Chirps from Center Ice

       vs.       

5                                          2

–

Alright, so before you say it, I will say it for you. The Penguins didn’t have an issue in goal tonight.

Anthony Peters started the game for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins tonight and looked solid in goal. After a scoreless first period and the Penguins jumping out to a 1-0 lead after a Teddy Blueger tip in of an Andrey Pedan shot that set off the abalone of stuffed teddy bears, the Penguins would normally settle in and take control of a game in which they had the lead.

Only it didn’t happen that way.

Here’s how the goals were scored by the Americans tonight and I will do my best to deflect away from it being the goalies fault because the goalie isn’t named Casey DeSmith.

Goal #1: Eric Cornel scored on a rebound when Frank Corrado lost his man in the corner and Nick Baptiste got alone in front of Peters. Baptiste put a shot on that Pters stopped, but the rebound bled to Rodrigues for a tie game at one.

Goal #2: Seth Griffith breaks in behind the defense, doesn’t have the puck under control enough to shoot a good shot, stops, waits for his trailer to come down the line, makes a pass that is slammed home for a 2-1 Rochester lead. It’s a high skill play that you rarely see in the AHL because guys in that situation will just shoot it to see what happens or make a bad pass to the trailing teammate. Evan Rodrigues had the goal.

Goal #3: Garret Ross scored when Peters was down and out after making a skate save. Ross found the puck and put it over Peters for a 3-1 lead.

Goal #4: On a 5-on-3 power play, Rodrigues is planted in front of the net and a pass from C.J. Smith deflects off of Rodrigues’ skate and right under Peters and in.

All of the goals for the Americans came in the second period. They would add an empty net goal with Peters pulled when Smith beat Andrey Pedan to an icing call and flipped the puck into the vacated space to make it a 5-2 final score.

If you want to be mad that the Penguins lost tonight, by all means be my guest. Blame the officials, who I thought were particularly awful tonight, completely unaware how to handle a face-off and letting the game get out of hand. Blame the Penguins lack of urgency at times but be sure to credit Rochester’s defense, who did an excellent job of containing the Penguins dangerous offense tonight. Just please don’t blame the goaltending.

Penguins got their second goal when Teddy Blueguer chased down Rochester goaltender Linus Ullmark forcing him into a turnover that Blueger put into an empty net for at the time a 4-2 lead for the Amerks.

I mean, that’s it. Rochester had seven power plays to the Pens one, but the Amerks only scored on one power play after the Penguins were deep in the hole. Dominik Simon left the game after the first period when he blocked a shot in the first. He looked OK after, but most likely for precautionary reasons, they kept him out the rest of teh way. Clark Donatelli told Tyler postgame that he didn’t have an update.

No decision on who starts Sunday afternoon in Hershey.

Here are the goals the Penguins scored in GIF format.

–

Here were the lines…

Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Ryan Haggerty
Dominik Simon – Colin Smith – Christian Thomas
Garrett Wilson – Adam Johnson – Josh Archibald
Thomas Di Pauli – Teddy Blueger – Daniel Sprong

Andrey Pedan – Kevin Czuczman
Chris Summers – Zach Trotman
Jarred Tinordi – Frank Corrado

Anthony Peters – Colin Stevens

Sprong and Tom Sestito swapped spots on the fourth line, Summers and Lukas Bengtsson did the same on the back end.

Around the Division: Toronto beats Hartford in overtime 4-3…Utica edges Bridgeport in a shootout 2-1…Hershey shuts out Milwaukee 3-0…Lehigh Valley loses in overtime to Laval 4-3 and Providence beats Binghamton 4-2. Springfield and Charlotte had the night off, they meet Sunday afternoon in Charlotte.

Standings: Penguins (.711 percentage points) — Providence (.650) — Lehigh Valley (.630) — Bridgeport (.619) — Charlotte (.614) — Hershey (.500) — Hartford (.417) — Springfield (.396)

Wheeling Update: win in overtime against Reading 5-4.Nailers Garrett Meurs potted the game winner 2:10 into the extra session. Will King picked up the win. Nailers host Fort Wayne Sunday at 3:05.

Pens travel to Hershey for a 5 p.m. start against the Bears. Gameday setup will hit the blog Sunday afternoon at 1.

Let’s Go Pens!

       vs.       

4                                          5

–

This game had everything.

From a hat trick in the first period to two shorthanded goals and two goaltenders duking it out trying to keep their team in it, this was an exciting matchup between two teams that haven’t met in the regular season in the better part of a decade. Best yet, as the game wore on, they quickly grew an appetite of distaste for one another.

Penguins win 5-4 in overtime off of another game winning goal from the stick of J-S Dea. Stats and color man Nick Hart tweeted after the game that Dea now pulls into a tie with Tomáš Surový and Scott Wilson for the second-most game-winning goals in Penguins franchise history with 14.

Colin Stevens opposed Jusse Saros. This game really was a goaltending duel more than people realize. For Stevens, it was his first AHL start.

Lines were…

Zach Aston-Reese — J-S Dea — Ryan Haggerty
Dominik Simon – Colin Smith – Christian Thomas
Garrett Wilson – Adam Johnson – Josh Archibald
Tom Sestito – Teddy Blueger – Thomas Di Pauli

Andrey Pedan – Lukas Bengtsson
Kevin Czuczman – Zach Trotman
Jarred Tinordi – Frankie Corrado

Colin Stevens – Anthony Peters.

Lineup Notes: Daniel Sprong was a healthy scratch tonight. No, he’s not getting called up. He was a straight up scratch tonight. If body language was any indicator, he didn’t take it too well. His chin strap was not tied, he looked totally disengaged in warmups when his teammates were rushing, talking to the trainers on the bench during and left the ice with 3:30 to go in the warmup session. There was a report this week that GM Jim Rutherford told the Pittsburgh media that Daniel Sprong will not be called up any time soon because the coaching staff in Wilkes-Barre has given the brass in Pittsburgh no reason for him to be called up. If this is how Sprong reacts to the adversity of being scratched by the coaching staff, that is not a good sign.

I had someone on Twitter tell me that Sprong has had attitude problems going all the way back to his midget days and those problems were why he slipped in the QMJHL draft and followed him to his Junior team.

Tyler asked after the game and was told this…

–

Chris Summers was given the night off. Josh Archibald was sent down on conditioning for the weekend to get him reps. Garrett Wilson was back also with Tom Sestito. Gage Quinney and Jarrett Burton were the odd men out of the forward corps.

First Period: In order for the Penguins to have success in the game tonight, the blueprint was to scored the first goal.

Check.

–

Ridiculous pass from Josh Archibald there to set up the Wilson goal.

Penguins gave up a shorthanded goal to ex-Penguin Harry Zolnierczyk that made it 1-1.

But then Garrett Wilson completed his hat trick with this seeing eye goal through bodies that made it 2-1…

–

And then :05 into a power play, the hats flew…

–

Credit to Colin Stevens, he had some big stops early on to keep Milwaukee to just one goal early on. Wilkes-Barre did a good job of insulating him in the first, and he did the rest in making the saves he needed to.

Second Period: Admirals leading scorer Emil Pettersson skated to the slot and let it rip and beat Stevens to make it a one goal game again.

Here is where Saros settled in and kept his team in the game by not allowing the Penguins to score on some decent chances. Colin Smith and Adam Johnson had better chances, Saros stopped them all. Milwaukee bided their time, waiting for a good opportunity on Stevens to make it 3-3.

But it never happened. The Penguins caused a delay of game for a face-off violation, giving the Admirals a power play. To be fair, both teams had issues with the way that linesman Tom DellaFranco and J.P. Waleski handled face-offs, but the Penguins had to pay a penalty out of it.

Josh Archibald wants you to remember that speed kills…

–

Big goal at the time. A one goal game is a one shot game. Momentum can turn instantly. Penguins skated into the second intermission up a pair.

Third Period: Milwaukee finally broke through on a power play when Mark Zengerle collected a puck far side and just dialed in and picked his spot on Stevens all in close that made it a one goal Penguin lead.

Milwaukee continued the sustained pressure. They hit a post. Finally, Zengerle put a shot on Stevens that he flicked away with the right pad but Anthony Richard was right place, right time and put the rebound home to make it 4-4 and a tie game.

That goal came with under five minutes to play. But for a total breakdown which didn’t come, it was off to…

Overtime: Stevens made a skate save in the overtime session, then J-S Dea skated on off the bench and ended it…

–

Ballgame.

Use your offensive pieces to jump ahead on your opponent and your defense to insulate your young goaltender, get some OK saves out of him and a great team wins a good game. Easy. Just replicate it two more times this weekend and we all sincerely regret any doubts coming into the weekend in the goaltending department.

Three Stars: 3) Josh Archibald (goal, assist, even) 2) J-S Dea (overtime game winning goal, even) and 1) Garrett Wilson (hat trick, +1)

Around the Division: Bridgeport wins a run and gun, 13 goal affair with the Utica Comets 7-6 in overtime. Best part about this is that these two teams rematch tomorrow in Bridgeport….Lehigh Valley pounds Hershey 7-2….Providence edges Binghamton 3-2….Hartford beats Rochester 5-4 in a shootout and Charlotte beats Springfield 4-1.

Standings: Penguins (.750 percentage points) — Lehigh Valley (.636) — Providence (.632) — Bridgeport (.625) — Charlotte (.614) — Hershey (.477) — Hartford (.413) — Springfield (.396)

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose at home to the Reading Royals 4-3. Cody Wydo had a goal and an assist. Reading stays the night and the two teams rematch tomorrow in Wheeling.

Video Highlights: 

–

Rochester comes to town tomorrow with a boatload of ex-Penguins. Gameday for that matchup hist the blog Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!