Chirps from Center Ice

Off the hop, Brett Sterling left the game in the third with an injury. He was boarded by Vladimir Mihalik and lay motionless on the ice for 20-30 seconds. He went to the bench then to the locker room with Steidle and did not return. Observers said the following:

http://twitter.com/#!/Wranglersm/status/53264711755640832

Regardless, it was a 4-3 Penguins win tonight in regulation in Norfolk. With Bridgeport beating Portland 2-1 in regulation in Maine tonight the magic number for WBS goes from 7 to 3 for clinching home ice throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs at least.

John Curry vs. Dustin Tokarski. Brad Thiessen was returned to WBS yesterday. I tweet this stuff so if you don’t already, follow me on Twitter.

First Period: Blair Jones would open the period on a penalty for tripping and Andrew Hutchinson would fire a puck at Tokarski which Sterling would collect and rebound on and score to make the score 1-0. Later, Carl Sneep, fresh from injury, would have to be escorted off the ice due to a snafu on the lineup cards. From what radio mentioned, Steve Wagner was listed as available for the game and Sneep was not so he was told to leave the game. Then, a Corey Potter turnover led to a 2 on 1 for Norfolk which saw Blair Jones tie the game at 1. Then, after Tim Wallace hit Scott Jackson into the boards he fought Radko Gudas. Gudas got 5 for fighting and an additional 2 for roughing. In the ensuing power play Keven Veilleux scored on the power play. After that, Blair Jones would sit for hooking and Brett Sterling again would score to make it 3-1. As soon as that happened a Norfolk defender blew a tire which led to Ryan Craig scoring to make it 4-1.

At this point the Pens had scored three power play goals. I was stunned, because the Pens power play was anemic to say the least. Rare that they ever score on the power play. Rare that they ever score two power play goals and it might as well snow on the sun because you never see Wilkes-Barre score three power play goals in one period.

Second Period: Norfolk tried rough stuff as Andrew Hutchinson and Mike Angelidis fought and Keven Veilleux and Alex Berry did the same. Then on a power play, Troy Milam took a cross ice pass to make it 4-2 on the backdoor. Then, the Pens needed to kill of a full two minutes of a 5 on 3 as David Marhsall would sit for a bench minor for too many men and Corey Potter for interference. Huge kill here.

Third Period: Brett Sterling was boarded by Vladimir Mihalek. He did not return. He went to the bench then the locker room. Follower Scott tweeted me this information:

http://twitter.com/#!/Wranglersm/status/53265980436131840

Then, Norfolk scored to make it interesting and made it 4-3. Mattias Ritola off of deflections. Admirals would pressure, pull Tokarski but never find the equalizer and the Pens would hold on.

As stated previously, the magic number on the conference is three.

Speaking of three, the three stars were: Brett Sterling (two goals, +1) Mattias Ritola, (goal, two assists, +1) and Ryan Craig (game winning goal)

Around the Division: Syracuse played and beat Toronto in an 11:00 a.m. game in Toronto today 4-3.

Standings: WBS 107 – HER 94 – CHA 91 – NOR 88 – BNG 87 – SYR 69 – ALB 67 – ADK 62.

Friday: WBS hosts Charlotte. Hershey visits Norfolk, Bingo is in Syracuse. I don’t think Manchester can catch us but regardless they are in Worcester. Portland is off on Friday.

Keep me queued up on Twitter for the latest on Sterling. Let’s hope he is fine.

Go Pens,

Exhale.

I have pretty much lived in fear of the Hershey Bears Hockey Club all season long. Despite the winning record against them, the Bears are what you want you minor league franchise to be. Top to bottom they are run like an NHL team. I have said from the very beginning of this year that the road to the Calder Cup runs through Hershey, PA. Beat Hershey, and you can beat any team. Win something Hershey can’t, and you are the favorite.

Tonight, before, 10,653 fans in GIANT Center, the Pens won a gritty, playoff like atmosphere game 3-2 in overtime, shorthanded, via Bryan Lerg. With the win and a Charlotte 8-2 win against Norfolk today, your Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are the 2010-2011 East Division Champions.

John Curry vs. Braden Holtby, fresh off of a cleansheet in the NHL last night.

First Period: Mathieu Perreault tripped Tim Wallace very early and Andrew Hutchinson scored :04 later on the power play. Bears would get three consecutive power plays afterwards but the Pens would kill them all. What a performance by John Curry between the pipes tonight.

First Period Intermission: Hershey media voting for Brad Thiessen for MVP and John Hynes for Coach of the Year.

Second Period: Keven Veilleux had a good game, stickhandling past three Bears on a shift and fighting Bears newcomer Andrew Carroll later. About midway through, the Bears were carrying the pace. Brian Strait goes to routinely clear out a puck and his stick breaks! In the melee, Francois Bouchard scores after a Brian Willsie point shot. Then later, with Dmitri Orlov in the box for slashing, Ben Street would fire a puck in from the right dot to put the Pens up 2-1. The guys over at Sweetest Hockey on Earth jinxed us sort of by tweeting that the Pens power play was lethal. To this point, it was, but afterwards…well read on.

Third Period: Pens carry the pace again, but as color guy Scott Stuccio stated on radio, if you gave the Bears an inch, they took a mile. Brian Willsie would sit for a penalty and as the Bears killed it they hooked up with Willsie who came in alone and Curry made a glove save. Later, Boyd Kane would sit for elbowing, none other than Keith Aucoin would skate in shorthanded and score to tie the game at 2.

Overtime: The Pens would get a powerplay with Steve Pinizzotto off for tripping but not score. Then, at the tail end Brett Sterling would take a silly roughing penalty while the Pens were in the offensize zone. Bears got the power play. Then, Bryan Lerg would come in shorthanded down the right lane and would fire a puck past Holtby stick side to send the Pens to the East Division title, a record for wins in a season, and John Curry’s 100th win.

Three Stars: Mathieu Perreault (two assists, +2) Andrew Hutchinson (goal, -1) and Bryan Lerg (game winning overtime goal, assist, +1)

The Pens limited the Bears to only 13 shots on goal in the second and third periods. But for Brian Strait’s stick breaking (he broke three in the game alone) and some puck luck late, we very well could have been looking at a 2-0 win. What a defensive shutdown on the tail end of a three in three, all on the road.

Around the Division: You know about the Checkers and Admirals game from the open. The Binghamton Senators defeated the Springfield Falcons 4-1. Syracuse and Bridgeport were postponed due to ice issues at Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard. Like what happened when the Pens were in Atlantic City.

Standings: Pens clinch the Division and will finish first no matter what happens with points. We have recapped points all year here so I am not going to stop now. WBS 105 – HER 94 – CHA 91 -NOR 88 – BNG 87. The Admirals have two games in hand on the Senators. With the way the B-Sens have played the Pens this year, we are cheering for anyone but Binghamton. You want them to cross over into the Atlantic, ultimately. SYR 65 – ALB 65 and ADK 62.

Wilkes-Barre’s magic number to clinch home ice throughout the Calder Cup playoffs is 7 over the Portland Pirates. The Pirates have two games in hand on Wilkes-Barre, so it looks like that race will come down to the wire.

* – I am so proud of what this team has accomplished so far. Celebrate the East Division crown today and tomorrow and get back to work Tuesday to be ready for Norfolk on Wednesday. The prize is not a Division Championship or a Conference Championship, it’s that big silver shiny thing that Hershey has 11 of. Maintain focus and Let’s Go Pens!

Penguins lose a special teams battle to the Adirondack Phantoms tonight. All of the goals in a 3-2 loss this evening were scored with a man or men down somewhere. Pens usually pride themselves on having a strong PK but the Phantoms score two goals on the 5 on 3 and get a power play goal and that would ultimately be all she wrote.

John Curry vs. Micheal Leighton – we at Chirps from Center Ice figured that Patrick Killeen would get the start in net. Brad Thiessen is still in Pittsburgh with no sign of coming back down as of yet as Brent Johnson is still day to day with an upper body injury. You would have to expect that Killeen gets the start tomorrow vs. Hershey. Braden Holtby is on recall to Washington and Nolan Schaefer has started two straight games so you would have to figure it will be Todd Ford vs. Patrick Killeen tomorrow afternoon.

Steve Wagner went home with Scott Stuccio last night and will not play tomorrow, and his status is in question Wednesday in Norfolk. Joe Vitale and Joey Mormina are still out and are not on this trip.

First Period: Michael Ryan took an interference penalty about 10 minutes in and Bryan Lerg converted on the power play. Then, Robert Bortuzzo and Andrew Hutchinson would sit for penalties and Ben Holmstrom would tie the game with a left dot snipe. Tons of penalties would ensue and the period would end 1-1.

Second Period: Geoff Walker crashed the net and Cullen Eddy trips him. In the ensuing power play, Ben Street would score off of a nifty Bryan Lerg point shot Street would deflect past Leighton. Off of the faceoff the Pens would have a four on two and not score due to too many passes. Later, Keven Veilleux would be on the ice too long and Nick Petersen had to play two guys out there and in doing so held a Phantom so the Phantoms would get a power play. In it, Brian Strait would get whistled for boarding and the Phantoms would have a 5 on 3. In that, they’d score to even the game at two via Ben Holmstom. Later, the Pens would have a three on one with Nick Petersen and Dave Marshall in the rush and would not score.

Third Period: Michael Leighton with perhaps the save of the year on the Pens as Geoff Walker had him all alone, had him drop, then fired it high but somehow Leighton got the glove up to just absolutely rob Walker win what probably can be top 5 saves of the year league wide. Later, Pens would get a power play and John Hynes mixed things up by putting the top power play line out for the second minute of the power play. No dice. Then, with Zach Sill in the box for hooking, Matt Read would get his first ever AHL goal to give the Phantoms the lead for good.

http://twitter.com/#!/PSPhantoms/status/51816231715618816

Yikes.

Later, Tim Wallace would fire a puck off of a faceoff off of the crossbar which fell straight down and not in. Other than that, the Pens would pull Curry but not find the equalizer and lose.

Three Stars: Matt Read (game winning goal), Michael Leighton (24 saves on 26 shots) and Ben Holmstrom (two goals)

Around the Division: Hershey wins a wild one 7-4 in a game that saw it delayed an hour due to ice issues. The Bears clinch a playoff spot. Make room. Charlotte beats Portland 5-4 in regulation. Norfolk scores two goals in :38 to beat Manchester 2-1. Both the Pirates and the Monarchs clinch playoff berths as well. Binghamton beat Providence 4-1 and Syracuse beat Rochester 6-4.

Standings: Bears draw to 10. Wilkes-Barre, barring an implosion, is going to clinch the East Division. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. It’s 103-93 over the Bears with two games in hand. Charlotte sits third with 89 points. The Pens have two games in hand over the Checkers too who are mathematically eliminated from winning the East. The Norfolk Admirals are fourth with 88 points. Binghamton lurks in fifth with 85 points. Then Syracuse, Albany and Adirondack bring up the rear with 65-65-62 points respectively.

Tomorrow: Head to head with the Bears. Check the AHL’s playoff primer tomorrow for WBS’ clinching scenarios. Norfolk plays Charlotte in Charlotte. Portland and Manchester are off.

Go Pens.

Don’t worry about the Hershey Bears.

Don’t worry about the Norfolk Admirals.

Don’t worry about the Charlotte Checkers.

Worry about the Binghamton Senators.

Bingo shutout the Penguins tonight 3-0 and with the win put itself three points to Charlotte for fourth and four points to Norfolk for third in the Division. Oh yeah, they will get about five players back from Ottawa when their season ends in a few weeks. The Senators are a thorn in the side of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. Wilkes went 0-4 in the regular season in Binghamton. 3-5 overall in the 8 game series. Oof. Dating back to last year, the Pens have lost seven straight games in Binghamton.*

John Curry vs. Robin Lehner. Patrick Killeen made it from Florida in time to make the trip.

First Period: Pens came out and just smothered the Sens. They had 1:10 of five on three to work with after Andre Benoit delay of game and a Ryan Keller hook. Pens could not score. Wilkes would not allow a SOG for 15:00 but then the Sens put three up in one shift. The top rated Sens power play would get a chance late with a Bryan Lerg hook but the Pens would hold the Sens to only one shot on goal more.

Second Period: While Steve Wagner was in the box for closing his hand on the puck, Andre Benoit would clank iron and put a puck in the net to give the B-Sens a 1-0 lead. Wheels would fall off afterwards, as Roman Wick just stickhandled right through Corey Potter to make it 2-0 after Jim O’Brien hacked and whacked on Curry’s pads until it went in.

Third Period: Five guys go after a puck in the defensive zone. I have it, no, you have it, no, I have it, no, wait…it’s a three on none for Binghamton. Ryan Keller scores to make it 3-0. Later, Steve Wagneer chases a puck in behind Lehner’s net and collides with him. The collision doesn’t look violent at all, but Wagner went off holding his wrist / arm / shoulder. I observed him walking out with his left arm not in his coat. Hynes told Bombulie in JB’s postgamer that Wags is out the rest of the weekend and maybe Wednesday @ Norfolk. Hello, Alex Grant. Late, the Pens would have a power play and pull Curry but not score.

Three Stars: Andre Benoit (game winning goal, even) Jim O’Brien (goal, two assists, +2) and Robin Lehner (31 save shutout)

I thought that after the Pens allowed a shot on goal the Pens folded up and went away. Almost like they expected to not give up a shot on goal. Despite that, you can’t hang this loss on John Curry. Hell, if Brad Thiessen was here he probably would have lost too. The Pens put up 31 shots on goal and only allowed 20. You take that going forward.

As an aside, nice to meet Bob Howard of the Power Play Post Show. If you haven’t heard his weekly radio show all about the AHL you should. It’s a great listen. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Around the Division. Help in the form of a Hershey loss to Adirondack 2-1 and a Norfolk was shutout by Manchester at home 4-0. Magic number to clinch the division, per Bombulie, is three. Elsewhere, Connecticut beat Charlotte in a shootout 3-2 and Syracuse beat Albany 6-2. In the Atlantic the Portland Pirates lost to Bridgeport 5-1.

Tomorrow: Wilkes-Barre travels to Adirondack, Hershey hosts Albany, Manchester and Norfolk rematch, Charlotte travels to Portland. Expect Killeen to get the nod in net tomorrow for Wilkes-Barre as Brad Thiessen is still in Pittsburgh with Brent Johnson sidelined with his upper body injury.

Go Pens.

* – Tony Androckitis with the research on this one

It looked like for much of the game tonight that the Albany Devils were going to get the first ever win in Devils minor league franchise history tonight. They did not. They battled the Penguins every step of the way tonight and the Pens prevailed in a shootout, 2-1. The win pushes the Pens to a franchise tying 51 win season, and 12 points up on Hershey for first with two games in hand and cuts the magic number to 5.

Brad Thiessen v. Mike McKenna. John Curry was back from his very minor injury. Alex Grant skated in warmups but was a scratch.

First Period: Keven Veilleux hit everything that moved in an early shift. He played well this game. Then, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond (PL3) sat for a roughing call and the Pens scored on the ensuing power play on a Ryan Craig hack and whack on McKenna’s doorstep. The teams would trade a few penalties in the last five minutes, seems like the last 5 was spent 4 on 4 and the score would be 1-0 Pens after 1.

Second Period: Devils had to kill off about :30 of an Adam Henrique boarding call. As he was coming out of the box a Devils player passed it to him wide open. He broke in and drew iron behind Thiessen. Zach Sill continued his strong play, everywhere on the PK and pretty much all game. Then, later in a scrum, PL3 scored on Thiessen. For those who are not familiar with his body of work, he has 250+ PIMs this year and is a fighter and not a scorer. It was really a bad goal given the circumstances because the Devils were out playing us.

Third Period: Pens would clamp down and allow Albany just three shots on goal all period. Brett Sterling and Ryan Craig would have a 2 on 1 chance and then later Ben Street and David Marshall. Neither would score. To overtime we went…

…other than a Brett Sterling high stick with 36 seconds left to play there were only a few anxious moments. To the shootout!

Keven Veilleux and Brett Sterling would score for Wilkes-Barre and Matt Anderson for the Devils.

Actually kind of sad to see it end in a shootout. I really wanted to see who would have scored what would have been the game winning goal. In playoffs, there are no shootouts.

Three Stars: PL3 (goal +1), Ryan Craig (goal, -1) and Brett Sterling (assist, game winning shootout goal)

Around the Division: Binghamton beat Syracuse 6-3 and Norfolk dropped Adirondack 2-1.

Standings: Pens get to 103 points and 12 up on Hershey’s 91. Survive the weekend with a 10 point lead and the race for the division is all but over. Norfolk and Charlotte are deadlocked in a tie for third with 86 points. Binghamton is fifth with 81 points and Albany, Syracuse and Adirondack are 65, 61 and 58 points respectively.

Friday: Charlotte is in Connecticut, Hershey travels to Adirondack, Manchester plays Norfolk in Virginia, Bridgeport plays Portland in Maine and the Penguins travel (as do I) to Binghamton in a must have game for their psyche. Binghamton has given us fits this year. We need to beat these guys soundly.

Go Pens.

Penguins get win 50 this afternoon vs. the Charlotte Checkers. Fourth time in team history with a 2-1 win over the Charlotte Checkers.

Brad Thiessen vs. Mike Murphy.

First Period: Early, Mike Murphy was on it, robbing Bryan Lerg. Later, Zack FitzGerald would sit for a rough and the Pens PP would go to work. It looked better than past power plays, but the same result in failing to score. First period was more of a defensive chess match and it would end scoreless.

Second Period: Still deadlocked at 0-0, the Pens were trying feathering passes which were knocked away by Charlotte. The power play would look bad in the second with Zach Boychuk in the box on a slash with the Pens playing dump and chase and ice the puck. Later, Zach Sill would keep a puck in by the far wall on his stomach and pass to Geoff Walker who passed to Nick Petersen who scored on a nifty spin-o-rama type move. Probably top three goals of the year right there.Then, Mike Murphy would come out of the game due to apparent injury. He was spilled behind the net with no call as play continued and Justin Pogge would come on in relief. Sill would get a good chance later but Pogge made the save.

Third Period: :21 in, Sill would score off of a nice centering feed from Geoff Walker and Keven Veilleux. That Walker-Sill-Veilleux line has been dynamite of late. The Pens would smother the Checkers every shift. Very late, I heard people in my section start saying “shutout” and I cringed. You never use that word until the game is over. Sure enough, a Bobby Sanguinetti was deflected by Chris Terry, who earlier with Pogge pulled swung and missed at a dropping puck on a wide open cage, broke up the shutout with 4.8 seconds left.

Three Stars: Nick Petersen: (goal, +1) Brad Thiessen (25 saves on 26 shots) and Zach Sill (game winning goal, assist, +2)

Bombulie had nice words to say about Zach Sill on his blog earlier. Really nothing more can be said about a fourth line mucker converted into a legit scoring threat every time he steps over the boards. Dustin Jeffrey, Eric Tangradi and Nick Johnson have some big shoes and Zach Sill is filling them nicely.

Around the Division: Syracuse beat Hershey 5-2. Hershey pumped 32 shots on goal and allowed 19 yet still lost. Binghamton beat Bridgeport in overtime 4-3.

Manchester lost to Worcester 3-2 and Portland beat Providence 5-3 so the Pirates go up 93-91 on the Monarchs and into second overall in the AHL.

Standings: Wilkes gets to 101 points, Hershey is 10 back with 91. Charlotte and Norfolk are tied with 84 points with Norfolk in third. Bingo sits fifth with 79 points. ALB 64, SYR 61 and ADK 58.

This week: Pens give back one of it’s three games in hand on the Bears when they take on the Albany Devils Wednesday at home in Wilkes-Barre. The Devils are 0-7 this season vs. the Pens and will be looking for the upset.

Bombulie says the magic number to clinch the division is 6. I am no math major and neither is Bombulie admittedly, so I guess I believe him. Don’t always believe what you read, @franki2003 says that the magic number is 7, with Norfolk having 12 games left if they won all of them they would finish with 108 points.

Go Pens.

x.

That is what everyone will see when they read the Sports Section all across America tomorrow morning when they look at the AHL Standings. That “x” signifies that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have clinched a playoff spot for the ninth year in a row with a 5-3 win over the Worcester Sharks this evening.

Brad Thiessen vs. Harri Sateri. There was chatter pregame as to whether Wilkes-Barre sent back Patrick Killeen. They did not. This picture tells the story.

First Period: A Wagner defensive zone turnover led to a Cam MacIntyre goal about 10 minutes in. Later, Wagner’s point shot from the blue line would rebound over to Zach Sill to tie the game. Sill has really stepped up in the absence of Johnson, Tangradi and Jeffrey. Later, Tim Wallace would get called for tripping then Dan DaSilva scored while Brad Thiessen was screened on the power play to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead.

Second Period: John McCarthy would sit for roughing and right after more rebound plague Sateri as they did all night to the stick of Brett Sterling to even the score at 2 a piece. Later, with Jon Landry and Frazer Mc:aren in the box and the Pens on a 5 on 3, Pens would win the faceoff and Corey Potter would score to make it 3-2.

Third Period: Sharks had worked a faceoff play out before the puck dropped to open the third and in doing so Sean Sullivan to the net while Robert Bortuzzo hooked him to give the Sharks a power play. The Pens would kill it but as soon as they did Keven Veilleux would get whistled for roughing and they would score to even it at 3 a piece with Tommy Wingles hack and whack. Pens would then have to kill off a 5 on 3 of their own before Veilleux took a puck off of a Shark player in the Worcester offensive zone, passed to Wallace who score to make it 4-3. Late, Worcester would pull Sateri and Wallace would score again as time would expire.

Three Stars: Corey Potter (goal, +1), Keven Veilleux (two assists, 2) and Tim Wallace (two goals, +2)

Around the Division: Portland fights back from a 3-1 deficit to win 4-3 in overtime tonight in Hershey in Braden Holtby’s return to the Bears from parent Washington. Binghamton shuts out Springfield 2-0. Barry Brust with his seventh shutout of the season for the B-Sens. The Falcons have lost 10 in a row. Ow. Albany beat Norfolk 6-5 in a shootout after being up 3-0. Syracuse beat tomorrow’s opponent the Charlotte Checkers 6-2. Justin Pogge gave up all 6 goals and was yanked in favor of Mike Murphy to start the third. Adirondack beat Toronto 3-1.

Standings: Wilkes clinches and pushes it’s lead up to 8 over Hershey 99-91. It’s a three way tie for second overall between the Bears, Pirates and Monarchs all who have 91 points a piece. The rest of the division goes, NOR 84, CHA 84, BNG 77, ALB 64, SYR 59 and ADK 58.

Tomorrow: Tonight’s opponents, the Worcester Sharks, are in Manchester. Portland is in Providence, Hershey hosts Syracuse, Binghamton is in Bridgeport.

This is what it is all about from here on in. Go Pens.