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Casey DeSmith’s season high 45 saves on Sunday afternoon give the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins a 2-1 win against a desperate Utica Comets team fighting of their playoff lives.

Six regulars on NHL recall to Pittsburgh, but the Penguins have won four straight, seven of their last eight and sweep the weekend here.

Consider this the rehearsal when the Penguins rematch with the Comets next Sunday which also happens to be Wrestlemania. I’m a big wrestling mark and I’m going to have a basement full of frosties and friends over for the Show of Shows a week from now. So this game recap is being hammered out in the parking lot. Mind the misspellings and comma splices, moreseo than usual.

Lines were:

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Casey DeSmith was backed up by Tristan Jarry. He opposed Michael Gartieg.

Lineup Notes: Two lineup changes and a surprise. Patrick McGrath was in for Adam Krause and Frank Corrado was in for Ryan Segalla. Now the surprise, as Obie was tweeted the line rushes above, I was looking for an extra forward and saw a 19 skate by. Wait a minute…Garrett Wilson! Indeed it was he!

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First Period: Penguins went up 11-1 on shots then the Comets rattled off nineteen shots for a season high in a period for them and a season high in saves in a period for a Penguins goaltender. Some of the saves made by DeSmith were highlight reel caliber. For two teams playing their third game in under 48 hours, combining for 35 shots total in the period was a sight to see.

Second Period: Pens had thought they scored on this play but ref Mike Sheehan waved it off and the call was confirmed on replay.

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Good call here. Puck hit both posts and never fully crossed. Better call by Sheehan in real time waving it off.

Penguins got a power play that came and went. Then Utica got a power play and of course scored to take the 1-0 lead. Darren Archibald pounced on a juicy rebound left by DeSmith that gave the Comets the 1-0 lead.

:41 later, Sahir Gill connected on a power play which counted and tied it at one.

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After a first period where both teams seemingly went for broke, the teams were deadlocked at one heading into the…

Third Period: Dominik Simon scored this goal over a way out of his crease Gartieg gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead they would never relinquish…

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Wilkes-Barre just ground the clock down form there. The Comets, with Gartieg pulled, were never able to find the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Sahir Gill (goal. even) 2) Dominik Simon (goal, +1) and 1) Casey DeSmith (45 saves on 46 shots)

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley was down 3-1 to start the third at home against Bridgeport and storm back and take the Sound Tigers to overtime and beat them 4-3….Hershey beat St. John’s on the Rock 2-1…Rochester shutout Springfield 2-0 and Providence beat Hartford 5-2. Rare that all seven teams in the division are in action on a Sunday.

Standings: Penguins (.709 percentage points) — Lehigh Valley (.672) — Providence (.649) — Hershey (.640) — Bridgeport (.612) — Springfield (.485) — Hartford (.373)

Penguins can clinch Friday if Bridgeport, who is in action Wednesday, loses and the Penguins win Friday and the Sound Tigers fail to record at least a point. Or, the Sound Tigers can pick up a point Wednesday and lose clean Friday but the Penguins would still have to win Friday.

Sprong Watch: Daniel Sprong’s Charlottetown Islanders hold a 2-0 series lead on the Base-Comeau Drakkar as now the series switches to Quebec Tuesday for Game 3.

Wheeling Update: Nailers were off. More on them Tuesday in the Wheeling Wrap.

Video highlights….

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Week 24 AHL Power Rankings hit the blog Monday at 4.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Let me front load this pun headline for you.

PPL is a power company, short for, “Pennsylvania Power and Light.”

When someone does something which is, “lights out” it usually means that their actions were stupendous, or above average.

The play of Tristan Jarry and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins top rated penalty kill were lights out tonight.

Lights out, at PPL Center? Get it?

35 saves by the Penguins netminder in one of his finest performances in a Penguins sweater and the penalty kill goes 9-for-9 tonight and the Penguins rout the Phantoms 4-0 in Allentown to go five points clear of the second place Phantoms.

Oh, and with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers loss to the Hartford Wolf Pack, the magic number for a playoff spot should be 9 after tonight.

The aforementioned Tristan Jarry opposed Alex Lyon.

Lines were…

Zach Aston-Reese – Kevin Porter – Tom Kostopoulos
Dominik Simon – Teddy Blueger – Ryan Haggerty
Thomas DiPauli – J-S Dea – Sahir Gill
Troy Josephs – Jarrett Burton – Adam Krause

Derrick Pouliot – Ethan Prow
Barry Goers – Brett Stern
Ryan Segalla – Tim Erixon

Tristan Jarry – Casey DeSmith

Lineup Notes: About an hour before the game, Pittsburgh recalled David Warsofsky and returned Frank Corrado. Corrado didn’t make it in time to Allentown, so Ryan Segalla made his debut. No lineup changes up front.

First Period: Much like last night, the Penguins went a few minutes without registering a shot on goal and had to kill a penalty. They killed that penalty and then Phantom killer Teddy Blueger scored a goal that gave him his first goal against Lehigh Valley this season (to go along with eight assists)

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On the goal, it was Tom Kostopoulos’ 50th point of the season and 200th point in his second stint with the team. Aston-Reese picked up another point, winning a race to the puck from behind the net, passed to Kostopoulos who then passed to Blueger for the goal.

Tristan Jarry had a solid period, makings one key saves as the Phantoms were starting to push.

Second Period: Penguins fourth line, the penalty kill and Tristan Jarry were the story off this period.

Adam Krause and Jarrett Burton scored for the Penguins, Troy Josephs picked up his first pro point on the Burton goal and Wilkes-Barre went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.

Oh, and Tristan Jarry was in god mode. “God mode” would have been an alternative headline if I wasn’t an actual God fearing Catholic…

Here are the Krause and Burton goals…

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Tristan Jarry faced 16 shots in the period and made a great save on Taylor Leier going post to post to keep the game scoreless. Really great job by unsung heroes, special teams and the number one goaltender in the period.

Third Period: Penalties would continue. Wilkes-Barre took four straight. All legit. A slash, a face off violation for closing your hand on the puck, a hold and a check to the head. I personally thought that Jake Brenk and Mike Sheehan had a great game from the officials standpoint. The Penguins coaching staff isn’t going to be happy with all the penalties though.

Penguins would somehow outshoot the Phantoms 14-11 in the period.

Turning point in this one would be the Phantoms inability to score on :50 of a 5-on-3 even with a Scott Gordon timeout which came during the two man advantage. Penguins disposed of the penalties, continued to stick to the plan of the penalty kill and time got in the way of a Phantoms comeback.

In a true laugh out loud moment, the Penguins would score a power play goal late and ended up the night 1-for-3 on the man advantage. Who else but Tom Kostopoulos deflecting this Tim Erixon to turn this game into a laugher…

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Late drama for the Phantoms who put the puck past Jarry on a face off play with one second left, but after video review it was determined that the puck entered the net after time had expired so Jarry would get his shutout and the Phantoms would be shutout for the first time all season.

Notes: Dominik Simon failed to register a point tonight and his seven game point streak was snapped and these tweet by the Penguins….

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Three Stars: 3) Teddy Blueger (goal, +2) 2) Adam Krause (goal, assist, +2) 1) Tristan Jarry (35 save shutout)

Around the Division: St. John’s gets a late goal with under :30 to play and beat the Hershey Bears 4-3 up on the Rock this afternoon. Hershey’s six game winning streak is over….Providence throttles Albany 5-0…Springfield falls to Toronto 4-1 and Hartford beats Bridgeport 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.705 percentage points) — Lehigh Valley (.667) — Providence (.644) — Hershey (.634) — Bridgeport (.614) — Springfield (.492) — Hartford (.379)

Sprong Watch: Daniel Sprong’s Charlottetown Islanders throttle Baie-Comueau tonight 9-2 to go up 2-0 in the best of seven series. Sprong had four assists. Game 3 goes off Tuesday from wherever the hell Baie-Comeau is.*

Wheeling Update: 4-1 tonight at home.The Nailers fell to the Idaho Steelheads. Gage Quinney had the goal for the Nailers.

If I see any video highlights here I will work the edit in.

Pens have a rare Sunday home game. Utica is in at 3 p.m. Gameday setup is yours at 11 a.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

* – apparently Baie-Comeau is a city, located in the Quebec province. The more you know.