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A lot is going to be said online and in other areas about the recent play of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

Forget about the fact that last week they shut out teams in four of five games and hadn’t allowed a single even strength goal in a remarkable 300+ minutes.

Forget about all that.

Focus on a two game set against in-state rivals where you are shut out in both games. 5-0 last night to Hershey and 3-0 today to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

That’s what fans do, right? Bloodthirsty, cup less fans in Wilkes-Barre that still pin losses on Ray Shero and Mike Johnston for messing with the team here in Wilkes-Barre while teams like Hershey, Norfolk, Binghamton and Grand Rapids have parades in June raising a Calder Cup banner.

No, not here. Forget about all that.

Look, you can blame new coach Clark Donatelli all you want, you can pin the blame on Brian Foster all you may in net, but if the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins can’t score a single goal in any given game, they have no chance of winning said game. Period. End of story.

Scoreless now in a span of 134:41. A penalty killing unit that went 2-for-4 last night in Hershey and 1-for-2 tonight. When the offense isn’t there and the special teams struggle, the team as a whole struggles.

Can anyone just say that Phantoms starting goaltender Jason LaBarbera played a hell of a game with an understaffed team crippled by injuries? (The Phantoms played a man short and are missing 10 players due to injury)

35 saves by LaBarbera tonight.

No changes for the Penguins lineup tonight.

First Period: Did everything right, outshot the Phantoms 9-3 until Andrew MacDonald finds himself alone in the high slot and wires a shot past Foster for a 1-0 Phantoms lead:

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I am trying to decide amongst myself where the turning point of the game was. Here at the MacDonald goal, or later in the period when the Penguins had thirteen seconds of 5-on-3 power play.

Second Period: Again controlled play by Wilkes-Barre, then Kael Mouillierat takes a goaltender interference penalty and the Phantoms cash on a power play goal when Niclas Andersen partially screens Foster while skating backwards.

Third Period: Penguins needed to press while chasing a team up two goals on them and be careful in the process because their penalty killing hasn’t been the best. Every shot, it seemed, was right at LaBarbera and he saw it all the way.

Finally, ex-Penguin Colin McDonald skates down the right wing, catches Foster dipping into the butterfly a split second too soon and finds daylight upstairs and extends the Phantoms lead to 3-0 on an NHL caliber snipe.

Penguins couldn’t score on a power play, killed a penalty and could not get one by LaBarbera with an extra attacker with Foster pulled after a time out and that was all she wrote.

Three Stars: 3) Nick Cousins (two assists, +1) 2) Andrew MacDonald (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Jason LaBarbera (35 saves)

Strong games by J-S Dea and Bryan Rust who maximized each shift and really stood out.

Let’s look at some tweets that put this one in perspective…

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Around the Division: Wasn’t a bad weekend for the Penguins insofar as it was an equally bad weekend for the Atlantic Division as a whole. Hershey lost to Binghamton at home tonight 5-3. The B-Sens have won three straight…Portland beat Springfield 5-3…Hartford shutout Rochester 1-0 and Bridgeport beat Providence 4-3.

Standings: Penguins (.741 percentage points) — (Hershey .613) — Bridgeport (.591) — Portland (.589) — Lehigh Valley (.484) — Providence (.452) — Hartford (.452) — Springfield (.433)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers are feeling the affects also, dropping a 7-4 decision to the Kalamazoo Wings. Cody Wydo and Riley Brace both had two goals.

Here’s the post game infographic…

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Give Donatelli a chance to run a few practices. Bodies will be back soon. It isn’t as bad as you think, despite what you think.

My Week 12 AHL Power Rankings will hit the blog at a special time tomorrow, 1 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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The following tweets by the men that write about this team for a living in the papers should tell you all you need to know about how this one went…

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So it was predictable. A 5-0 shutout, blowout loss ushers in the Clark Donatelli Era for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

Nothing went right tonight. Let’s get right to it.

Lines were…

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

Derrick Pouliot – Clark Seymour
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Brian Foster – Casey DeSmith

Injury Updates: Mike O’Brien stated that Matia Marcantuoni was off of injured reserve and was the healthy scratch as well as Harrison Ruopp. Steve Oleksy and Tom Sestito were, “close” and Tristan Jarry was, “week-to-week.” Tyler Biggs jobs Barry Goers in the, “month-to-month” category.

First Period: Bad first period for the Penguins, who 1:23 into the game, were down 2-0, then later 3-0 on another Bears goal, this time on the power play and the rout was on. Aaron Ness with a bomb of a shot at :34, Chris Brown from high slot at 1:23 then Madison Bowey skating in unmarked on the power play for Hershey. Wilkes-Barre only registered one shot on goal in the games first eight minutes, and the game conceivably could have been 5-0 with the Bears hitting two posts in the process.

Things settled in the games last five minutes and the period ended with the Bears outshooting the Pens 15-7.

Second Period: Penguins couldn’t cash in on their only power play of the period and the Bears cashed on theirs when Paul Carey swept in a rebound left by Foster that made it 4-0. Erik Burgdoerfer scored his goal against the Penguins (all of his goals this year have come against Wilkes-Barre) and it was 5-0.

Donatelli called time out and was very animated on the bench with his team which was in a 5-0 hole on the ice at their biggest rival.

Third Period: Casey DeSmith came in on relief for Brian Foster, faced a power play to open the period then a brief 5-on-3 but was able to keep the Bears out of his net. It was the most settled that the Pens looked all game, but at this point the game was lost.

Pens couldn’t score on a power play, the Bears were blocking tons of shots. Wilkes-Barre later hit a post when Reid McNeill narrowly missed breaking up the Ellis shutout.

Dan Ellis was in some pain with about two minutes to play in the period, but gutted it out for his first shutout of the season, a 22 save performance, and the first time all season that Wilkes-Barre has been shutout all season.

Three Stars: 3) Madison Bowey (goal, assist, even) 2) Carter Camper (three assists, +1) and 1) Dan Ellis (22 save shutout)

Around the Division: Binghamton beat Hartford at home 4-2…Lehigh Valley lost at home to Bridgeport 2-1…Albany beat Providence 4-1…Syracuse beat Springfield 3-1 and Portland was off.

Standings: Penguins (.768 points percentage) — Hershey (.633) — Bridgeport (.578) — Portland (.574) — Lehigh Valley (.467) — Providence (.467) — Springfield (.448) — Hartford (.433)

Wheeling Update: It was Dave Gove’s head coaching debut and that too was a sour one as Gove’s Wheeling Nailers were defeated by the Toledo Walleye in Toledo 4-1. That will cost the Nailers as they will now be seven back of division leader Toledo in the North Division.

Penguins are back in action tomorrow against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at home. Gameday for that will be up on the blog at noon for the 4:05 start.

Let’s Go Pens!