Chirps from Center Ice

There are too many preseason games.

That out of the way, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins played their final preseason contest Sunday afternoon in Allentown against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and lost a special teams duel 3-1.

Lines were:

And for the Phantoms,

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So no preseason for Penguins goaltender Dustin Tokarski. It could be something, or it could be nothing. You don’t really need to run the risk of a guy who you know will be on your opening night roster vs. evaluating two goalies in Emil Larmi and Alex D’Orio who are competing for the backup job, barring any roster jockeying with Jim Rutherford and Company up top in Pittsburgh.

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In the first, it seemed like there were way too many penalties; three aside for each team. The Phantoms cashed on a late one when Andy Andreoff tip din a Greg Carey shot for a goal at 19:26 for a 1-0 Phantoms lead.

In the second, there were just three penalties, with two for the Penguins but no goals. There were chances both ways.

Nick Aube-Kubel scored 56 seconds into the third period that gave the Phantoms a 2-0 lead.

With just under seven minutes to play, David Warsofsky takes a shot which is deflected off the end wall, corralled by Ryan Haggerty and put in to put the Penguins on the board.

But the Phantoms would strike back in the same minute on the power play when Mikhail Vorobyev would score on a power play which reestablished the Phantoms two goal lead.

Penguins went with an empty net in the final 90 or so seconds of the game, but didn’t get any closer.

Impressions: Seemed like a game which was largely decided on special teams and with an offensively explosive team built like Lehigh Valley, not a game you want to start playing if you are the opponent of the Phantoms. With the two teams playing twelve times this season, it is something that they may need to key in on if they want to have any success against the Phantoms.

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In other news, the Pittsburgh Penguins re-assigned Adam Johnson back to Wilkes-Barre Sunday afternoon. Wilkes-Barre also made a round of cuts Sunday which were sent to Wheeling who one their training camp this week. They are Forwards Christopher Brown, Jan Drozg, Brandon Hawkins, Yushiroh Hirano, Renārs Krastenbergs and Myles Powell and defensemen Macoy Erkamps, Blake Siebenaler, Craig Skudalski and Aaron Titcomb. Sum total of 10. No real surprises.

So that concludes the preseason. It counts for real this Saturday in Hershey. The Penguins play just one game on opening weekend, then are back in Lehigh Valley next Friday, home for the opener against Utica on October 12 then in Hershey Sunday afternoon.

This week, I’ll have a new feature here Monday that requires participation from you, a mailbag! Look for that around 9:15 Monday morning. Then, news and notes as it comes during the week, a look at the Penguins opponents this Friday. I opted against a full 31 team division by division preview because I found the exercise pointless because the Penguins don’t play every team. One shot of all the teams and outlooks the Pens play. Look for that Friday.

Back here Monday morning with the stamps for you to send me stuff for the mailbag.

The Pens were in Hershey Saturday night for their third preseason game. They had a lead going into the third period, but ultimately fell 2-1 in overtime Saturday night in Hershey.

I flew blind listening to the game and Nick Hart on the radio as there is no AHL Live for preseason. That will be the same story for Sunday afternoon in Lehigh Valley.

Lines were:

Essentially Wednesday’s lineup but for Steve Oleksy in the game for Craig Skudalski.

Lines for the Bears were:

Provided that the Penguins’ opponents tweet something like this similar for all games, consider its a regular season. More importantly, provided I remember, too.

Steve Oleksy wore the “C” for the Penguins and Jake Lucchini and Matt Abt were in the “A’s.”

In the first, not much action in the way of scoring. The Penguins had two power plays in the period but didn’t score on them. Jordy Bellerive had three of Wilkes-Barre’s nine shots in the period.

There was a fight at the end of the period when Renars Krastenbergs hit Kris Bindulis. Kale Kessy took offense and fought Krastenbergs. First fight of the preseason three games in. You’d normally have three fights in the first minute of a preseason game, but it’s a different game now.

In the second, the Penguins killed two Bears power plays and got a late goal by Kasper Bjorkqvist to give them a 1-0 lead after the end of two periods.

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In the third, Hershey finally gets on the board and tied the game when Matt Moulson tipped in a shot for a goal on a power play with Brandon Hawkins in the box for a cross checking penalty right around halfway.

Wilkes-Barre would continue to find themselves in penalty trouble but were able to negotiate out of it. Yushi Hirano hit a post with about :20 left, but it was off to overtime.

There, Matt Abt off the hop nearly ended it early, but the puck squirted wide past Parker Milner. A few minutes later, with it being as wide open as it is in 3-on-3 overtime, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby scored to win it for the Bears.

Impressions: Hershey wasn’t at full strength but were stronger than they were last night, while the Pens dressed a “B” team if you want to call it that and but for a few late penalties in the third,. we’re dangerously close to shutting out the Bears and sweeping them in preseason. We will have to see what the team looks like in the preseason finale Sunday at 3 in Allentown against the Phantoms.

Talk to you Sunday evening after the Penguins final preseason game against Lehigh Valley at 3 p.m.

Second preseason game for the Penguins where they win 2-0 on an impressive 28 save performance from Emil Larmi.

Bears didn’t bring a full AHL crew with them to Wilkes-Barre, but it’s still live fire out there.

Apologies for formatting, typing this up on the fly in the phone.

Lines were:

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Glad that this graphic is back for another season.

Larmi opposed Logan Thompson who was scheduled for the entire game, just like Larmi.

In the first, much like Wednesday, it took over ten minutes for the Penguins to register a shot on goal. This was against a lesser experienced team on paper in the Bears. Wilkes-Barre failed to convert on two power play chances.

Play of the period came when Hershey was on a power play and Emil Larmi flicked his pad out to deny a slam dunk sure goal for the Bears Brett Leason.

In the second, ten seconds into a Kale Kessy charging penalty, Sam Lafferty picked a spot and scored a power play goal to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead.

Larmi continued to steal the show to this point, stopping the Bears on a 5×3 which led into a long power play chance on an Andrew Agozzino double minor for high sticking.

The Penguins netminder continued to weather the storm in the third. The Pens killed yet another penalty late when Hershey pulled Thompson for the extra man.

Joseph Blandisi finished off a two in one into an empty net that essentially sealed it.

Larmi finished the night with 28 saves.

Impressions: Whoever gets sent to Wheeling between Emil Larmi and Alex D’Orio is going to be an extremely difficult decision to be made for Mike Vellucci and company. Absent Jake Lucchini from Wednesday and maybe a guy like Lafferty with the goal in the second, the two best players thus far have been in goal. Nice to see the competitive fire between the two as well. Dustin Tokarski is likely the number one goalie, and may actually be number two if Casey DeSmith is somehow waived and makes it though to get the NHL Penguins cap compliant. But regardless, good competition brewing between D’Orio and Larmi.

In other news, the Penguins signed D Steve Oleksy to a PTO Friday. Nick summarized the transaction nicely:

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So that concludes the home portion of the preseason games for the Penguins. The Pens are back at it Saturday at 7 in Hershey and Sunday afternoon in Allentown against Lehigh Valley. More then.

Preseason for bloggers too so in seasons past, nothing too dressed up for you tonight. Apologies on the formatting issues if there are any.

Alex D’Orio opposed Alex Lyon.

Lines were as follows:

Ryan Scarfo – Jordy Bellerive – Jan Drozg
Kasper Björkqvist – Chase Berger – Yushi Hirano
Jake Lucchini – Miles Powell – Brandon Hawkins
Jamie Devane – Chris Brown – Renars Krastenbergs

Matt Abt – Macoy Erkamps
Michael Kim – Aaron Titcomb
Craig Skudalski – Blake Siebenaler

Alex D’Orio – Emil Larmi

Matt Abt wore the C with Chase Berger and Jake Lucchini in the A’s.

Pens got run over in the first, taking two penalties and getting scored on once when Steven Swavely popped in a rebound of an Isaac Radcliffe shot a little past half way at even strength.

Pens had just three shots on goal, and one of them came on the penalty kill, an innocuous clearing bid from their own end that they counted.

In the second, penalty trouble bit the Penguins as the Phantoms scored twice on the man advantage. Pascal Laberge put in a pass / shot from Greg Carey and then Carey again with another setup to Matt Strome for a 3-0 lead.

Things settled from there for the Pens who started to get a few power plays which looked sharp. Finally Jordy Bellerive scored on the back door on a power play to make it 3-1. A really nice setup for Jake Lucchini, who I thought was the Pens best player tonight.

Things evened out a bit in the third but when you’re down two goals and chasing the bad start you had you start to run out of time. Alex D’Orio did his part in keeping it a two goal deficit but the Pens wouldn’t draw closer. Then with under five to play and D’Orio vacated, Greg Carey hit an empty net for a three point night and it was 4-1.

It ended that way.

Impressions: I thought Jake Lucchini was far and away the Penguins best player tonight….Alex D’Orio is probably going to start the season in Wheeling but if he played like he played tonight it shouldn’t be for long. He did all he could to keep the Penguins in the game but all Wilkes-Barre did was take penalty after penalty. Take those two power play goals out of the equation and it’s a completely different game.

Penguins head coach Mike Vellucci told Tyler postgame that Emil Larmi will start and play the full 60 against Hershey Friday. Let’s hope the Penguins play a little better in front of Larmi as they did in front of D’Orio.

More then unless there’s breaking stuff Thursday.

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The goal for any hockey club is to win the last game of the season.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins did that Sunday afternoon, 5-2 over the Binghamton Devils. Sadly, they don’t qualify for a playoff berth and that’s all she wrote on the season.

Clark Donatelli put a lineup out Sunday that looked like this:

Felt like a preseason game with all of the rookies, unheard of kids and Wheeling guys in the lineup, but it was the fourth line of the Penguins that did the most damage Sunday with Cedric Lacroix scoring a pair of goals in the Penguins win. Nice win for 6’6 Matt O’Connor and the ATO guys continue to look promising.

Binghamton jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first when Ryan Schmelzer deflected a Nick Lappiun shot that gave the Devils a 1-0 lead.

Penguins trailed at the end of the first and after a zamboni breakdown in the first intermission that delayed the start of the second period by ten minutes when it was decided to simply skate on the ice from the first period, the Penguins offense roared to life.

Sam Lafferty kept it on a two on one rush and the Penguins tied it at one…

Then Cedric Lacroix stepped in to a Binghamton clear, took it in deep fired and scored his first AHL goal to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead.

Seconds after, Sam Miletic scored to make it 3-1.

To add to a long period, referees Beau Halkidis and Matt Menniti took a long look at a Binghamton would be goal that lasted well over five minutes. After the lengthy review it was deemed to be no goal and play continued.

Penguins scored three times in the span of 3:25 in the second period and capitalized on Binghamtion’s mistakes.

In the third, Jake Lucchini added a power play goal which made it 4-1.

Then Yushi Hirano, the first ever Japanese skater to play in the AHL, put a shot on that Lacroix was there to put the Pens ahead 5-1.

John Ramage added a power play goal for Binghamton that made it 5-2.

And that was all she wrote.

They will end the season in sixth place, a 36-30-7-3 record, good for 82 points. That is five off of Providence for the last playoff spot which was already decided on Friday. Lehigh Valley won five straight games to close out their season and get fifth place.

Video highlights….

It ended a lot sooner than we would have liked, but this concludes yet another season of blogging up this team, my first where playoffs do not occur. It’s been fun, as always and my pleasure to bring you my insights of this team from Northeastern Pennsylvania. Thank you for engaging with me on Twitter, Facebook, in person or e-mail.

I’ll be by Monday with my autopsy of the team and season, then Tuesday I will have the final AHL Power Rankings. Wednesday I will preview the Calder Cup Playoffs all the way to the Finals. Maybe I will come back in June to see how right or wrong I was.

And of course, most important, I will have my thoughts on the lease goings on between the Arena and the Penguins. I joked with a few people today that the main hangup on lease negotiations is who pays for the badly needed two zambonis.

Thanks again for reading, have a great summer and Let’s Go Pens!

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They dressed a youthful lineup tonight and, but for a :26 span in the the third period, were staying step for step with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers who win tonight 5-2 to secure home ice over the Hershey Bears in their first round playoff series that opens late next week.

Here is how they actually lined up:

Guys like Ryan Haggerty, Adam Johnson and Joseph Cramarossa were given the night off up front. Jeff Taylor and Tim Erixon on defense. Alex D’Orio, who is the future of the franchise in goal, got a start.

Fan Appreciation Night started with some awards.

– Defensive player of the year: Jarrett Burton
– Media Award: Kevin Czuczman
– Rookie of the Year: Sam Lafferty
– Three Stars Award: Ryan Haggerty
– Community Service: Chris Summers
– Ethan Prow picked up his award for being named to the second team all star squad.
– Fan Favorite: Tristan Jarry (absent) Andy Chiodo accepted on his behalf.
– MVP: Tristan Jarry

Can’t argue with Rookie or MVP. Blueger was probably in the mix, but Jarry got the Pens close when Blueger was already up in Pittsburgh.

Wilkes-Barre got the jump 1:07 in when Ben Sexton scored to give the Pens a 1-0 lead.

Steve Bernier was the last to deflect a shot from the point that beat D’Orio on a power play and it was tied.

Patrick McGrath had a dangerous head contact with the elbow on Captain Ben Holmstrom. Holmstorm was clearly disoriented and needed help off the ice and didn’t return. McGrath was ejected and had to fight Kiefer Bellows. Bellows was given an instigating penalty.

A lot of stuff I don’t agree with here but lets start with the instigator. Your captain just got blindsided, is flopping on the ice wondering what year it is, and you expect Bellows to just stand there, top McGrath on the shin pads and say nice hit? Gross over officiating by Peter MacDougall and Carter Sandlak in that regard. They were fine the rest of the game, but that over reach didn’t sit well with me.

Mitch Vande Sompel finished off a one timer low near side on a two man advantage that gave Bridgeport a 2-1 lead.

Jake Lucchini finished off a nice pass by Sam Lafferty on a power play to tie the game at two.

Otto Koivula got lost on transition and scored to give Bridgeport the 3-2 lead.

Alex D’Orio, for what it’s worth, played a good game. Give him a summer working under Andy Chiodo and the Pittsburgh brass and we have another goaltending stud coming through Wilkes-Barre.

Jon Lizotte had three shots as the Pens had the Sound Tigers pinned deep but couldn’t score. That was their best chance to tie it because Oliver Wahlstrom walked three defenders and leaked one past D’Orio to give the Sound Tigers a 4-2 lead. Vande Sompel made it 5-2 :26 later.

Here’s the Wahlstrom goal.

That was it. Bridgeport clinches home ice with Hershey in the first round.

Here are your three stars:

Also this,

I have stayed mum here on the blog regarding ongoing Arena negotiations. They have a confidentiality agreement in place. Anyone who thinks they know anything does not know anything. This is a bit of an empty announcement that doesn’t hold much of anything, but it’s something. Hopefully soon. My season tickets should be paid off for next year already.

Video highlights below.

They are back at it again Sunday afternoon with Binghamton in the regular series finale. Gameday setup is yours Sunday morning at 11.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I will be by at some point next week with a postmortem of what went wrong in the 2018-19 season for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, who were eliminated from playoff contention after a 8-1 loss to the Utica Comets Friday night in Central New York. To preview, there is a cost when your parent team wins two Stanley Cups in the last three years. To reiterate, the AHL is a developmental league and whatever happens here, as long as the prospects develop here, nothing matters. Zach Aston-Reese and Teddy Blueger are prime examples. I am fine with that. Don’t take this as a complaint that me as the AHL fan of the team doesn’t want to see the NHL succeed because somehow AHL>NHL. No, it’s an explanation as to one of the many reasons why the Penguins didn’t make a playoff appearance for the 17th straight season.

Long odds as they were, the Penguins could have went down with a fight. They lost 10-6 in Allentown and were swept in the mini series in the Lehigh Valley last weekend. After entering the second period down a very manageable 1-0 Friday night in Utica, the Comets outscore the Penguins 6-1 to carry a 7-1 lead into the third period in a game that ended 8-1.

To note, the Comets have won just three games in the last three weeks. Injuries have ravaged them, but that is no excuse for what I just watched Friday night and a gross disrespect to the opponent just expecting that the result would continue because you are a team that has made playoffs for sixteen straight seasons.

Fight they did in the second period. Five fights to be exact, which is the most that I can remember for a period of AHL hockey associated with this team in a long time. The game was slipping out of hand with Reid Boucher completing a hat trick in the second period and the Penguins lost control of the game and their emotions and it snowballed from there.

Unpopular opinion but Clark Donatelli, who I will address in kind next week in my autopsy of the team, did all he could to keep the team afloat and relevant till the fortnight of the regular season. With the way that the teams were playing in the season and all of the head to head meetings backloaded on the schedule this season, the Penguins saw a way into the playoffs though the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. With call ups and injures, Wilkes-Barre relied heavily on amateur tryout guys to help salvage a season. It worked to a point, a point of exhaustion. It fell apart last weekend in Allentown and the cracks started to show in the first period Friday in Utica before the dam broke in the second period.

John Muse opposed Marek Mazenec. Muse was yanked at the end of the second and Matt O’Connor made his Penguins debut and just allowed one goal in the third period in relief.

In the lineup notes, there were no changes up front but for a few shuffles here and there on the lines. Michael Kim and Jeff Taylor were back in for Jon Lizotte and Tim Erixon on defense.

Jarrett Burton scored the only goal for the Penguins in the game, coming in the second period on a rebound left by Mazanec which he swept across the line to break up the shutout bid.

Taylor Haase, who you have seen all season long on the blog here as she was nice enough to permit me embedding her tweets of the goals that she GIFed during the year, had a nice post mortem of her own on the Penguins season you can read here if you don’t want to wait for me next week. A lot on what she hit on there is relevant to what I will explain next week.

Pens will close out the 2018-19 campaign Saturday and Sunday at home, with Bridgeport and Binghamton respectively. Gameday setup hits the blog Saturday at 3 for the Sound Tigers and Sunday at 11 a.m. for the 3 p.m. finale with the Devils.

* – in case you were wondering about the headline this time, explanation here