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Kind of had the feeling when it was announced after yesterday’s 4-1 win against Springfield that Matt Murray would not make the trip to Hartford, Connecticut for Sunday afternoon’s game that Casey Desmith would get the start over Brian Foster.

Foster has been anything but a question mark in net for the Penguins at the AHL level, so with Matt Murray back from Pittsburgh and the status of Tristan Jarry getting closer and closer to a return, with the benefit of a cushion at the top of the Atlantic Division standings, Head Coach Clark Donatelli penciled in Casey Desmith’s name as the starting goaltender this afternoon.

The plan worked.

A 22 save performance for the undrafted Desmith, who wins in his AHL debut 3-2 and the Penguins have their first AHL winning streak under Donatelli.

It was the aforementioned Casey Desmith vs. Magnus Hellberg

No lineup changes for the Penguins this afternoon in Hartford, the only change being Desmith making his first AHL start.

First Period: Nothing really doing early on with the teams trading chances back and forth. The Penguins easily killed a Hartford power play and out shot the Wolf Pack 13-5 in the period. What Hartford did generate in chances were few and far between but quality overall.

With 8.8 seconds left in the period, Dominik Simon did this…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683748870245986304]

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It was Simon’s team leading 29th point for the Penguins.

Second Period: Penguins would get two quick goals in the first minute of the period kicked off by this rocket of a shot by J-S Dea…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683753368955695104]

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Exactly 15 seconds later and off of the ensuing face-off, the Penguins would score again…

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683753872284766208]

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Bryan Rust would get credit when he banked the puck off of a prostrated Tommy Hughes.

The Wolf Pack called time out after that goal.

Then there were some penalties which ended up being a long overlapping power play for Hartford. They managed one shot on goal at Desmith and the rest of the time the Penguins just cleared everything and had a bunch of shorthanded rushes.

There are two automatic goal scorers that I know of that whenever they play the Penguins, you can pencil them in for a goal against Wilkes-Barre. One is defenseman Erik Burgdoerfer in Hershey and the other is Nick Tarnasky on the Hartford Wolf Pack. Tarnasky softly swept this puck past Desmith that spoiled the would be shutout and got Hartford on the board…

[tweet https://twitter.com/TheAHL/status/683757622302912513]

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Desmith looked settled in as the game wore on and made some big saves. The game starting to unfold into another methodical Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins game. That is, get a lead, sit on it, try to build on it and give the opponent nothing. An example of this was about three or four face-offs in the Penguins offensive zone that they won and just fired pucks at Hellberg.

Third Period: Physicality picked up and all ends of the ice were being used. The Wolf Pack would outshoot the Penguins 9-6 in this period and with Hellberg pulled, Chad Nehring would score with 6.1 seconds left in the game that made it 3-2 but there wasn’t enough time for the Wolf Pack to get the equalizer and the Penguins would hold on.

Desmith is probably packing his bags for Wheeling this week no matter what happens with Jarry this week just because, but I think that he has definitely earned a second look with another AHL team, whether that’s Wilkes-Barre or some other team. If not, he should definitely get some more starts in the ECHL.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Tarnasky (goal, -1) 2) Bryan Rust (goal, +1) and 1) J-S Dea (goal, +2)

Around the Division: Hershey blanks Bridgeport on the road by a score of 5-0. Dan Ellis had a 32 save shutout…Lehigh Valley beat Portland in Maine by a score of 2-1 and Providence beat Rochester 5-2.

Standings: Penguins (.734 percentage points) — Hershey (.600) — Portland (.578) — Bridgeport (.578) — Lehigh Valley (.514) — Providence (.471) — Hartford (.441) — Springfield (.424)

Here is the post game infographic from the Penguins…

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/683791227452522496]

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Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost at home to the Norfolk Admirals by a score of 5-3. Anton Zlobin had two goals and an assist.

My Week 13 AHL Power Rankings return to their normal 4 p.m. Monday release time. I’ll also have a refresh of the big board sometime Sunday evening also.

Penguins are back on the ice on Tuesday for a date with the Binghamton Senators in Wilkes-Barre at 7:05.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I think there were three things that led to the outcome tonight, a 4-1 Wilkes-Barre win over the Springfield Falcons.

1. The Penguins are just too good of a team collectively to lose any more than two or three games in a row. There are a lot of bad teams in the AHL and despite these last three games, the Penguins are not one of them.
2. The Return of Matt Murray. Say what you want, the Pens are a different, more confident team, when he is back there tending the nets.
3. The Patrick McGrath Factor. The Shavertown native and local grown product was on the ice tonight and was the fuse that sparked the dynamite which was the Wilkes-Barre offense with a big time tilt with Springfield’s Eric Selleck. Selleck is five inches and 18 pounds heavier than the 5’10, 200 pound McGrath.

It was almost scripted the way that the Selleck-McGrath fight came to be, which I will get to in the story.

Matt Murray opposed Niklas Treutle.

Line were…

Josh Archibald – J-S Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Ty Loney – Sahir Gill – Patrick McGrath

Derrick Pouliot – Adam Clendening
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Casey DeSmith

McGrath took the spot of John McCarron on the fourth line as the only lineup change.

First Period: Falcons jumped out ahead at 1:17 when ex-Penguin Dustin Jeffrey knocks home a puck that Derrick Pouliot failed to clear out of in front of Murray’s crease. Later, the Falcons were pressuring in the offensive zone when the puck skipped over a defenseman’s stick and barely out. During the confusion of the fact that everyone needed to get back onsides again, J-S Dea found Josh Archibald for a breakaway that Archibald finished to even the game at one a piece. It was Archibald’s first goal of the season and long overdue.

Then, late, Eric Selleck and Tom Kostopoulous got tangled up in front of the Penguins bench. Pushing and shoving occurred. You knew what came next, eventually McGrath was going to fight Selleck.

Second Period: After another penalty by Derrick Pouliot which was killed by the Penguins, Tim Erixon shot the puck from the point and Tom Kostopoulos deflected it home for a 2-1 Penguins lead.

Then off the face-off, Eric Selleck made a bad choice:

[tweet https://twitter.com/nafsnep/status/683455111805464576]

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Back to my scripted analogy, you have the bad guy (Selleck) messing with the good guy / legend (Kostopoulos) in the backyard of the hero (McGrath) who also happens to be and play for the local hockey team. The hero pummels the bad guy and the Penguins go on to score two more goals, a Sahir Gill rebound goal of a Reid McNeill shot and then a Bryan Rust power play goal after the Falcons had called a timeout after the Gill goal and the rout was on.

The Penguins were running circles on the Falcons and having fun again. Three goals in the span of 3:17. The local kid playing for the local team with the spark to get it all going. Happy days are here again.

Third Period: Nothing really of substance to note. Wilkes-Barre killed two power plays. Clark Donatelli collected his first AHL win.

Three Stars: 3) Carter Rowney (two assists, +1) 2) Matt Murray (30 saves on 31 shots) and 1) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, even)

Worth noting the following:

[tweet https://twitter.com/CVSethLakso/status/683484050846253056]

And more importantly…

[tweet https://twitter.com/TLTomVenesky/status/683485757181407232]

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So it will be either Casey DeSmith or Brian Foster in net Sunday in Hartford. I have a feeling it may be DeSmith. Who knows, though.

Around the Division: Hershey beats Binghamton 6-5 in overtime after overcoming a 5-1 deficit….Bridgeport beat Rochester 4-3 in overtime….Albany beat Hartford 4-3 and Portland beat Lehigh Valley 4-3 in overtime up in Maine.

Standings: Penguins (.726 percentage points) — Portland (.597) — Hershey (.588) — Bridgeport (.586) — Lehigh Valley (.500) — Providence (.455) — Hartford (.455) — Springfield (.424)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers Thunderbirds beat the Brampton Beast on Throwback Night by a score of 5-1. With Fort Wayne beating Toledo tonight 2-1, that draws Wheeling 4 points behind the Walleye for the North Division lead.

Here are the video highlights from Coal Street:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEyzao6gIS4&feature=youtu.be]

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Pens travel to Hartford for a 3 pm start, with the Gameday setup hitting the blog here Sunday at 11 am.

Let’s Go Pens!