had lost six of their last nine coming into tonight.

Penguins were put in a 2-0 hole to start and at the end of twenty minutes were without Adam Payerl, dismissed after being assessed a five minute major for charging B-Sens starting goaltender Nathan Lawson and Tom Kostopoulos, who was assessed a five minute major for spearing. The rule book says that whenever there is an injury on a charge the player who charged is given a game misconduct. Whenever you intentionally spear someone, that’s a game misconduct too.

Lawson left the game with injury and was replaced by the ever steady Robin Lehner.

Second period the Penguins were on a power play and Binghamton scored its 13th shorthanded goal of the season, which is tops in the AHL. Then, whatever traction the Penguins had gained or hope to gain was squashed when Pat Cannone scored and then Jack Downing from the slot to make it 5-0 Binghamton. At this point, the rout was on.

Nothing really mattered in the third period. Dominik Uher scored his first AHL goal of his career to make it 5-1. Then to rub salt in the wound, Riley Holzapfel appears to score to make it 5-2, but referee Trent Knorr immediately signals no goal because Alex Grant was in Lehner’s crease. Holzapfel, livid, gets thrown out of the game for arguing the call.

That was pretty much it after that. Crumble this one up and come back Friday vs. Norfolk.

No one else played in the division. Penguins are ten back of Binghamton, five back of Syracuse, one ahead of Hershey and ten ahead of Norfolk. Binghamton has 63 points. Do the math from there.

Penguins remain in sixth in the conference. They are four points behind Providence for the five seed and five back of Syracuse for the four. Hershey is one back of the Penguins, who have, if you haven’t figured it out already 53 points.

Saturday’s game on the Southern Tier should be interesting, no?

Wheeling didn’t play and I’m not going to bother to link in to the SendToNews Highlights. If you want to look, you can do so on your own.

Penguins probably have off tomorrow, then practice Thursday for their three in three weekend against divisional foes. I’ll see what I can run content wise for the blog and go from there.

Let’s Go Pens!

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In an utter reversal from last night’s 4-1 loss, the Penguins win tonight by a 4-1 score of their own in Norfolk tonight led by a two assist effort by Chad Kolarik.

Wait. What’s that you say? Why are two, seemingly insignificant assists that important? Kolarik didn’t have any coming into what is his seventh game played for Wilkes-Barre tonight. He already leads the team in points overall. He is a rare, dynamic player, the kind that you just don’t see that often in Wilkes-Barre.

Look, after last nights loss, raise your hand if you thought that the Penguins were fitting to spiral back into what happened to them in December. Bad loss bred bad loss after bad loss. Tonight, the Penguins righted the ship and came out and pretty much dominated Norfolk for large parts of his game.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Igor Bobkov – Mark Eaton had a “tweak” so Cody Wild took his spot on the WBS blueline making his debut. No other lineup changes were made.

First Period: Alex Grant and Josh Brittain get any animosities festering from last night out of the way :03 in a fight. Penguins and Admirals would trade power plays but would not score. Then, about halfway into the first period, Jeff Zatkoff would find Trevor Smith on a long pass that Smith would fire goal-ward. The puck would deflect off of Admirals defenseman Jordan Hendry and go into the net putting the Penguins up 1-0. It was a pretty back and forth period by both teams with each making long outlet passes to each other. Almost felt like a track meet.

Second Period: On a carryover power play from the first period, Chad Kolarik would find Beau Bennett in the slot and the rookie would score a power play goal putting the Penguins up 2-0. The Pens in the first half of the period relentlessly forechecked, smothered on defense and won races to pucks and looked to run the Admirals out of the rink. On a power play, Joe Morrow would turn a puck over and the Admirals would come in two on none. Peter Holland would score to put the Admirals on the board. It would be the fifth shorthanded goal allowed by the Penguins this season. Much different hockey game from there for the remainder of the period as the Penguins almost looked stunned from the goal and Norfolk desperately looked to even the score.

Third Period: Norfolk continued to pressure, nearly score on a power play then finally Chad Kolarik finds Riley Holzapfel wide open in the slot where Holzapfel has all day to pick a corner and score. Big goal at the time as the Penguins were on their heels. Turns out that it would be all the run support that the Penguins would need as they wouldn’t allow the Admirals any more Grade A chances and scored an empty net goal when Warren Peters scored from about 100′ away.

Three Stars: 3) Beau Bennett (goal, even) 2) Trevor Smith (goal, assist, +2) 1) Chad Kolarik (two assists, +1)

Around the Division: Hershey betas Binghamton at home 4-3. Syracuse coughs up a three goal lead in the third and lose to Albany 4-3.

Standings: Binghamton 60 — Syracuse 58 — Penguins 53 — Hershey 51 — Norfolk 41

Conference: 1) SPR (60) 2) BNG (60) 3) POR (56) 4) SYR (58) 5) PRO (53) 6) WBS (53) 7) HER (51) 8) WOR (50)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout by the Reading Royals 3-0 at home.

Penguins bus home tonight, are off Sunday, practice Monday and host the Binghamton Senators Tuesday.

I will probably run a Sunday recap on scores tomorrow night, as every team in the division except Wilkes-Barre has a game. Just something to keep things fresh on the blog until Tuesdays Gameday setup for what is shaping up to be a big game vs. the Binghamton Senators.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Jay Rosehill and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond are known more for their fists than they are for their scoring prowess.

Rosehill scored two goals and assisted on one (Letourneau-Leblond’s goal) and Letourneau-Leblond had a goal and two assists (on Rosehill goals) and the Penguins get rolled by the last place Admirals 4-1.

Yuck.

Brad Thiessen vs. Jeff Deslauriers

Personnel: Paul Thompson and Philippe Dupuis are not on the trip. Chris Barton, Cody Wild and Dominik Uher were scratched. Beau Bennett returned from his injury.

First Period: The Penguins looked rusty. Plain and simple. Jay Rosehill finds himself in front of Thiessen’s net and scores off of a feed from Letourneau-Leblond of the wall for a 1-0 Admirals lead. It was the type of goal that the Penguins simply have not been allowing in recent memory and one that Thiessen would like to have back. Penguins would get a few cracks at the power play, but it was obvious that they miss Dylan Reese, on recall to Pittsburgh, as they were 0-fer all night on the man advantage.

Second Period: Penguins would benefit from a few power plays but would not score on any of them. Warren Peters would score a goal when Peter Holland dumps a puck into the corner but it hits a stanchion right to Warren Peters who scores to even the game at one.

Third Period: Nightmare period for Wilkes-Barre. Three goals for the Admirals in 4:57. Philip Samuelsson has his pocket picked by Devante Smith-Pelly who feeds Josh Brittain for a 2-1 Norfolk lead. Then Letourneau-Lebond scores to  make it 3-1. Before the shock of that series of events even set in, Jay Rosehill scored his second, from Letourneau-Leblond, to put the game out of reach for the Penguins at 4-1. My AHL Live feed went out in the third period. Jay Rosehill and Bobby Farnham fought and Letourneau-Leblond and MacIntyre talked about it  but didn’t drop the gloves. Letourneau-Leblond is probably the only guy in the Conference that can throw with MacIntyre. The rest of the period ended peacefully.

The two teams rematch tomorrow at 7:15.

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Deslauriers (31 saves on 32 shots) 2) Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond (one goal, two assists, +3) 1) Jay Rosehill (two goals, assist, +3)

Around the Division: Not many games tonight. Syracuse beats Adirondack at home 4-2. The rest of the division was off or snowed out.

Standings: Binghamton 60 — Syracuse 58 — Penguins 51 — Hershey 49 — Norfolk 41

Conference: 1) BNG (60) 2) SPR (60) 3) POR (56) 4) SYR (58) 5) PRO (53) 6) WBS (51) 7) WOR (50) 8) HER (49)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Wheeling Update: The Nailers did not skate tonight.

Penguins rematch against the Admirals tomorrow at 7:15. Gameday for that affair will be up tomorrow here on the blog at 3 p.m.

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Penguins cap off a perfect six point weekend and win in nearly the same fashion this afternoon as they did two weeks ago. Down 1-0 to start the third, Riley Holzapfel evens things at one. Nothing decided the rest of the way in regulation. Then in overtime, Chad Kolarik plays the part of Paul Thompson and wins it with 10.8 left in overtime and the Penguins comeback and win in stunning fashion, 2-1.

Now, the Penguins just sit five points back of the Syracuse Crunch for the second spot and seven points back of the Binghamton Senators for the East Division lead. The Penguins have won 9 of 10 games and could be regarded as one of the hottest teams in the AHL.

Credit the Bears, too, for putting on a great show today as well. These two teams may be the best in the East Division at present.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Dany Sabourin in a rematch from the AHL Outdoor Classic a few weeks ago. Chris Barton was scratched to make room for Steve MacIntyre.

First Period: Highlighted by a legal hip check thrown by Bears defenseman Steve Oleksy to Bobby Farnham which Farnham takes exception to. They fight. Oleksy gets the jersey over Farnham’s head and feeds him some shots. Riley Holzapfel had a good chance when he had Sabourin down but never was able to get a shot off. Otherwise, an even period with the goaltenders stealing the show.

Second Period: You could have called this period the Steve and Steve show with the antics of Steve MacIntyre and Steve Oleksy. Olesky clips MacIntyre at the WBS blue line putting the Penguins on the power play. The Pens don’t score, then MacIntyre charges Oleksy, then gets an additional two minutes tacked on for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Bears score on the back end of the double minor when Boyd Kane received a pass on the far dot that he zipped past Zatkoff to put the Bears out ahead 1-0. Then, the pace of play really slowed down from there with both teams playing two games in the span of 24 hours.

Third Period: Penguins put up 14 shots on goal in the period. Relentless forecheck all period. Holzapfel gets one by Sabourin in a pile of bodies to bring things even. The teams traded power plays to close out the period but it was on to….

Overtime: One of the things I noticed from looking at the scoresheet from Friday and the scoresheet from yesterday was the lack of shots from Chad Kolarik. He had none in either game. He had one soft shot somewhere in the second period in this game. Anyway, Joe Morrow gets thrown into the boards hard. Neither referee Trevor Hanson or Jon McIsaac call anything. A few moments later a whistle during play and here is where I thought that the Penguins would be called for arguing the non-call. No. Boyd Kane was mad about something. Boyd Kane let the referees know he was mad about something. The referees had heard enough and placed Kane in the penalty box for unsportsmanlike conduct. Say what you want about whether the call was ticky-tack by McIsaac / Hanson, but your captain takes a penalty on the bench in overtime during a rivalry game. You just can’t have or let that happen. On the ensuing power play, Chad Kolarik receives a pass from Alex Grant below the blue line he one-times home. Game over.

In keeping with the theme from the Outdoor Classic, the Bears were unhappy with the celebration by the Penguins at the end. Ah, rivalries!

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Zatkoff (20 saves on 21 shots) 2) Dany Sabourin (37 saves on 39 shots) 1) Chad Kolarik (game winning OT goal, even)

Notes: Last regular season game in Hershey for the season. The next two games are Friday March 1 and Sunday April 7, both in Wilkes-Barre. My how time flies. — St. John’s may host the 2014 All-Star Classic according to this entry by Brendan McCarthy for the St. John’s Telegram. — Tom Venesky from the Times Leader had a nice story on Kolarik featured on the AHL’s website you can look at here.

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Binghamton 58 — Syracuse 56 — Penguins 51 — Hershey 47 — Norfolk 39

Conference: 1) SPR (60) 2) BNG (58) 3) POR (56) 4) SYR (56) 5) PRO (53) 6) WBS (51) 7) BRI (47) 8) HER (47)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are off until this Thursday when they host Greenville.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Look to be all in one package.

I’ll probably have a few things here and there this week. The Penguins travel to Norfolk next weekend.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Brad Thiessen is showing the AHL that he deserved the January Goaltender of the Month Award.

If he keeps playing like this, he may never give it back.

Thiessen stopped all 20 shots faced tonight as the Penguins blanked the Adirondack Phantoms by a score of 3-0 tonight. Thiessen has four shutouts in his last eight starts and the Penguins have won eight of nine.

Brad Thiessen vs. Scott Munroe

First Period: First ten minutes was a puck possession clinic by the Phantoms. They get three straight power plays including a five on three but Thiessen and the WBS defense stands its ground. Then, about half way through the period, Joe Morrow takes a shot from just above the top of the right circle that Warren Peters deflects home for a 1-0 Penguins lead with Brian Gibbons and Bobby Farnham providing the double screen on Munroe.

Penguins wouldn’t look back from there.

Second Period: Alex Grant would score a goal that bounced over the net of Munroe to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead late in the period. No one knew where the puck was. I described it on Twitter like this, pardon the misspelling:

The puck pops up ion the opposite corner and falls like manna from heaven right in front of Grant and he taps it into an open cage.

— Jason Iacona (@nafsnep) February 3, 2013

Thiessen, before this, was generally very sharp. Even with Jon Sim for the Phantoms buzzing around his net all night whacking away until the whistle.

Third Period: The tension was mounting, from all the cheap shots and hits after the whistle. It boiled over when Olivier Lauridsen smacks Adam Payerl into the wall by the Phantoms bench. Zach Sill comes in and retaliates and gets tossed for instigating, which I thought was a bogus call from referees Trevor Hanson and Ryan Fraser, who called 15 total penalties all game. What was Sill to do there? Stand and watch? He had to stick up for his team mate.

Anyway, whenever you thought momentum was going to go the way of the Phantoms, the Penguins score. Tom Kostopoulos finished a nice rush with a pass to Warren Peters on the far side and Peters wired it home for his second of the night. The addition of Kostopoulos had reinvigorated the team as a whole because you are getting goals from guys like Peters, who aren’t known, at least this season, for their offensive prowess.

Solid effort all around by the team. A shutout in front of the home crowd is a sure way to get them to return.

Three Stars: 3) Brian Gibbons (two assists, +2) 2) Warren Peters (two goals, +2) and 1) Brad Thiessen (20 save shutout)

Around the Division: Binghamton lost 1-0 to St. John’s and are sputtering. Syracuse lost to Rochester 5-3. Hershey won at home vs. Manchester 2-1. Norfolk lost 4-1 to Bridgeport.

Standings: Binghamton 58 — Syracuse 56 — Penguins 49 — Hershey 46 — Norfolk 39

Conference: 1) SPR (60) 2) BNG (58) 3) POR (56) 4) SYR (56) 5) PRO (53) 6) WBS (49) 7) BRI (47) 8) HER (46)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers bus broke down, and they never made it to Kalamazoo tonight, so the game was postponed.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Have the Sill fight, all the goals and a Thiessen save in a crowd.

Miscellany: Did some freelancing for Michael Cignoli for The Saratogian tonight and was in the WBS press box. I had a pre-game blog entry here and snagged some quotes from Phantoms coach Terry Murray and defenseman Brandon Manning that he framed into his own postgame masterpiece for his blog and some of my quotes made the paper too.

Penguins travel to Hershey for a 2 p.m. tilt on Super Bowl Sunday. Gameday for that will drop at 10 a.m. Sunday morning.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Penguins do something twice in about 42 minutes that they did twice in 42 games. They scored two shorthanded goals and a power play goal and roll the Manchester Monarchs by a score of 4-1.

Big game in the scope of things because the Monarchs and Penguins are nearly step-for-step with one another records wise and since the top eight in the conference make the playoffs, it’s a bigger win than you think at this point in the season.

Before we get going, congrats to Brad Thiessen for being named Goaltender of the Month for the month of January. He joins Jeff Zatkoff as prior winners of the award this season. Zatkoff won it in November.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Peter Maninno

Lineup Notes: Tom Kostopoulos played his 1,000th regular season game. Mark Eaton was the veteran scratch. Cody Wild took warmups but was scratched. Paul Thompson, Beau Bennett and Phil Dupuis were all injury scratches.

First Period: No scoring. Manchester is a quick team. They get the puck, take the puck and bang, they are gone. The Penguins were reacting to this and adjusting to it as time went on.

Second Period: Power play to the Penguins and Joe Morrow gets the puck at the far faceoff dot and fires it home past Mannino to make it a 1-0 Penguins lead. Then, the Penguins fail to clear their own zone and Brian Gibbons takes a tripping call. The Penguins put the puck all the way down the ice to Mannino, Trevor Smith pursues the puck by himself and goes essentially takes on the entire Manchester team. They stood around and watched him take a shot, get his rebound and put the puck in to put the Pens up 2-0.

Then, this happened during intermission…

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Moving on.

Third Period: Riley Holzapfel off on a trip, Zach Sill picks off a center ice pass and skates in on a break and scores to make it 3-0. 42 games, two shorthanded goals. 42 minutes, two shorthanded goals. Later, Adam Payerl takes a shot that rebounds to Holzapfel and he corrals it and wrists it home to make it 4-0. Manchester responds the next shift with Vincent LoVerde with a wrist shot from just under the blue line to break up the shutout bid for Zatkoff.

Overall, a great showing by the Pens. They could have had their doors blown in from Manchester’s speed, but adjusted and used special teams to win.

Three Stars: 3) Joe Morrow (goal, +2) 2) Zach Sill (goal, +2) and 1) Trevor Smith (goal, +1)

A forgettable game by Chris Barton, fresh from recall to the Wheeling Nailers. 6 PIMs, including a delayed penalty where he just skated down and ran over Mannino. You aren’t going to endear yourself to this fanbase or the coaching staff by doing that.

Around the Division: Everyone lost. Binghamton to St. John’s on the Rock 4-2, Syracuse to Springfield 5-3 and Norfolk to Adirondack 5-2. Hershey was idle.

Standings: Binghamton 58 — Syracuse 56 — Penguins 47 — Hershey 44 — Norfolk 39

Conference: 1) BNG (58) 2) SPR (58) 3) POR (54) 4) SYR (56) 5) PRO (51) 6) WBS (47) 7) WOR (46) 8) MCH (46)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost 2-1 at home to the Reading Royals.

SendToNews Highlights: Packaged right here for your viewing enjoyment.

Pens welcome the Adirondack Phantoms in tomorrow for a Saturday night game which will be on TV. Gameday for that will be up on the blog at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Shoot the puck.

That was the message delivered this morning by head coach John Hynes to his team.

Shoot the puck.

It worked.

The Penguins roll into Toronto and sweep the season series from the Marlies winning this afternoon 3-1. They hit the All-Star break winners of six of their last seven games.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Mark Owuya

Joey Mormina, Cody Wild, Beau Bennett and Steve MacIntyre were the scratches. Warren Peters returned from injury and Dominik Uher replaced Steve MacIntyre.

First Period: If the Penguins lose this game, it is because they were handed four straight power plays and could do nothing with them, including a 5-on-3 for 1:23 that saw a turnover by the defensive pairing of Alex Grant and Brian Dumoulin and a shorthanded chance by the Marlies. John Hynes even used his timeout to draw something up during the extended 5-0n-3, but the Pens and Marlies went scoreless.

Second Period: Bobby Farnham gets in the way of an Alex Grant slapshot and takes a puck off an unprotected area on his leg. He’d turn out to be fine. The Penguins were throwing everything at Owuya. He wasn’t necessarily sharp, but the shots offered by the Penguins made it easy on him to save. Finally, Riley Holzapfel dangles the puck like a yo-yo and scored to put the Penguins out ahead 1-0.

The Penguins would continue to throw everything at Owuya. It was at this point that he was sharp, because he would stop three or four shots every sequence. Second period shots on goal were 19-3 in favor of the Penguins, just one off the season high.

Third Period: Tim Connolly, down from the NHL, has two goals in two games. Well, make it three goals in three games. At the top of the slot on the power play, he wrists one past Zatkoff to even things up at one a piece.

At this point, maybe six games ago, the Pens allow the floodgates to open and the opposing team to dance and dangle all over them and continue to put in goals. Not so.

:59 later, Paul Thompson picks off a Toronto clearing bid and puts a shot on Owuya that he fumbles with the glove and lets into the goal to put the Penguins up 2-1. Then, on the power play, Adam Payerl chases down his own rebound and scores to put the Penguins up 3-1. It would be all the run support that Zatkoff would need, as with Owuya pulled the Marlies generated good chances but couldn’t stick one past Zatkoff.

Three Stars: 3) Adam Payerl (goal, even) 2) Riley Holzapfel (goal, +1) 1) Jeff Zatkoff (27 saves on 28 shots)

Notes: Tom Kostopoulos has really helped guys like Payerl and Zach Sill. Payerl had six shots on goal this game alone, mostly from passes from Kostopoulos. … Marlies were an AHL best 13-2-0-1 at home coming into this game. … Three Marlies players made their AHL debuts today from the ECHL.

Around the Division: We were all watching the wrong game tonight as there was a goalie fight in Syracuse tonight as the Crunch triple up the St. John’s IceCaps by a score of 6-3. Binghamton beats Hershey in a shootout 3-2 and Norfolk whitewashes Bridgeport 5-0.

Standings: Binghamton 58 — Syracuse 56 — Penguins 45 — Hershey 44 — Norfolk 39

Conference: 1) BNG (58) 2) SPR (56) 3) POR (52) 4) SYR (56) 5) PRO (47) 6) MCH (46) 7) WBS (45) 8) WOR (45)

Wheeling Update: Nailers win 3-2 in Trenton tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Aren’t up yet. May not be, I’ll check again in the morning.

Penguins break now for the All-Star break. I will be heading to Providence tomorrow and pinch hitting for Tom Venesky from the Times Leader and writing stories for that newspaper for Monday and Tuesday. Make sure you pick up a copy. I’ll probably have stuff here for the blog as well.

Let’s Go Pens!