vs.       

  0                                           3

–

The most methodical win the Penguins have had in a while is also a record setting one as the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins defeat the Providence Bruins to set a franchise record for consecutive home wins in any season, winning their ninth at home by a 3-0 score over the Providence Bruins on Friday night.

Since the Penguins were so methodical with their game plan tonight., let’s not waste any time and get right to the meat on this blog post, shall we?

Lines were the same from Wednesday in Binghamton but since I didn’t share those, let’s do so now.

Scott Wilson – Kael Mouillierat – Conor Sheary
Kevin Porter – Carter Rowney – Dominik Simon
Dominik Uher – Oskar Sundqvist – Tom Kostopoulos
Tom Sestet – J-S Dea – Josh Archibald

Derrick Pouliot – Steve Oleksy
Tim Erixon – Will O’Neill
Reid McNeill – Niclas Andersen

Matt Murray – Tristan Jarry.

Scratches were Clark Seymour and Tyler Biggs. Maria Marcantuoni was sent to Wheeling before the game. Injury scratches remain Barry Goers and Tom Kuhnhackl.

First Period: Providence came in with the leagues best shots against total at 24.89 per game and the Penguins got to half of that with twelve shots in the period. One of them went in when Conor Sheary wired a shot past Providence starter Malcolm Subban and in when the Penguins were working hard down low. They actually wanted to swing the puck up to a defenseman but the passing lane was blocked so Sheary worked a little give and go with Kael Mouillierat and finished for a 1-0 Penguins lead. The Bruins only had 5 shots in the period.

Second Period: Mouillierat deflected in a Scott Wilson slap pass in for a 2-0 lead at 8:13 for the Penguins only power play of the game. Penguins just didn’t give the Bruins anything in the way of open opportunities. I don’t know if it is a systems thing or if the Penguins are really that good. But everything that they wanted to do tonight from an execution standpoint seemed to have worked.

Third Period: Providence came out with fire to open the period and hit a post but the Penguins and Murray made sure that they wouldn’t make it a 2-1 game. You had the sense that if the Bruins made it 2-1, the Penguins would lose all momentum, start to panic and then next thing you know it’s a 2-2 game. That never happened. Later, Reid McNeill shot a pass deliberately wide to Dominik Simon wheeling around the net and he snuck it past Subban to make it a 3-0 Penguins lead. Even with the P-Bruins going full 6-on-4 on a late power play with Subban pulled, they were never able to solve Murray.

Three Stars: 3) Kael Mouillierat (goal, assist, +1) 2) Conor Sheary (goal, +1) and 1) Matt Murray (29 save shutout)

Around the Division: They don’t play in our division anymore but the Binghamton Senators were shutout tonight by the Albany Devils tonight in Albany by a score of 4-0. That’s not the storyline here. What is is that the Senators had only SIX shots on goal in the entire game. No, really. Six.

Had to give that it’s own paragraph. And to think that the Penguins struggle at times against Binghamton. Go figure.

Anyway, Lehigh Valley needed a shootout to get past Hershey tonight in a wild game, 6-5 the final there…Springfield blanked Hartford 2-0….Utical beat Portland 4-1. Bridgeport was off.

Standings: Penguins (.882 percentage points) — Bridgeport (.675) — Hershey (.632) — Springfield (.559) — Lehigh Valley (.475) — Hartford (.450) — Portland (.438) — Providence (.342)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off tonight. They host the Brampton Beast tomorrow.

Here’s an infographic of the team record winning streak:

[tweet https://twitter.com/WBSPenguins/status/670434790961750016]

–

You’ll have to wait on video highlights cause I am still waiting on them at 10:45 p.m. If I can get to an edit tomorrow, I will certainly throw those in.

Gameday for Pens / Bears will hit the blog Saturday at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

          @          

4                                               3

–

If the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins had gone on to lose this game, the optimist would have said, “eh, we only play them six times this year, maybe it’s a matchup problem. styles make fights, you know!” while the pessimist would have said that the Penguins are a great team that struggle with bad ones and that way to give the AHL a nice blueprint on how to beat the Penguins.

Thankfully, none of that will happen as the Penguins beat the Binghamton Senators by a score of 4-3 in overtime with Derrick Pouliot scoring the game winning goal 3:55 into overtime.

Here’s how this one started. The Penguins were facing a kid by the name of Matt O’Connor, a rookie out of Boston University who is looking for his first AHL win of his career. Wilkes-Barre rolled out Matt Murray who has won every goaltending award imaginable in the AHL in the past year or so. So it was a matchup that heavily favored the Penguins.

4:23 into the game and the Penguins are up 2-0 from goals by Carter Rowney on his own rebound and Kael Mouillierat, his 300th pro point in just a span of 1:10. It was all falling apart for O’Connor, who couldn’t stop a nose bleed if he wanted to.

But then the Penguins just stopped attacking. Travis Ewanyk fights Reid McNeill to fire his side up, later Will O’Neill slashes Cole Schneider on a breakaway and the Binghamton Senators league worst power play strikes when Eric O’Dell one times a puck in past Murray and the Senators have life.

In the second period, the Penguins get some momentum going, but it’s halted on a transition play when Scott Wilson is whistled for holding the stick. Binghamton goes back to the power play and, you guessed it, scores again to tie the game at two a piece. It was Cole Schneider redirecting a Pat Mullen shot from the point past Murray and in for a tie game.

Shots in the second period were 20-3 Wilkes-Barre. It was an exact copy of last Friday where the Penguins were controlling the play and all the chances but could not get anything past the goaltender of the Binghamton Senators. All of a sudden O’Connor, who couldn’t stop a beach ball in the games first five minutes, was into a groove and stopping everything.

The Penguins had a 5-on-3 for :26 that I called a turning point of the game in the second period with the score tied. Binghamton and O’Connor kept the Penguins power play from striking the entire game.

I said before the third period started that it was a game that to this point would look like was being decided on special teams but really shouldn’t be with the way the Penguins were getting the chances but O’Connor just denying chance after chance but the Senators power play did strike twice to make it a 2-2 game.

Interesting sidenote, the Penguins have allowed a grand sum total of nine power play goals this season. The Binghamton Senators account for five of them.

In the third, Dominik Uher couldn’t get all of a perfect Tom Kostopoulos setup that would have made it 3-2. Instead it would be the Senators making it 3-2 when Ryan Dzingel stripped a Penguin and scored on Murray to make it 3-2.

The Penguins would get a power play but not register a single shot on goal. While the face-offs looked improved from last weekend, some were lost in key moments.

Dominik Simon finally cracked O’Connor and the game was tied. Carter Rowney was providing a screen in front and the puck went in.

Wilkes-Barre outshot Binghamton 29-6 in the last to periods. It wasn’t for a lack of effort or offensive chances, O’Connor got into a groove that he didn’t get out of.

In overtime, Matt Murray made three huge saves, two in succession, and Derrick Pouliot ended it a few minutes later:

[tweet https://twitter.com/TheAHL/status/669709487373201408]

–

Three stars were Cole Schneider with a goal, assist and a -1, Dominik Simon with a goal, assist and a +2 and Derrick Pouliot with the game winning goal and a +2 in that order.

Good teams find ways to win. I guess that’s the moral of the story.

Around the Division: Hershey beats Providence 2-1 in overtime…Lehigh Valley gets smoked in Utica 7-1…Albany beat Bridgeport 3-1. Hartford, Portland and Springfield were off.

Standings: Penguins (.875 percentage points) — Bridgeport (.675) — Hershey — (.639) — Springfield (.531) — Hartford (.474) — Portland (.467) — Lehigh Valley (.447) — Providence (.361)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers shutout the Reading Royals at home 1-0. Franky Palazzese had a 28 save shutout and Zack Torquato had the only goal of the game. The Nailers lead the North Division at the Thanksgiving break with 21 points over second place Toledo with 17. The Walleye have two games in hand, though.

Here are highlights of tonight’s game from the B-Sens…

–

Providence is in on Friday. Gameday for that will hit the blog Friday at 3 p.m.

Have a nice Thanksgiving everyone!