Chirps from Center Ice

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Well, I knew they wouldn’t go undefeated.

Penguins lose 2-1 in regulation, their first such loss of the season.

Biggest thing you could point to in this game is the Penguins lack of success on the power play. A paltry 1-for-6 Saturday including a 4:00 double minor back in the first period they could not score on. Hershey telegraphed the entires, which frustrated the Penguins.

Reigning AHL Goaltender of the Month Dustin Tokarski took the loss in net for the Pens but I thought he was fine and kept the team in in.

Here’s how they lined up:

Lineup: Caggiula for the recalled Drew O’Connor, Jack St. Ivany for Colin Swoyer on defense.

First Period: No scoring. Action flashed by. Bears took a too many men on the ice call late.

Second Period: Hershey took the first four penalties and one of them was a Bobby Nardella high stick which busted open Drake Caggiula. 4 minute power play to the Penguins. No dice. Few shots.

Later, no one marks Mike Sgarbossa in front (read: Taylor Fedun lost his assignment) and the Bears get on the board first.

Pens take a penalty. It’s Jonathan Gruden, one of their better penalty killers in the box. Hershey keeps it in the zone the whole time and Ethen Frank takes a high slot one timer for a goal that gives Hershey a 2-0 lead.

Third Period: Penguins with a too little, too late flurry, sees Alex Nylander bust up Zach Fucale’s shutout bid with under a minute to play. Ironically, it comes on a power play.

More late pushes by the Pens, but no dice for a tying goal.

Three Stars: 3) Alex Nylander (goal) 2) Ethen Frank (goal) 1) Mike Sgarbossa (goal)

The Good: The goaltender. If Tokarski wasn’t on his game Hershey may have one 5-1.

The Bad: Bears see their captain suspended for this game, a lot of offense get called up to Washington, and still waltz in here Saturday night and beat the Penguins. Can’t happen.

Turning Point: The Gruden penalty which led to the power play goal. I knew this when it happened. Turns out my premonition comes true.

Around the Division: Providence beats Springfield 3-2….Bridgeport beats Hartford 5-3….Lehigh Valley slips past Laval in overtime 3-2….Charlotte is shutout at home 4-0 by Syracuse.

Standings: Providence 16 — Bridgeport 15 — Penguins 13 — Charlotte 12 — Springfield 11 — Hershey 10 — Lehigh Valley 7 — Hartford 6

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose 4-3 in Reading. Power play problems? What power play problems? Reading went 3-for-5 on the power play while the Nailers went 2-for-4. Tommy Nappier takes the loss in goal, stopping 21.

Video Highlights: 

More tomorrow after the rematch in Hershey.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I told you yesterday that if the Iowa Wild beat the Manitoba Moose, the other unbeaten in regulation team in the AHL, and if the Penguins beat the Hershey Bears in any form or fashion, you would get that headline.

Iowa thumped the Moose 5-2 Saturday afternoon. The Penguins beat the Hershey Bears 2-1 in overtime.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are the sole unbeaten in regulation team in the 32 team American Hockey League.

6-0-1-0 to start the season. Unbeaten (in regulation) in October. I mean you can’t ask for a better start.

How are they doing this? They are grinding teams to dust.

Take the second period of this game as a classic example. Taking the Bears best shots, starting goaltender Filip Lindberg turning way all 13 shots faced and killing off a penalty. Nothing too flashy, nothing to tough to figure out, just grinding in what was a 1-1 contest at the time.

Taking nothing away from the aforementioned Lindberg and his counterpart Hunter Shepard, who both played outstanding in the contest, it was another methodical takedown of yet another rival of the Penguins.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Only change was in goal. You love to see it.

First Period: Slow strait, which as it went on had a thought it played into the hands (paws?) of the Bears, and my premonition came true.

Sonny Milano opens the scoring with a dart past Lindberg.

Pens were being outshot. It wasn’t for a lack of pucks at Shepard, they just weren’t on target.

Shepard was dialed in and below shows how dialed in he was, going post to post to deny a Valtteri Puustinen one timer on a Penguin power play.

Corey Andonovski with a Herculean effort to carry two Bears defenders with him down the slot and slip a shot past Shepard and in to tie the game at one.

Second Period: Gave it to you in parts in the lede. Nothing much to write home about here.

Third Period: Scary moment for the Penguins as they forget about Aaron Ness in the penalty box. Ness strips a Penguins defender of the puck and sets up Sonny Milano for a chance that Lindberg makes the stop on.

Bears took two late penalties, the Ness infraction being one of them, but they get out of it OK. Off to…

Overtime: This happened…

But then this happened…

Notable that Lindberg himself had a barrel roll save almost immediately after the Shepard stop on the 2-on-1.

Three Stars: 3) Hunter Shepard (27 saves) 2) Sonny Milano (goal) 1) Filip Hallander (overtime game winning goal)

The Good: Giant Center has been a house of horrors of recent for the Penguins, nice to see the Pens keep the unbeaten streak alive for another week in a place they don’t win often at of recent.

The Bad: Can’t put a finger on anything really. When you are good, you are good. I think tonight was a solid 60+ minute game by the team from the goalie out.

Turning Point: The Hallander goal, duh.

Around the Division: Providence takes down Springfield 4-3 in a shootout….Bridgeport keeps rolling and beat the Phantoms 6-3….Hartford takes down the Charlotte Checkers 3-2 in overtime.

Standings: Penguins 13 – Providence 11 – Bridgeport and Charlotte 9 – Springfield 7 – Hershey and Hartford 6 – Lehigh Valley 5

Wheeling Update: Busy night for minor league hockey, but the Nailers were off.

Video Highlights: 

Gonna open the mailbag this week. Haven’t done that in a while but I think it’s high time to bring its back. It will be here on the blog Monday. No game Friday for the Pens so it’ll make for good fodder between now and the Pens next game Saturday against these same Bears. Check it out then.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Something was made out of nothing late in this one, a 3-1 Penguins win, their fifth in a row, when it was 1-1 late and it looked like the game was headed into overtime.

Well, Tyler Sikura is likely salaried, like me, and salaried folks don’t get paid overtime. Why work overtime and just get all the work done in regulation?

Pens get two goals in under 90 seconds late in the third and the Penguins just keep rolling. Points in every game played thus far, still undefeated in regulation and finding ways to win.

It’s getting fun again. It’s always been partially fun in some respects, but it’s fun when you are winning and that’s what the Penguins are doing now.

Dustin Tokarski opposed Sam Ersson.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Jamie Devane for Kyle Olson and Colin Swoyer for Jack St. Ivany. Devane and Swoyer were making their season debuts.

First Period: Pretty inert start until a Lizotte turnover to Max Willman finds the back of the Wilkes-Barre net to give the Phantoms a late 1-0 lead.

(no GIF here)

If you are wondering that getting scored on 5×5 on Dustin Tokarski doesn’t happen often, well you are right.

Second Period: Coupla things about this period: 1) No team had a shot on goal for the first 10+ minutes; 2) Phantoms took all the penalties (4 total) in the period; 3) Valtteri Puustinen scored a power play goal and 4) That is a three game point streak, a career high, for Puustinen.

Here’s his goal that tied the game at one.

Third Period: Penguins navigate through back to back Jon Lizotte penalties carefully. Looking like overtime. But no, Tyler Sikura’s hips don’t lie and he scores his first to put the Pens ahead 2-1.

Rattled, Lehigh Valley lets Corey Andonovski sneak in behind their defense and he slips one through Ersson’s five hole for a goal that put the game away and out of reach for the home team.

Three Stars: 3) Samuel Ersson (32 saves) 2) Max Willman (goal) 1) Corey Andonovski (goal, assist)

The Good: They keep finding ways to win and keep grinding teams offensive outputs to dust.

The Bad: I didn’t think Jon Lizzote had a particularly strong game. As a matter of fact he sucked tonight. He needs to be better and the Pens are lucky to have won the game based off of his play.

Turning Point: The Sikura goal jumpstarted the Penguins to a victory in regulation tonight. The Andonovski goal which followed was icing on the cake.

Around the Division: Hartford beats Hershey 4-2 up in Connecticut….Providence hands Charlotte their first regulation loss of the season, beating them 2-1….Springfield beats Bridgeport in an absolute barnburner 7-6 in overtime.

Standings: Penguins 11 — Providence and Bridgeport 9 — Charlotte 8 — Springfield 6 — Hershey 5 and Lehigh Valley 5 — Hartford 4

The Penguins and Manitoba Moose are the final two teams in the AHL left who are unbeaten in regulation. Manitoba was off Friday. Lucky bastards. Moose host the Iowa Wild Saturday afternoon. If Tim Army’s Wild beat the Moose in regulation tomorrow and the Penguins beat the Hershey Bears in any fashion Saturday, the headline will be, “Last of the Unbeatens” – now that’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler.

Wheeling Update: Nailers were shutout at home 4-0 by the Cincinnati Cyclones.

Video Highlights: 

More Saturday against Hershey.

Let’s Go Pens!

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So I have been doing this blog for about 12 years. I may or may not have recycled this blog headline a time or two before.

A methodical takedown of the high scoring Cleveland Monsters tonight by the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins who crush the visitors 5-1. Drew O’Connor with a pair of goals. Dustin Tokarski a wall in the net for the Pens and the penalty kill was 5-for-6. The Cleveland power play is really good, but looked pedestrian Wednesday.

Work night, so let’s get through this one.

Here’s how they lined up:

Lineup Notes: Same lineup as Sunday in Providence but for different guys on different lines.

First Period: Pens race to a 2-0 lead on a ridiculous through traffic deke by Ty Smith who, by all accounts, doesn’t belong at this level and Drew O’Connor’s breakaway goal. Penguins took three straight penalties but Tokarski and notably Jon Lizotte were blocking everything. Here are the goals:

Nice pass from Corey Andonovski to set up “OC” there for the goal.

Second Period: Alex Nylander scores a goal through a screen to give the Penguins a 3-0 lead.

Cleveland snaps the patented, “Would be Dustin Tokarski Shutout Bid™” with a power play goal scored by Cole Fonstad.

The Penguins were taking way too many penalties yet seemed like they were in cruise control. Game felt like it was never out of the favor for the home team but we’ve all seen two goal leads evaporate quicker than summer dew on the uncut grass you have to cut on a Saturday.

Third Period: Whatever hopes that Cleveland had for a comeback were quickly squelched when Valtteri Puustinen scored a power play goal then Drew O’Connor followed up for his second of the game for a 5-1 lead.

Kyle Olson challenged Cole Clayton and left the game after the fight. Looked like his eye was swelled shut based off of what my 43 year old eyes were telling me.

Three Stars: 3) Filip Hallander (two assists) 2) Dustin Tokarski (32 saves) 1) Drew O’Connor (two goals, assist)

The Good: Game was questionable coming in as to how the Penguins would bottle up Cleveland’s explosive offense. It was a no doubter type of game for the Pens tonight from about five minutes in and out felt good to watch.

The Bad: Too many penalties.

Turning Point: If it wasn’t the Nylander goal that made it 3-0, the response by the Pens to open the third period was.

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Penguins 9 – Charlotte and Bridgeport 8 – Providence 7 – Hershey and Lehigh Valley 5 – Springfield 4 – Hartford 2

Have I mentioned how much I don’t miss percentage points?

Wheeling Update: Nailers were off.

Video Highlights: 

Back at a it again Friday in Allentown.

Let’s Go Pens!

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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins sweep the weekend, with a 2-1 win over the Providence Bruins in Rhode Island. The Penguins play just two three in threes this season and this weekend was one of them.

This game was a defensive battle through the first two periods as there was no scoring. Each team was 0/3 on the power play through the first two periods and the Penguins just had a paltry 11 shots.

But in the third period, the Penguins came alive and emptied the tank with a barrage of shots that led to two goals. They were outshooting Providence 14-1 at one point in the third period and got goals from Ty Glover (his first pro goal) and Valtteri Puustinen (his first of the season) which had the Pens up 2-0.

But then a pushback by the Bruins saw Joona Koppanen score a power play goal as the Pens, after they scored the two goals, let off and gave the P-Bruins nearly consecutive power plays. This was the only blemish on an overall good game by the Penguins who I think played about as full of a 60 minute hockey game as you can playing your third game in the stand of about two and and a half days. It also spoiled the would be shutout bid for Dustin Tokarski.

(No GIF on the Providence goal)

The Pens were extra careful with starting goaltender Keith Kinkaid pulled and saw it out to a. perfect 6-for-6 weekend. This dealt the Bruins their first regulation loss.

Nothing more to this one, so let’s get to the lineups and get out of here.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Drake Caggiula and Sam Poulin were recalled to Pittsburgh. They will need the bodies as Pittsburgh is heading to Western Canada this week. Lukas Svejkovsky and Sam Houde went in for them and Jack St. Ivany made his AHL debut in for Mitch Reinke who needs his lower body injury evaluated. He was injured Saturday in Hartford.

Three Stars: 3) Joona Koppanen (goal) 2) Dustin Tokarski (30 saves) 1) Valtteri Puustinen (goal)

The Good: Tokarski is their number one. The team is pretty good, should be interesting to see where this goes.

The Bad: Teams good. Still no shutout for their goaltender. Yes, I am being impatient.

Turning Point: That 14-1 blitzkrieg displayed nay Wilkes-Barre / Scranton to start the third gave the Penguins the momentum to push them to victory, although you can argue that they coasted the final 5-7 minutes and not be wrong.

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley beats Cleveland 5-4 and Bridgeport sweeps their weekend with a 5-2 win against Hartford.

Standings: Charlotte and Bridgeport 8 – Penguins and Providence 7 – Hershey and Lehigh Valley 5 – Springfield 4 – Hartford 2

Wheeling Update: Nailers stared a little later than the Penguins and are in a rematch with the Toledo Walleye as this blog post goes up. Box here.

Video Highlights: I’ll search for them. AHL VideoCenter is here and they seem like they have all the games highlights, across the league.

More Wednesday with the weekend setup teeing up Cleveland, Lehigh Valley and Hershey.

Let’s Go Pens!

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So I think they are both.

Good, racing out to a 3-0 lead in Hartford, lucky in getting the game to overtime after blowing said 3-0 lead and having Hartford tie the game at three and good again winning in a shootout 4-3 to rack up their fifth point out of six possible.

Special teams needs work. They let Hartford score two power play goals. Calder Cup Champion SJ Smith struck for two goals for the Wolf Pack, but Filip Lindberg outdid ex-Penguin Louis Domingue in the shootout round to give the Penguins the win.

Lucky and good. Yeah, I think they are both.

Here’s how they lined up:

Hartford didn’t post lines.

Lineup: Ty Glover making his AHL debut, was in for Sam Houde. Corey Andonovski dropped down a line to the fourth line.

First Period: Both teams traded tripping penalties. No one scored on the power play. Filip Linberg was busier than his counterpart and ex-teammate Louis Domingue.

Ty Smith rips a shot and with bodies in front Corey Andonovski gets a stick on it and it goes past Domingue for a 1-0 Penguins lead.

Second Period: Penguins pressure for a good minute and a half, two full line changes and finally breakthrough for a goal when Alex Nylander scores to double the Penguins lead.

Later, the Penguins tripled their lead when Alex Nylander gets a gust of wind behind him and breaks through for a goal that makes it 3-0 Wilkes-Barre.

Julien Gauthier takes a nice cross ice pass on a Hartford power play to bust up the Lindberg shutout bid and get the home team on the board.

Penguins doubled up the Wolf Pack 10-5 in shots in the period and, but for the one infraction against, largely controlled play.

Third Period: CJ Smith struck for fist first of the game and first as a member of the Hartford Wolf Pack with this goal that brought the home team to within one on the power play.

An absolute dart. A guy you wish you had on your team.

Penguins don’t score on back to back power plays. They lost Mitch Reinke at some point during the period and were down to five defensemen.

Momma, there goes that man again. CJ Smith scores again to tie the game for the Wolf Pack.

(no GIF here)

Wilkes-Barre doesn’t score on a late power play and it was off to….

Overtime: Lindberg goes post to post to deny Julien Gauthier on what was a nice save. Nobody scored, though.

Shootout: Drake Caggiula, who never attempted a shootout shot in the AHL went first for the Pens and missed, Alex Nylander went second and scored. Lindberg denied Jonny Brodzinski, CJ Smith and Tim Gettinger in that order and the Pens get the extra point.

Here’s the Nylander shootout goal.

Three Stars: Ty Smith (assist) 2) Alex Nylander (goal, goal in shootout) 1) CJ Smith (two goals)

The Good: They can navigate in and out of trouble and it doesn’t faze them. Yet. I don’t want to jump to conclusions three and a half (looking at you Utica) games in.

The Bad: Eventually they navigating into trouble is going to get them into waters they can’t swim out of. I still don’t think we have seem them play a full 60, but with this being a developmental league, name one team who does consistently.

Turning Point: I almost tipped my TV over when I heard Pens play by play man Nick Hart say that Drake Caggiula has no shootout experience in the AHL, why send a guy out there without any? But let’s give it to Filip Lindberg and his saves in overtime and in the shootout round. Hopefully, the highlight package has some of those saves.

Around the Division: Cleveland beats Lehigh Valley 4-3 in overtime….Charlotte does the same to Hershey 3-2. The Checkers are 4-0….Bridgeport pounds Laval 5-2….Springfield beats Belleville 3-2 and Providence slips by Utica 2-1.

Standings: Charlotte 8 – Providence 7 – Bridgeport 6 – Penguins and Bears 5 – Springfield 4 – Lehigh Valley 3 – Hartford 2

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose their home opener against the Toledo Walleye 5-3. Tommy Nappier makes 25 saves in the loss. Walleye score five unanswered.

Video Highlights: Probably a morning update. With church and the grocery store I don’t know if I will be able to work an edit in. AHL’s website will be able to help you if you are hard up for moving pictures.

More Sunday afternoon after Providence.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I met this guy by the name of Joe. It was his first hockey game. His friends told me if the Penguins won the game tonight, they would call him 1-0 Joe.

Penguins win 2-1 over Laval Friday night and Joe, buddy, you have a new name. Wanna change it? See you Wednesday when the Penguins host the Cleveland Monsters.

I don’t know if this was a masterclass in defense and goaltending or a young team learning to come together and put a full 60 minutes together because in the first period, it looked like the Pens were set to run away with the game, up 2-0 heading into the second period off of a power play goal by Alex Nylander and a breakaway goal by Nathan Legare. Dustin Tokarski started in net and wasn’t challenged much if at all in the opening frame.

That all changed in the second period however as Tokarski would face a barrage of shots from the Rocket, 21 in total from the second period on and the Penguins held on for the narrow win.

Tokarski opposed Cayden Primeau.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Jonathan Gruden made his season debut. Sam Houde was back from the cut suffered on his face last Saturday. Raivis Ansons and Lukas Svejkovsky yielded. Defense was intact.

First Period: Coupla quick goals from the more rested Penguins who were idle on Wednesday and not in a foreign country, unlike the Rocket, who hosted Springfield. It was a sense of bus legs I think because the Rocket were flat and took three penalties in the period.

Nylander opened the scoring with this power play goal.

Followed by Nathan Legare on a breakaway set up by Sam Houde.

Second Period: With virtually nothing to do in the first period, Dustin Tokarski was a very, very busy man for the Penguins in goal in the second period. Laval came alive with plenty of good looks and good opportunities, but Tokarski was dialed in and denied them all.

Third Period: More of the same from the second for the Penguins. Time was whittling down and the Penguins were in firm control of the game I thought. Whatever happened to get through. Tokarski would get a piece of.

Then, the Penguins found themselves on a late penalty kill. With Primeau pulled, Laval would get within one with a lot of time on the clock.

I know what you were thinking, here we go again with the empty net goals late in a game that the Penguins are in control of.

Not this time.

Tokarski with some more key saves late, including a block by Jon Lizotte and Wilkes-Barre holds on.

Three Stars: 3) Dustin Tokarski (26 saves) 2) Alex Nylander (goal) 1) Nathan Legare (game winning goal)

The Good: At times they kept it simple. Defense was dialed in and the goaltender was laser focused.

The Bad: They do everything right and lose a shutout for their goaltender late with an extra skater on a puck over glass infraction.

Turning Point: You didn’t know it at the time, but the Legare goal that made it 2-0 in the first is enough to get the Penguins to the pay winda first, daddeh.

Around the Division: Hershey had a 3-0 lead in Charlotte but that evaporated quick and the Bears lose 5-4….Springfield beats Belleville 5-2 to earn the Thunderbirds their first win of the year….Bridgeport beats Providence 5-4 in overtime.

Standings: Charlotte 6 – Providence 5 – Hershey and Bridgeport 4 – Penguins 3 – Lehigh Valley and Springfield 2 – Hartford 1

Wheeling Update: The ECHL got going tonight, but the Nailers play Saturday at home against Toledo.

Video Highlights: 

More Saturday in Hartford.

Let’s Go Pens!