vs.       

  5                                       4

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Two sides to this one, three if you factor in the injuries.

One hand, the Penguins played up to a Rochester team that has been at the top of the North Division for months now and lost a close game.

Other hand, Rochester played down to an opponent that lost two defensemen in a game that they badly outshot the home team, 38-23 and only won by one goal.

The Penguins lost defensemen Matt Abt and Jeff Taylor to injuries in the game and played with four defensemen in the third period where the score was 3-3.

Penguins lose 5-4. A pair of goals by Anthony Angello and two goals a piece by Zach Redmond and Victor Olofsson for Rochester.

Tristan Jarry opposed Scott Wedgewood.

Lines were…

…not correct. Zach Trotman did NOT play in the game. Jeff Taylor skated with Tim Erixon on the third defensive pairing. Sam Miletic did play, and he replaced Ryan Scarfo.

First Period: Anthony Angello got the Penguins out front first with this nice pass from Ethan Prow from the point for a 1-0 Penguin lead.

But then Macoy Erkamps fell down, turned the puck over and Zach Redmond sniped in a goal to tie the game at one.

Three people knew the gaol was scored. Jarry, Redmond and the referee who pointed goal. Pretty goal by Redmond.

Jimmy Hayes of all people finished this perfect 2-on-1 with Joseph Cramarossa to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead.

Someone get me a medic!

Dalton Smith ran over Jeff Taylor. Taylor ended up going to the room, then returned, but ultimately didn’t come out for the third.

Second Period: Danny O’Regan scored on a play where all the Penguins on the ice went for a line change leaving zero players on the ice for O’Regan to get an easy pass for a breakaway goal that made it 2-2. I mean just look at this:

I kind off feel sorry for the five guys that jumped on for those coming off, they all got minuses on the play.

Zach Redmond scored his second of the game, this time coming on the top ranked Rochester road power play, and the Penguins trailed 3-2.

Adam Johnson scored a tough breakaway goal when the sides were four on four to make it 3-3.

Penguins needed that goal, as they were getting flattened with their offensive chances.

Third Period: Ethan Prow is unable to corral a bouncing puck that ends up on Victor Olofsson’s stick eventually and the Penguins go down 4-3. Olofsson would beat Jarry high glove again about six minutes later to make it 5-3. Here they are.

Penguins get a late goal with 62 seconds left from Anthony Angello that made it 5-4, but the Penguins frantically tried to tie the game but ran out of time.

The Good: Penguins kept it close on the scoreboard and battled the Americans all night.

The Bad: Losing the two defensemen in Abt and Taylor in the second half of the game ultimately cost the Penguins chances. Rochester outshot Wilkes-Barre 14-6. If the first place Americans didn’t win this game with the Penguins only using four defensemen, that would have been bad.

Indirect Bad: If Zach Trotman can’t go tomorrow, Will O’Neill time, baby!

Wait. Hold up.

Referees Beaudry Halkidis and Andrew Wilk were great tonight. The two teams were chippy tonight, but Wilk / Halkidis kept things under control and didn’t get in the way. The players I think respected that and were more interested in trying to win the game then they were in tearing each others heads off.

Three Stars: 

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley loses 6-5 in overtime at home against Hartford. Providence takes down Springfield 2-1 in a shootout. Everyone else was off.

Standings: Charlotte 63 — Bridgeport 50 — Lehigh Valley 46 — Springfield 45 — Providence 44 — Penguins 43 — Hartford 42 — Hershey 38

Wheeling Update: Nailers got shellacked in Glens Falls by the Adirondack Thunder.

Box here.

Video Highlights:

Penguins and Bears are playing at 3:05 Saturday. In case you haven’t heard, there is a major snowstorm set to impact the area Saturday into Sunday. The game was moved up four hours because of the snowstorm. It’s January and these things happen, but that doesn’t mean I have to drive in it. I am most likely not going to the game Saturday and will likely watch on AHLTV. I don’t have an issue driving in snow. I can drive in snow and have a vehicle capable of driving in snow. It’s the other humanoids in their front wheel drive sedans that don’t know how to drive in the snow and block the road that worry me. It isn’t worth it for me to face an hour plus commute home after the game.

The Penguins seem destined to play, Hershey’s game Sunday in Bridgeport has been postponed to Monday and the Bears are planning on staying in Wilkes-Barre after the game before going up to Bridgeport after the storm passes. I’d like for the teams to just agree to postpone and play at a later date. It’s Hershey. We play them all the time. Wilkes-Barre probably has snow dates built in and it’s not like Hershey is a team like Rochester tonight who is only in once.

Anyway, Gameday setup is here Saturday at 11 a.m. If you do decide to drive out, please be careful.

Let’s Go Pens!

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3                                       5

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If I told you Thursday that the Penguins would split with the Charlotte Checkers, would you have taken it?

Don’t lie, you probably would. I would have.

But, after Wilkes-Barre dominated the AHL’s best team on Friday beating them 5-1 and making no lineup changes Saturday, Penguins fans were hoping for a clean sweep.

But Charlotte isn’t the best team in the AHL by dumb luck. A first period where the Checkers players figuratively returned to the parking lot and drove their automobiles onto the ice and ran over the Penguins skaters, out scoring the Penguins 3-0 and outshooting them 14-3, it was too big of a hole for Wilkes-Barre to dig out of.

But they did make it interesting, cutting the deficit to one on two occasions, but ultimately fall 5-3 in Charlotte and earn a split with the Checkers.

Tristan Jarry opposed Alex Nedeljkovic.

Lines were…

…essentially unchanged from Friday night.

First Period: The Penguins were freight trained in the period. Charlotte scored as many goals as WIlkes-Barre had shots.

Julian Gauthier at the high slot at 1:14 put the Checkers on the board early, then about three and a half minutes later Morgan Geekie went unmarked and floated to the high slot and ripped one and scored to make it 2-0.

Charlotte would add a third on a power play which took all of seven seconds. A face off win, a soft shot off the pads of Jarry to Zach Nastasiuk who swept the puck across the line to make it 3-0 for Charlotte.

Here are all three goals in one tweet:

It was a bad period for the Penguins, to say the least. They had this one sequence I am about to show you that summed up their period.

In on a two on one, they get chased down by Haydn Fleury and don’t get a shot or pass off. It was Anthony Angello with Cam Brown in on a two on one when Fleury just erased the play entirely.

Wilkes-Barre was outshot 14-3 in the period. Not good.

Second Period: Much better period by the Penguins in contrast to the first, but down 3-0 to an offensively explosive team in Charlotte meant that you need to capitalize on your chances when you can quickly.

Wilkes-Barre had a 4:00 power play off the hop that they didn’t score on but they did get several good looks on.

Then Cam Brown brought the Penguins on the board when a shot off the post by Anthony Angello was put in by Brown for his first as a Penguin.

Then the Penguins capitalized on a power play when Ethan Prow scored to bring Wilkes-Barre back to within one.

But then a bad pinch by Matt Abt put the Checkers on a break that became a scramble that was just too much to recover from. Nicolas Roy made it a two goal game.

Momentum with the Penguins, a whole other period to play, and Abt pinches and puts his team in a bit of a hole going into the…

Third Period: Penguins got nabbed with a too many men on the ice penalty that they were able to negotiate out of okay but when you need to score goals with time your enemy, taking penalties is not a recipe for success.

Cam Brown was stopped on one of Alex Nedeljkovic’s better saves of the night.

Jeff Taylor got the Penguins to within one with this goal here with under ten minutes to play.

Wilkes-Barre would continue to buzz and roll, hit another post but with time winding down Clark Donatelli would call time out and with Jarry pulled, Nicolas Roy intercepted a Penguin breakout and hit the empty net to ice the game away.

The Good: No quit in the team who were the better side in the second half of the contest. I like Cam Brown on the top line, he was one of the better players for WIlkes-Barre tonight.

The Bad: This one is a layup. The Penguins will want that first twenty minutes back.

Three Stars: 3) Zach Nastasiuk (goal) 2) Nicolas Roy (two goals, assist) and 1) Julian Gauthier (goal, two assists)

Around the Division: Good night, overall. Bridgeport loses at home to Hartford 4-2. Hershey finally beats Lehigh Valley in Allentown via an Ilya Samsonov shutout 3-0. Providence beats Springfield 4-3.

Setting up Your Sunday: Three games in the AHL, and two of them involve Atlantic Division teams. Home and home rematches of Hershey and Lehigh Valley and Providence in Springfield. You want a Bears win and the Providence / Springfield game to finish in regulation.

Standings: Charlotte 59 — Bridgepor 50 — Lehigh Valley 43 — Penguins 43 — Springfield 42 — Providence 41 — Hartford 40 — Hershey 34

Wheeling Update: 

Box here. The Indy Fuel were the opponent.

Video Highlights: If one of the teams puts them up, I will edit them in here when the other games go final.

Pens will fly home Sunday, probably have a few days off before a Friday home date against Rochester. News and other stuff as it comes here on the blog. If not, check out my Power Rankings Thursday morning.

Let’s Go Pens!

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5                                       1

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I am assuming that you saw this tweet this afternoon about a former Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins alum.

Tristan Jarry sure did.

Facing a sudden uncertain future with the organization he plays for, Jarry goes out and pitches a gem as the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins take down the American Hockey League’s best team 5-1 tonight in Charlotte.

That’s four straight wins for Tristan Jarry. If you were wondering, like me, how the Penguins netminder would respond in his next game in the wake of the DeSmith extension against the best team in the AHL, you have your answer.

Jarry can ball. He should get the start again Saturday in the rematch against a likely pissed off Checkers team to really show his value, but that decision rests with Clark Donatelli, not this writer.

He opposed Scott Darling.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: Cam Brown goes top line with Blueger and Angello. Hayes goes 2RW with Johnson and Lafferty. Cramarossa drops from first to third with Dea and Haggerty. Scarfo goes in w Ölund and Burton. On defense, Chad Ruhwedel was recalled after his 14 day stay on conditioning so Jeff Taylor jumped in and was paired with Tim Erixon.

Garrett Wilson was recalled earlier in the week when Zach Aston-Reese broke his hand in a fight and Patric Hornqvist left Pittsburgh’s last game with a concussion. Aston-Reese was placed on injured reserve.

First Period: I said in my Gameday setup that the Penguins almost needed to play a perfect game against Charlotte if they wanted to have success. Well, they got it in the period. Here is how.

1) Relentless forechecking.
2) Great special teams.
3) Solid goaltending.

Jarrett Burton would open the scoring when an Ethan Prow shot is blocked and the rebound is collected and a pass swept over to Jarrett Burton to give the Pens a 1-0 lead.

Linus Ölund would score short handed to give Wilkes-Barre a 2-0 lead.

Tristan Jarry was making saves like a ninja in the crease to keep the highly potent Checkers offense in the cold with saves like these.

And Anthony Angello, who had been stymied by Scott Darling, with this fitting goal here that would end Darling’s evening and gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead.

Enter Alex Nedeljkovic.

Second Period: Penguins score quickly out of the gate when Cam Brown dropped a pass to Teddy Blueger on a three on one that Blueger finished off for a 4-0 Penguins lead.

Just defensive breakdowns by the Checkers all over the place. The Penguins to this point were reading all of the passes like they knew where they were going to go before they were even made.

Checkers finally go on the board when Andrew Poturalski scored on a two on none to cut Charlotte’s deficit to three.

Wilkes-Barre managed to kill a penalty soon after the goal scored against without any issues. Charlotte found themselves in late penalty trouble. You would have like to have seen the Penguins score a goal here to really ice the game away, but they could not.

Third Period: You wanted to see the Penguins maintain the pressure and keep pushing vs. playing to protect a lead or as I sometimes like to say, “playing not to lose.” It was working. Wilkes-Barre continued to apply pressure and get good looks throughout the period.

Wilkes-Barre would be the beneficiary of two power plays in the period and finally cashed on this J-S Dea marker that would essentially ice the game away late and made it 5-1.

The Good: Penguins played that perfect game that I mentioned in the Gameday setup this afternoon. I don’t think there is any doubt that the Penguins play better depending on the quality of the opponent. Charlotte is a team that only lost eight games in regulation coming into tonight.

The Bad: Nitpicking again cause they got one and the game really wasn’t close, but the power play could have iced this game away way earlier than with less than ten minutes to play in regulation.

Three Stars:

Around the Division: Bridgeport beats Utica 4-3 in overtime. Big win for the Sound Tigers who were winless in their last three straight comings in….Lehigh Valley loses 2-1 at home to a suddenly hot Binghamton Devils team….Springfield beats Hershey 6-2 and Providence doubles up Hartford 6-3.

Standings: Charlotte 57 – Bridgeport 50 – Lehigh Valley 43 – Penguins 43 – Springfield 42 – Providence 39 – Hartford 38 – Hershey 32

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout 3-0 at home by the Utah Grizzlies.

Video Highlights: 

Pens and Checkers are back at it again Saturday at 6 o’clock. Gameday setup is yours here on the blog Saturday at 2.

Let’s Go Pens!