vs.          

3                                                4

–

Dustin Jeffrey’s goal and two assists was what the Penguins needed to hold off a pesky Springfield Falcons team 4-3 on a Tuesday night home game in Wilkes-Barre.

It’s the type of game that probably eludes the Penguins two months ago with the lack of a dynamic playmaker like Jeffrey. Springfield has nothing left to play for but they came in and put up a heck of a fight against a Penguins team that has been elite pretty much all season.

Tristan Jarry, making his eighth straight start, opposed Marek Langhamer

Lines were…

Dominik Simon – Dustin Jeffrey – Adam Krause
Mattias Plachta – Carter Rowney – Tom Kostopoulos
Josh Archibald – Kael Mouillierat – J-S Dea
Tom Sestito – Oskar Sundqvist – Jarrett Burton

Tim Erixon – Steve Oleksy
Will O’Neill – Barry Goers
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Tristan Jarry – Franky Palazzese

Lineup notes: Teddy Blueger and Jake Guentzel were given the night off as Oskar Sundqvist and Jarrett Burton replaced them in the lineup. Reid McNeill was back and took the place of Harrison Ruopp.

First Period: Took the Pens about 90 seconds to get going, Steve Oleksy found Dustin Jeffrey skating down the slot and Jeffrey scored five hole on his old team to put the Pens up 1-0.

–

Springfield got one back when Dominik Monardo parked himself in the driveway of Jarry’s crease and waited when Greg Carey put a shot in from along the far wall. Jarry made the initial save with the pad but Monardo swept it in to even the game at one.

Minutes later, Jeffrey and Dominik Simon worked a little give and go when and Simon tapped it in to restore the Penguin lead.

–

Speedy period. Both teams were quick.

Second Period: :58 in, Greg Cunningham put a shot on Jarry that seemed harmless but it got by the Penguins goaltender that tied the game.

The Pens answered when the Falcons scored in the first and they did again in the second. This time, Nic Andersen had his shot blocked but still had enough on it to get it by Langhamer which made it 3-2 Pens.

–

Both teams had chances via power play to capitalize but neither was able to. The Pens on back to back power plays and the Falcons with 1:01 of two man advantage.

A big scrum ensued at the end of the second period. Justin Hache and Steve Oleksy fought. Josh Archibald jumped into a pile of bodies.

–

Third Period: The Penguins finally capitalized on the man advantage when Tom Sestito deflected a Will O’Neill shot from the point that went in to make it 4-2 Penguins.

–

Falcons were spilling turnovers all over the place as the Penguins forechecked extremely hard. But, with less than a minute to play with Langhamer pulled got back to within one with a goal by Greg Carey that made it 4-3 with 54.4 seconds to play.

But with time dwindling and with Langhamer pulled, Springfield was unable to find the equalizer.

Three Stars: 3) Will O’Neill (two assists, even) 2) Dominik Simon (goal, assist, even) and 1) Dustin Jeffrey (goal, two assists, even)

The news of the day was that Pittsburgh signed defenseman Ethan Prow to a two-year deal that kicks in for 2016-17. He is headed to Wilkes-Barre on an Amateur Tryout Contract. Jonathan had some words on him here and Jesse Marshall from Pensblog broke it down here. Marshall is excited about the signing, given the fact that the majority of assets that Pittsburgh had were all traded away at some point or already in the system. Depending on when he gets here and how he practices, I’d expect Prow to see game action fairly soon.

—

Around the Division: Bridgeport beat Portland in a morning kids day game by a score of 5-2….the only other game in the division was Hartford visiting Albany a game that the Wolf Pack lost 3-0. Box here. Everyone else was off.

The Magic Number to clinch is 4 on account of the Hartford loss and the fact that the Pens own a tiebreaker over them. Conceivably, Wilkes-Barre can lock up its fourteenth consecutive trip to the playoffs this weekend.

Standings: Hershey (.649 percentage points) — Penguins (.640) — Providence (.612) — Bridgeport (.596) — Portland (.575) — Hartford (.551) — Lehigh Valley (.478) — Springfield (.403)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off.

Coal Street infographic:

–

Video highlights:

–

Pens are off Friday, next game Saturday at home against Bridgeport.

Let’s Go Pens!

          vs.       

  5                                           0

–

Going with an abbreviated recap tonight as I was not at the game tonight, a 5-0 Providence Bruins win. I was driving back as the game was getting underway and got into radio range as the game was about 8 minutes old.

That’s when I should have turned around and went back to my Uncle’s house.

The Providence Bruins scored three times in the first period. Seth Griffith scored twice and was set up by ex-Penguin Max Talbot twice a and assisted on Talbot’s goal. From what I picked up on radio and in the Twitter play by play, the Penguins couldn’t get out of their own way in defending the Bruins, especially the line with Griffith and Talbot.

I saw Seth tweet during the blitzkrieg that Providence was outshooting the Penguins 8-0 during the stretch.

Providence is a hell of a team. When I was up in Binghamton last night, I caught up with Bob Howard, whose you may remember hosted the Power Play Post Show for many years. He and I were talking Atlantic Division and I told him that if this was mid-January and things were the way they are now in the division, that the Providence Bruins would be the odds on favorite to win the division.

The P-Bruins then went out last night and lost to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms who just came off an 8-0 pasting by the Hershey Bears Wednesday night and were on an eight game losing streak. You knew coming in that they were going to be extremely hungry and down right mad.

They took it out on the Penguins.

In the second, Colin Miller unleashed a bomb from the blue line that made it 4-0. Pens looked out of sorts. I was back home and in front of a TV at this point.

Pens had a power play to open the third and looked good on it but couldn’t score.

Max Talbot scored his second goal of the game when his shot redirected off of Will O’Neill’s skate and in to make it 5-0.

Pens couldn’t muster anything, despite outshooting the Bruins 12-9 in the third period, and went away quietly.

Only silver lining that could be taken from this game is that the Bruins have the leagues best power play and they did not score a goal against the Penguins tin bight and have not scored a goal against the Penguins on the power play at all this season.

Lineup wise, Dustin Jeffrey was back into the lineup. As a result, Jarrett Burton was the body who played last night that was scratched tonight. No changes on defense for the Pens.

Three Stars: 3) Seth Griffith (two goals, assist, +3) 2) Max Talbot (two goals, two assists, +4) and 1) Jeremy Smith (32 save shutout)

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley continues to play the role of spoiler as they defeat the Hartford Wolf Pack 2-1 at home tonight….Hershey beats Ablant in a shootout 3-2…Portland blasted Springfield 6-1… Bridgeport was off.

Standings: Hershey (.649 percentage points) — Penguins (.634) — Providence (.612) — Bridgeport (.590) — Portland (.583) — Hartford (.560) — Lehigh Valley (.478) — Springfield (.409)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were in Kalamazoo tonight looking or revenge on last nights setback against the Wings but were unable to extract any kind of positive result and lost 5-1. Riley Brace scored the only goal for the Nailers.

I doubt there will be any infographic or video highlights from Coal Street tonight. If there are and I get a moment Sunday I will run an edit here.

Pens are back at it home Tuesday against Springfield.

I’ll have my charts updated sometime Sunday and have the Week 25 AHL Power Rankings Monday at 4.

vs.     

–

–

Home Game: 32

AHL Game: 986

Who: Providence Bruins

Where: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza

When: 7:05 p.m.

Media Kit

Last Game: Last night in Binghamton the Pens won 3-2 in overtime. Kael Mouillierat scored in overtime to win the game for the Pens. Tom Kostopoulos had the other two goals on the power play. For Providence, the Bruins were in Allentown last night and lost 4-3 to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The Bruins were down 3-1 and battled back to tie it at three, but the Phantoms would not be denied the victory.

Last Meeting: February 28 in Providence the Pens lost 3-2. Carter Rowney and Dominik Simon collected goals for the Pens in the loss.

Record: For WBS 40-21-4-1 (85 pts. 1st place Atlantic Division) — For PRO: 34-20-9-3 (80 pts., 3rd place Atlantic Division)

Why you should care: Expect a mad Providence team tonight. The Bruins had no business losing to the Phantoms last night who snapped an eight game losing streak by beating Providence last night. The Pens will need to be cautiously aggressive tonight with a Providence team that is extremely dangerous.

Referee(s): Fred Leblanc / Jake Brenk

Linesmen: Richard Jondo / Scott Pomento

Twitter: @WBSPenguins / @WBSGameDay / @AHLBruins

Facebook: /WilkesBarreScrantonPenguins // /providencebruins

Instagram: wbspenguins / ahlbruins

Beat Writers: @CVSethLakso and @TLTomVenesky / @MarkDivver

Broadcasters: WBS: Mike O’Brien @MikeOBrienWBS / PRO: Nick Gagalis @NickGagalis

Fan Bloggers: @nafsnep 

Radio: For WBS: WILK NewsRadio / For Providence: WNRI 1380 AM

Television: AHL Live and on MyNetworkTV local in Wilkes-Barre

Promotion(s): Super Hero Night

Other Game to Watch: Since the division is such a dead heat between the Pens and Bears, we are going Hershey hosting Albany tonight.

Next Five Games: SPR 3/29, BRI 4/2, POR 4/3, LV 4/8, @ HER 4/9

          @          

3                                               2

–

You kind of expected that the Binghamton Senators would come out tonight and put up more of a fight than they did Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre.

They did tonight, And it still wasn’t enough. The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins win the game tonight by a score of 3-2 in overtime.

The Penguins were threw a lot of curveballs tonight. Three hit posts in the first period. They bottled up Binghamton to the tune of just 18 shots against but got scored on twice on the power play and at times appeared to be chasing the game at key moments but still somehow found a way to win the game. It was a big two points that they could have easily let slip away.

Tristan Jarry opposed Matt O’Connor

Lines were…

Dominik Simon – J-S Dea – Adam Krause
Mattias Plachta – Carter Rowney – Tom Kostopoulos
Jake Guentzel – Kael Mouillierat – Josh Archibald
Tom Sestito – Jarrett Burton – Teddy Blueger

Tim Erixon – Steve Oleksy
Niclas Andersen – Harrison Ruopp
Will O’Neill – Barry Goers

Tristan Jarry – Franky Palazzese

Lineup Notes: Blunger made his pro debut and took the spot of Dustin Jeffrey, who missed the game because his wife had a baby. Congrats to the Jeffrey family.

First Period: Period was divided into two halves. One, where the Pens took two penalties and got scored on the power play when Michael Keranen scored from the far dot while a Binghamton player was laying on Tim Erixon’s stick. Then the Penguins settled in the second half of the period and got a power play goal of their own by Tom Kostopoulos on the doorstep while the Penguins were on a 5-on-3.

–

Shots ended up being 9-3 in favor of the Penguins who despite the large shot difference, looked like they were chasing the game at times.

Second Period: Pens ran into more penalty troubles. On another five on three, Binghamton scored again when Casey Bailey one timed a shot from the far side to put the B-Sens up 2-1 again.

But the Penguins fought back and got a few power play opportunities and Tom Kostopoulos scored his second of the game on a tap in that tied it at two for the Penguins.

–

Third Period: Tom Sestito and Zack Stortini fought each other. Here is the video of the fight captured on my iPhone:

–

Binghamton headed to the power play and  the thought was, ‘ here we go again’ but the Penguins did a fine job of not allowing the Senators a shot on goal during the power play.

Will O’Neill had a memorable shift. He created a two on one opportunity with him and Tom Sestito then skated all the way back to break up a B-Sens odd man rush all in the span of about thirty seconds.

Sestito had another chance to score when Jarrett Burton picked off a Senators exit pass and fed Sestito but he couldn’t tap the pass from Burton by O’Connor.

Overtime: Tristan Jarry had a big stop on Phil Varone in the first minute of overtime then Barry Goers pounced on a clear by the Senators, passed to Mattias Plachta who dropped it back to Goers who shot it. The puck hits the post, doesn’t cross the line before Kael Mouillierat poked it across to give the Penguins the overtime win.

–

The win was the Penguins fourth in a row and got them to 40 wins in the season. The 40 wins in a season is significant because the Penguins set an AHL record with 11 consecutive 40 win seasons.

All that is left is clinching a playoff berth. The magic number drops to 11.

Three Stars: 3) Jason Akeson (two assists) 2) Tom Kostopoulos (two goals) and 1) Kael Mouillierat (overtime game winning goal, assist)

Around the Division: Hershey beat Utica 2-1 in overtime to stay in lockstep with the Penguins for the division lead….Lehigh Valley beat Providence 4-3 to snap their long losing streak…Hartford beats Bridgeport 2-1 in overtime and Portland beat Springfield 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.644 percentage points) — Hershey (.644) — Providence (.606) — Bridgeport (.590) — Portland (.577) — Hartford (.568) — Lehigh Valley (.470) — Springfield (.415)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost 6-4 in Kalamazoo to the Wings.

If I see any infographics or video highlights, I will try to work the edits in.

Pens are home Saturday night against Providence. I will not be at that game, as I will be with family for Easter but I still plan on having the Gameday setup and a postgame recap for you Saturday night some time.

Let’s Go Pens!