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3                                          2

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Remember this point come the Spring.

That’s because the Penguins deserved to straight up lose this game against the Hershey Bears.

The Bears, playing their third game in three nights, came into Wilkes-Barre against a Penguin team that had Saturday night off and stayed step for step with the Penguins.

The Penguins, having been idle the night before, went 0-for-7 on the power play including a long stretch of 5-on-3 time in the second period in where they failed to register a shot on goal. They registered just six shots on the power play all night, four of those coming in the first period on one power play. Penguins had 27 shots on goal all game.

To get a point and ultimately lose in the shootout 3-2 won’t sit well with the Penguins coaching staff. Make no mistake, this was a game the Penguins should have won handily.

Maybe if they played the game without a penalty the outcome would have been different. Where’s Jeff Smith when you need him.

Casey DeSmith opposed Pheonix Copley.

Lines were…

Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Ryan Haggerty
Garrett Wilson – Colin Smith – Daniel Sprong
Gage Quinney – Adam Johnson – Dominik Simon
Tom Sestito – Teddy Blueger – Freddie Tiffels

Andrey Pedan – Lukas Bengtsson
Dylan Zink – Kevin Czuczman
Jarred Tinordi – Chris Summers

Casey DeSmith – Colin Stevens

Lineup Notes: Christian Thomas traveled for Finland today to play in the Karjala Cup this week in Finland. Thomas DiPauli was a healthy scratch. These two made was for Freddie Tiffels and Colin Smith, making his Penguins debut. On defense, Jarred Tinordi made his Penguins regular season debut and was joined by Dylan Zink for Ethan Prow and Kevin Spinozzi on defense.

First Period: 1:18 into the game, Daniel Sproing scored. he hd his stick on the ice, Kevin Czuczman shot the puck to his stick and the physics of it all saw the puck deflect off Sprong’s stick and into the net to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead…

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Game then devolved into a penalty fest. No flow and a parade to the penalty box.

Then s hot through traffic was redirected in by Wayne Simpson to draw the Bears even with the Penguins to tie the score at one all…

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Second Period: Penguins found themselves on the right side of 1:39 of a two-man advantage but in that same two-man advantage failed to register a shot on Copley. Bears killed it easy after just watching the Penguins complete passes in the zone without attempting a shot.

Bears cashed on a power play when Travis Boyd made his shot count that made it 2-1 for Hershey…

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Boyd lost the handle, regathered and snapped a shot off and it went in.

Dea hit the top of the cross bar on a late Penguins power play. Wilkes-Barre made a late push for the tying goal towards the end of the period.

Third Period: Zach Aston-Reese scored his first goal of the season on a wicked wrap-around attempt that went through Copley…

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Colin Smith collected an assist on that play, his first point in a Penguin sweater.

Game evened out after that and they teams headed to…

Overtime: Penguins lost the game because they couldn’t capitalize on the man advantage today. They got a point because of the saves Casey DeSmith made in the game, none more memorable than this robbery on future Hall-of-Famer Chris Bourque….

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The League didn’t let the GIF go for a few more seconds or else you would have seen Bourque lay on the ice lifeless like someone sucked his soul out of his eyeballs. Terrific save by Casey DeSmith who was outstanding again tonight.

Shootout: I don’t have a GIF of the goal that Wayne Simpson scored in the bottom of the first. He made a deke on DeSmith and scored. No Penguin scored in the three rounds, with Colin Smith here in the top of the third needing to score to extend it but failing…

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Three Stars: 3) Daniel Sprong (goal, +2) 2) Zach Aston-Reese (goal, +1) and 1) Wayne Simpson (goal in regulation, goal in the shootout, -1)

Around the Division: Bridgeport shuts out Providence 6-0. Sebastian Aho had a hat trick, the second time that the Sound Tigers shut out the Bruins this weekend. The Bruins shut out the Bruins on Friday 1-0…Hartford beats Springfield 4-2 and Toronto, who is in Wilkes-Barre Wednesday, beats Lehigh Valley 5-1. The Checkers were the only Atlantic Division team not in action Sunday.

Standings: Lehigh Valley (.750 percentage points) — Penguins (.750) — Charlotte (.727) — Providence (.636) — Bridgeport (.545) — Hartford (.423) — Hershey (.417) — Springfield (.192)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are off until this Friday when they host the Toledo Walleye.

If Coal Street puts out a video package, I will run the video here.

Power Rankings Monday at 4. But for breaking news elsewhere, check you back here on the blog for the Wednesday setup against the Toronto Marlies at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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6                                          5

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Most exciting game in recent memory against two heavyweight teams. The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins and Lehigh Valley Phantoms duked it out in a knock down, drag out contest that saw the Penguins win the game in a shootout 6-5 on the only goal scored in the exhibition gallery from Christian Thomas in the bottom of the third round.

Thomas, who is leaving for Finland to participate in the Karjala Cup on Sunday, which is going to be used as an evaluation for Team Canada for the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics had an all around great game and the game winning shootout goal was just the icing on the cake.

Heippa, by the way, is “goodbye” in the Finnish language. Now you know. Something else you should know is that the Penguins have won six games in a row.

With the win and the Providence regulation loss to Bridgeport, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are in sole possession of first place of the Atlantic Division.

Casey DeSmith opposed Dustin Tokarski.

Lines were…

Dominik Simon – Adam Johnson – Christian Thomas
Garrett Wilson – Gage Quinney – Daniel Sprong
Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Ryan Haggerty
Tom Sestito – Teddy Blueger – Thomas Di Pauli

Andrey Pedan – Lukas Bengtsson
Kevin Czuczman – Kevin Spinozzi
Chris Summers – Ethan Prow

Casey DeSmith – Colin Stevens

Lineup Notes: Colin Smith, Jarred Tinordi and Jeff Taylor practiced in full this week and are expected back soon. As mentioned in the open, Christian Thomas will leaving Sunday for the Karjala Cup. Read more about it all that here. Tom Kostopoulos was out injured again, word is a day-to-day, upper body injury for the Penguins captain.

First Period: An all out assault by the Phantoms to open, who jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in shots then got a power play. But the Penguins forecheck on the penalty kill forced a turnover to Garrett Wilson who was robbed by Tokarski in this sequence….

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Someone should alert Lehigh Valley social that Tokarki’s nickname (when he was with Norfolk) was, “tick.” Perhaps it is still is.

I’ll let Tyler set up how the Phantoms scored even strength…

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…and Taylor will show you how it looked…

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The first even strength goal allowed by Casey DeSmith this season in 130:54.

Penguins withstood a relentless charge by the Phantoms to end the period aided by a 4:00 high sticking penalty against them when Chris Summers caught Danick Martel with a high stick off of a a face-off. The Penguins got lucky when the referee lost sight of a puck that was loose in DeSmith’s crease but were able to kill both ends of the double minor.

Second Period: Penguins get on the board with Gage Quinney’s fourth goal of the season, digging a puck out of the pads of Tokarski to tie the game at one a piece.

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Penguins started the period with a blitzkrieg on the Phantoms to start the period but unlike the Phantoms, were able to get goals. On a power play, Christian Thomas scored this goal after this ridiculous pass by Dominik Simon in front…

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10 points this season for Dominik Simon.

Then, a wild sequence for both teams.

With Kevin Spinozzi in the box for a bonkers play where it appeared (to me) that Mark Friedman comes in offsides and then is tripped by Spinozzi, Danick Martel blew a tire and J-S Dea skated in, faked Tokarski into a poke check and scored shorthanded to make it 3-1 Penguins….

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Pens about to blow the game open, right?

Wrong.

Danick Martel atones for the last play and scores to bring the Phantoms back to within one.

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He walked DeSmith out of his crease like a dog out of his coop there.

Wild :45 of play, where both teams score on special teams.

Pens had a goal taken away when Garrett Wilson made contact with Tokarski. Referee Tim Mayer correctly disallowed the would be goal by Ethan Prow immediately.

Small turning point for the Phantoms who get goals by T.J. Brennan, a seeing eye deal that DeSmith never saw…

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Then Mikhail Vorobyev scored to make it 4-3 Lehigh Valley.

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With 10.4 seconds left, J-S Dea stripped a Phantom of the puck, found Ryan Haggerty who unleashed his lethal shot he is known for and beat Tokarski, bar down and in that made it 4-4 heading into the third period.

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Third Period: Back and forth, end to end action with neither team backing down, giving an inch to their opponent. Pens had to kill two penalties and did.

Overtime: No scoring, but the Phantoms found themselves shorthanded twice. Wilkes-Barre was unable to capitalize.

Shootout: Dea and Corban Knight missed in round one, Sprong and Oskar Lindblom missed in round two, Chris Conner missed in the top of the third and then Christian Thomas won it here…

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Three Stars: Ryan Haggerty (two goals, +2) 2) Chris Conner (goal, two assists, +2) and 1) Garrett Wilson (three assists, +1)

A note on Wilson from Nick Hart:

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Around the Division: Another exciting game happened tonight between the Hershey Bears and the Rochester Americans with tons of goals and lots of lead changes. Rochester wins in a shootout, 7-6….Springfield picks up a win over Hartford 5-3….Bridgeport beats Providence 1-0 thanks to a 27 save shutout by Chris Gibson….Charlotte pounds Belleville in Ontario 6-1.

Standings: Penguins (.778 percentage points) — Lehigh Valley (.727) — Charlotte (.700) — Providence (.667) — Bridgeport (.444) — Hartford (.409) — Hershey (.400) — Springfield (.227)

Wheeling Update: Reid Gardiner was named ECHL Rookie of the Month on Wednesday. Tonight against Cincinnati Gardiner had a goal and an assist but it was not enough for the Nailers who lost 4-3 in overtime to the Cyclones.

Pens are off Saturday, back in action Sunday against the Hershey Bears at 3:05. Gameday setup is yours Sunday at 11 a.m.

Let’s Go Pens!