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After a 13 goal explosion in Bridgeport Sunday, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins needed to tighten things up.

Success defensively. They allowed the opponent, tonight it was the Providence Bruins, just one goal in regulation on a busted tic-tac-toe play on a power play.

But, the offense sputtered at times with Bruins starting goaltender Dan Vladar stymying the Penguins with save after save after save, until Sam Lafferty struck with under five minutes to play to tie the game to force overtime.

Overtime was run and gun, as you would expect when you remove two skaters and go three on three, and the Bruins strike on a power play goal and take a 2-1 overtime decision from the Penguins Friday night.

Baby steps. The Pens lost their two leading scorers in Zach Aston-Reese and Garrett Wilson to recall to a sputtering Pittsburgh Penguins team earlier in the week. Perhaps the best team for the Penguins to face was the last place in the Atlantic Providence Bruins.

Tristan Jarry opposed the aforementioned Vladar.

Lines were…

Lineup Notes: With Garrett Wilson and Zach Aston-Reese in Pittsburgh, the forward lines were shuffled top to bottom. Johnson-Grant-Hayes was a new top line….Jarrett Burton replaced Aston-Reese on the second line with Lafferty and Haggerty….DiPauli moves up to the third line w/ Blueger & Angelo and Ryan Horvat jumped back in and Ölund drops from 1C to 4C w/ Lindberg.

On defense, there were new defensive pairings there as well. Czuczman and Elliott; Summers / O’Neill and Abt (for Taylor) with Prow.

Injury wise, Nick Hart mentioned that Zach Trotman is week to week with a lower body injury.

First Period:  Penguins were aggressive off the hop on their first shift; Ryan Haggerty flipped a puck in from center ice, Sam Lafferty tracked it down from behind the net and centered to Haggerty who put a good shot on Vladar.

Wilkes-Barre would take an offensive zone penalty and the Providence power play made them pay on a nice tic-tac-toe scoring play that Martin Bakos finished that game the Bruins a 1-0 lead.

Ryan Fitzgerald to Jan Kovar to Bakos for the goal. Pens lost a mini scrum along the near wall there. Fourth straight game where the opponent scores first.

The Pens weren’t able to score on a late power play and it was noted on the broadcast that the Bruins were perfect going into tonight’s game on opponents penalty kills at home (12/12) – the Pens had a few late looks but could not solve Vladar.

Second Period: No scoring in the period, but loads of action. Bruins started with some early action, then Anthony Angello was denied in the high slot via a glove save by Vladar.

Then Ryan Horvat was chasing down a puck that was dying on an icing call and hit Emil Johansson. The initial call was a boarding call, but Trent Frederic, who was wreaking shop on the Pens prior to this, took it upon himself to fight Horvat.

Frederic picked up an instigating minor, a fighting major and a ten minute misconduct.

More heavy pressure from both teams as the period winded down, but neither goaltender blinked. A goalie battle was a-bruin’ in Providence.

Third Period: If the Penguins would have scored on a power play here which would have been the first goal scored by a visiting team on a power play against the Bruins, that would have carried more headlines. Penguins had three chances and were not able to score.

Sam Lafferty stripped Wiley Sherman at his own blue line and scored to tie the game late.

Penguins had a late power play which bled over to…

Overtime: I think I will Periscope overtime road games as long as I am able, like I did here…

You will see there that the Penguins weren’t able to score on the carryover power play time and that Tobias Lindberg takes a cross checking call. Bruins head coach Jay Leach calls time out, Providence keeps it in and in and in on the power play before Ryan Fitzgerald or Cody Goloubef scored to give the Bruins the extra point.

Here it is in a tweet:

Three Stars: 3) Dan Vladar (27 saves on 28 shots) 2) Martin Bakos (goal) and 1) Ryan Fitzgerald (overtime game winning goal, assist)

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley obliterates Springfield 8-2 in Allentown…Utica beats Hartford at home 4-3 in a shootout…Binghamton drops Charlotte 4-3 on the Southern Tier. Hershey and Bridgeport had the night off.

Standings: Charlotte 20 — Springfield 16 — Lehigh Valley 16 — Bridgeport 15 — Penguins 14 — Hershey 13 — Hartford 13 — Providence 9

Wheeling Update: Nailers crush Greenville in West Virginia 5-1. Renars Krastenbergs, Cam Brown and Troy Josephs were some of the goal scorers for the Nailers. Johnny Muse stopped 17 of 18.

I doubt Providence will have any highlights package, since they don’t even have a broadcaster, only one camera at the Dunkin Donuts Center and get by on the bare minimum as an AHL franchise. But if I see one, I will tweet it here.

Pens are staying in Providence till Tuesday. They are going to Hartford tomorrow. That Gameday setup will be here on the blog for you at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I said this in my Friday game recap after the first period of action against Hartford when it was 2-2 after 20 minutes of play…

Four goals in 10:50. The Penguins don’t like to play run and gun and would lose more than they would win playing that style, so the game at that point needed to slow down for success to occur.

An 8-5 setback in Bridgeport Sunday afternoon / evening. More like evening, despite the game ending at quarter to six on Sunday. It’s dark now. It didn’t start getting dark until 8:30 just a few weeks ago. Summer is a distant memory…

Anyway.

The run and gun style is not the style that the Penguins can play with any kind of success, they just don’t have the firepower up front to get it all to click at one time in one game. Sound Tigers go up 4-1 after the first Sunday, were up 7-1 at one point in the second period before the Penguins claw back in the third when the game was well decided.

Credit the Penguins for not giving up, not rolling over, not getting injured. They lost Zach Trotman at some point to an injury early in the second but ran out of time in trying to mount anything close to a comeback. It’s a weird game because the Penguins will win 90% of the games where they score at least five goals, but giving up four in the first to an opponent, facing a seven goal deficit to the opponent at some point in the game and no team anywhere is going to have success against their opponent.

So where do we go from here, 1-2 on the weekend? The start. The start for the Penguins both games Saturday and Sunday has been less than stellar. Nick Hart on radio hyped up the Penguins being, “ready” for the Sound Tigers and Ryan Haggerty talking about, “showtime” as he stepped off of the bus Sunday morning.

Haggerty was held without a point and was a -2.

But I am not picking on Haggerty. The Penguins simply were not ready to play today, down 3-0 before the half way point of the game. Anthony Peters got the start for Wilkes-Barre / Scranton but was relieved by Tristan Jarry in the second period onward. The Penguins are not going to want to have Jarry or Peters or whoever it is appear in three straight games back-to-back-to-back, The starts have been poor, (going down 2-0 in the first 12 minutes Saturday; the run and gun in the first Friday) and they need to improve, quickly.

Silver linings were Zach Aston-Reese’s hat trick and assist, Garrett Wilson’s three point (2-1) game and Ethan Prow’s three assist as Prow remains one of the best defensemen in the AHL. The Penguins connected on three power play goals.

Ask yourself this question. Would you rather lose 8-5 or win 8-5 but at some point cough up a six goal lead?

Game story after the jump because it’s going to be a lengthy one on your browser or phone if you didn’t link in direct.

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Before you start, yes, I know it’s John Fogerty. Work with me, people.

Steven Fogarty’s two goals tonight for the Hartford Wolf Pack and backup goaltender Marek Mazanec’s 35 save performance carry the Wolf Pack in a 3-2 win in Wilkes-Barre against the Penguins.

The Pens found themselves in penalty trouble again, giving up five chances to the visitors and getting scored on once, by Fogarty. It’s an area that they need to clean up and quick.

Another area to clean up is responding on back to back games. The Penguins are now 0-2-0-1 on games where they played the night before. Splitting weekend series is OK, but just OK. The Penguins are mired in the middle of the Atlantic Division now because if it.

No time to rest as the Penguins are right back at it Sunday afternoon in Bridgeport.

Tristan Jarry opposed the aforementioned Mazanec.

Lines were…

Notes: Stefan Elliott was in for Kevin Czuczman, the Penguins probably wanted to ease Czuczman back into things and not play him on back to backs and Jeff Taylor was in for Matt Abt. No changes up front to any of the forward lines.

Tristan Jarry appeared in his 100th AHL game for Wilkes-Barre tonight. He is the fourth goalie in Penguins history to match that feat.

First Period: :35 in, a slashing penalty was called on Thomas DiPauli and Fogarty bagged his first goal of the night on the power play with a back door tap in that gave the Wolf Pack a 1-0 lead.

Penguins get it back late in the period as a puck stays onside and it put home by Ryan Haggerty to tie the game at one…

EDIT: Hold the phone on the above. Sam Lafferty on line one…

Second Period: Fogarty again. He led a two-on-one break while the teams were 4-on-4 and snapped a shot over Jarry’s glove to make it a 2-1 lead for Hartford.

Bobby Butler followed up about two and a half minutes later on a back door slam dunk goal that made it 3-1 Hartford.

Despite this, I had a feeling that the Penguins were still in it.

Zach Trotman gave me hope…

Face-off win by Teddy Blueger back to Trotman who stepped into one and scored.

Penguins would get no closer though. With a late power play that spilled over to the…

Third Period: …the Pens would have to kill separate tripping penalties by Sam Lafferty and Tobias Lindberg but couldn’t find the equalizing goal. Garrett Wilson came close, though…

With about 1:10 of 6-on-5 with Jarry pulled time to work with, the Penguins never found the equalizer.

Three Stars: 

Around the Division: Every team in the Atlantic Division faced off against the team they played Friday night. Those teams that lost on Friday all won on Saturday but for Charlotte, who is playing on a different planet right now as the first team to ten wins with a 3-2 win against the Providence Bruins. Bridgeport hands Springfield their first regulation loss of the season with a 5-2 decision…Rochester beats Hershey 4-1 and Lehigh Valley, who lost Friday in overtime to the Devils, get two late goals to tie then the overtime goal to win at home and repay the favor to defeat Binghamton 3-2.

Standings: Charlotte 20 – Springfield – 16 – Lehigh Valley 14 – Penguins 13 – Bridgeport, Hartford and Hershey all with 11 in that order – Providence 8

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose in their home opener against the Indy Fuel 5-3. John Muse was in net and took the loss. Troy Josephs had a pair of goals.

If I see a highlight package from Coal Street I will run it here.

Gameday setup for the Sunday affair in Bridgeport hits the blog Sunday at 11. Please don’t forget to turn your clocks back an hour.

Let’s Go Pens!