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Be honest, the pessimistic side of you wasn’t expecting tonight’s result.

After getting shellacked in front of a sellout crowd on Saturday night by the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 6-2, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins and Head Coach John Hynes go right back to G Matt Murray Tuesday night and the Penguins shutout the Springfield Falcons for the third time this season and win 4-0.

The Falcons, in three games played against the Penguins this season, have yet to score a single goal against Wilkes-Barre. The Falcons have been shutout four times this season and three of them have come against the Penguins.

Murray, to his credit, was masterful in net for the Penguins. Several stops in close and stops on rebounds and in a pile of bodies. There was a sequence early in the second period where it looked like the Falcons had scored a few times on the power play but Murray and the Penguins penalty killing unit kept them off the scoreboard.

Scott Wilson and Bryan Rust had a three point night, Andrew Ebbett had two power play goals on a late 5-on-3 the Penguins had. Wilkes-Barre went 3 for 5 on the power play and 3 for 3 on the penalty kill. I guess when you have two players that put up three point nights, go 60% on the power play and have a goaltender that has a teams number, you win by the scoreline that the Penguins won by.

Same lineup as Saturday but for Pierre Leblond and Dominik Uher out for Adam Payerl and Matia Marcantuoni. We were expecting word on Leblond’s suspension for the instigator in the final five minutes of Saturday’s game but a suspension never came down from the AHL offices in Springfield. Hynes told Tom after the game that it was rescinded, so no suspension is coming. Also, there was some confusion this morning with the news that Harrison Ruopp was recalled by the Penguins. In the initial press release from Coal Street this morning it stated that Alex Boak and Eric Hartzell were re-assigned there. That was an error and a dated press release. Harrison Ruopp’s recall was the only transaction made by the Penguins today. I apologize for any confusion I may have caused with my tweets (since deleted) this morning.

First Period: Falcons came out flying. They blitzkrieged the Penguins and led in shots 6-1 thirteen minutes in. Springfield was doing everything right until Kerby Rychel hooked Nick Drazenovic putting the Penguins on the power play. Tom Kostopoulos set a nice pick on a Falcons defenseman, allowing Scott Wilson an easy path to the net of ex-Penguin Scott Munroe. Wilson went top shelf on Munroe and put the Penguins up 1-0.

Penguins weathered the early Springfield storm, earn a power play and cash on it. I love it when a plan comes together.

Second Period: Barry Goers is boxed for a puck over glass delay of game and the Falcons do everything but score on the ensuing power play. Murray battled. Then the Penguins swung the momentum in their favor with great offensive pressure.

Turning point of the game was the failed Springfield power play on the Goers infraction. Falcons did everything they could to score but couldn’t.

Third Period: Bryan Rust and Nick D’Agostino come up ice on an odd man rush. Rust centers D’Agostino who shoots, Munroe makes the save but leaves a juicy rebound to Rust who scores to make it 2-0 Penguins. Seemingly that was all the momentum and scoring the Penguins needed. The Falcons got a power play but it was the Penguins taking advantage of shorthanded opportunities. Sean Collins had a breakaway that was denied by Murray. They couldn’t put anything past him.

The Falcons took a series of high sticking penalties late, and Andrew Ebbett made them pay. The game, seemingly already decided was cemented in the Penguins favor with two power play goals by Ebbett on the far circle.

Three Stars: 3) Scott Wilson (goal, two assists, even) 2) Andrew Ebbett (two goals, +1) and Matt Murray (28 save shutout)

Since returning from Pittsburgh, Ebbett has 4-3-7 in four games, Wilson has 7-4-11 in eight games and Rust has 2-6-8 in six games.

Also, with his second power play goal tonight, Andrew Ebbett has 300 AHL points.

Matt Murray is tied with Portland’s Mike McKenna for shutouts with 5. That leads the AHL. He has stopped all 77 shots faced by Springfield in three games.

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Hershey 56 — Penguins 54 — Lehigh Valley 47 — Norfolk 41 — Binghamton 40

Conference: 1) SYR (61) 2) MCH (60) 3) HER (56) 4) HFD (57) 5) SPR (56) 6) WBS (54) 7) POR (53) 8) ALB (53)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off. They take on the Reading Royals tomorrow night at 7.

SendToNews Highlights: YouTube instead…

[youtube http://youtu.be/6bS_f649xJc]

Penguins are off until Saturday when they play the Hershey Bears in Chocolatetown. The Bears get one of their three games in hand back Friday night in Binghamton. Lehigh Valley hosts Worcester Wednesday and is off Friday as well. The Penguins have played the most amount of games (47) than anyone else in the top 8, so there are games in hand. I will probably have a Friday night blog after all the games of importance go final as a setup to the weekend for the Pens then. Unless I can think of anything or there is newsworthy things worth blogging about, look for the next update then.

Let’s Go Pens!

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I can’t for the life of me remember if I have use that headline once before here. If I have, I apologize.

Anyway, I have been blogging up this team long enough to see a game like this one coming. Let’s look at the elements….

— You have a Penguins team rolling, winning four straight games, coming off of a 5-0 laugher in Springfield last night.
— A goaltender in Matt Murray who has been hot as of late, and leads the AHL in goals against average coming into tonight’s action.
— A Lehigh Valley team that had its heads kicked in the night before at home against Hershey and the night prior against Albany.
— Andrew Ebbett down from Pittsburgh this afternoon after being re-assigned. Ebbett was a key contributor to the Penguins ending the then six game losing streak against St. John’s about ten days ago.
— You find yourself up 2-0 at home on a Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd of 8,217 people 10:23 into the first period on a game that is being locally televised, also.

You are going to roll, right?

Wrong. Instead, the Phantoms respond with six straight goals, chase Matt Murray in the process and win 6-2. The game devolved late in the third period with fights and misconducts being passed around like a hot potato at a summer camp. Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond is facing at least a one game suspension, picking up and instigator penalty in the final five minutes of the third period.

Penguins went up quickly on the Phantoms with a Scott Wilson power move to the net on Lehigh Valley starting goaltender Robb Zepp at 6:24 of the first. Tom Kuhnhackl tacked on a power play goal off of a Bryan Rust shot that Zepp left a big rebound on.

Wilkes-Barre was cruising. Then they got complacent.

— Andrew Gordon made it a 2-1 game at 12:30 of the first with a dart of a shot while the Penguins were just going through the motions.
— Adam Comrie scored a power play goal at 15:47 to tie the game at two on a snipe of a shot that Murray could have saved.

Second period saw Jesper Pettersson score to make it 3-2. This chased Murray from the net, enter Jeff Zatkoff who was healthy enough to at least back up tonight. The Penguins didn’t allow any more shots the rest of the way, threw everything but the kitchen sink at Zepp the rest of the way, 16 shots total, but couldn’t get anything past.

There was a point in the game when the Penguins were down one where they clearly put the puck past Zepp but ref Keith Kaval ruled incidental contact on Zepp and washed out the goal. I thought that this was the turning point in the game. A 3-3 tie is a lot better than working and working and coming up empty and then getting scored on again and again.

In the third period, the Phantoms wasted no time.

Taylor Leier scored :20 in on the first actual shot that Zatkoff sees and you could feel the game getting out of hand.

Nick Cousins buries a juicy rebound left by Zatkoff for a 5-2 Phantoms lead on a power play goal at 3:53.

Jason Akeson on what must have been a blown assignment because he had all day to make a move and dance into the top of the circles and let go a shot with no traffic in front for a 6-2 Lehigh Valley lead.

Head Coach John Hynes took his timeout after that. Didn’t matter. Game ended up with fights and lots of guys getting tossed on 10 minute misconducts. I thought the pairing of Kaval / Tim Mayer did good as far as assessing 10 minute misconducts to anyone who stepped out of line with the game being well decided between two divisional rivals.

J-S Dea, Matia Marcantuoni, Eric Hartzell, Josh Archibald and Adam Payerl were the healthy scratches tonight. Hartzell will likely get shipped to Wheeling sooner rather than later. Derrick Pouliot was called up to Pittsburgh prior to the game for the injured Christian Ehrhoff.

Three Stars: 3) Andrew Gordon (goal, assist, +2) 2) Nick Cousins (goal, two assists, +2) and 1) Taylor Leier (goal, two assists, +2)

Around the Division: Hershey loses in a shootout to Syracuse 3-2. Followed that one on Twitter and it sounded like an instant classic. Crunch were up 2-0, Bears claw back with a goal late in the second and tie it in the third…..Norfolk beats Binghamton in overtime 2-1.

Standings: Hershey 54 — Penguins 52 — Lehigh Valley 47 — Norfolk 41 — Binghamton 40

Conference: 1) SYR (61) 2) MCH (60) 3) HER (54) 4) HFD (57) 5) SPR (56) 6) POR (53) 7) ALB (53) 8) WBS (52)

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose 4-3 to Kalamazoo. Derek Army had a goal and an assist in the loss.

SendToNews Highlights: Not up yet. Doubt the Pens will offer YouTube. Doubt you’d click through to see them anyway on SendToNews. Let’s move on…

Bears host the Admirals tomorrow and burn off one of three games in hand on the Penguins. Wilkes-Barre is in action Tuesday against Springfield. My Power Rankings will hit the blog Monday at 4 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have won four straight games. G Matt Murray has collected four shutouts this season, surpassing his counterpart Jeff Zatkoff in doing so.

The Penguins won tonight 5-0 in Springfield. Matt Murray had a 28 save shutout. The Penguins have not allowed the Falcons to score a goal on them yet this season. The Penguins won 5-0 back in October and it was, ironically enough, Matt Murray’s first shutout of the season.

Oh, if you haven’t yet figured out the headline yet, it’s “Four is Important” translated over to English from Spanish. I might be the only AHL blogger to use the Spanish language as a headline this weekend, or season, for that matter.

Anyway, this post game recap includes some new things that I am experimenting with. Twitter recently implemented native video. In lieu of you clicking off and looking at a Vine of a goal or a highlight, I am able to embed the highlight straight into the blog recap without you, the reader, having to click off someplace else. Great timing, eh? The Pens scored five goals total tonight and you have five different highlights to look at, embedded right here in the blog.

The aforementioned Matt Murray vs. Oskar Dansk.

Lines were…

Conor Sheary – Nick Drazenovic – Tom Kostopoulos
Scott Wilson – Carter Rowney – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Jayson Megna – Adam Payerl
Dominik Uher – Matia Marcantuoni – Bobby Farnham

Taylor Chorney – Brian Dumoulin
Reid McNeill – Derrick Pouliot
Barry Goers – Nick D’Agostino

Matt Murray – Eric Hartzell

Alex Boak took warmups but was scratched. Other scratches were J-S Dea, Josh Archibald and Pierre Leblond. Jeff Zatkoff took morning skate but is still week-to-week, technically.

Adam Payerl’s first game since December 26 at Binghamton.

First Period: Penguins started out slow, but after a penalty to Springfield, Jayson Megna scored this goal on a rebound left by Dansk…

The Penguins weren’t done. Tom Kostopoulos scored this goal from a nice pass from Nick Drazenovic on a quick developing two on one…

Penguins add on another power play goal from Taylor Chorney…

Obie summed up the period succinctly. The Penguins didn’t dominate the period, but they were opportunistic.

Second Period: Penguins would kill off a double minor to Reid McNeill thanks to a few great saves in close by Murray. A Penguins power play would come and go, but then Derrick Pouliot would find Conor Sheary on this nice goal that made it 4-0 Penguins…

1:14 later, Bryan Rust would toast Nathan Oystrick and score this goal that chased Dansk…

Enter ex-Penguin Scott Munroe, who settled things down a bit for the Falcons. Murray had a great save on a defensive breakdown by the Penguins.

Third Period: Penguins put it on cruise control and played prevent. Penguins didn’t really push anything offensively but neither did Springfield. Shots in the period were 10-4 Penguins, ironically. Don’t be surprised to see Scott Munroe come out first Tuesday night in Wilkes-Barre in the rematch.

Three Stars: 3) Conor Sheary (goal, assist, +2) 2) Bryan Rust (goal, assist, +1) 1) Matt Murray (28 save shutout)

Around the Division: Hershey beats Lehigh Valley in Allentown 6-1 to stay a point up on the Pens with  three games in hand. Binghamton loses to Norfolk 5-3 at home.

Standings: Hershey 53 — Penguins 52 — Lehigh Valley 45 — Binghamton 39 — Norfolk 39

Conference: 1) MCH (60) 2) SYR (59) 3) HER (53) 4) SPR (56) 5) HFD (55) 6) WBS (52) 7) POR (51) 8) ALB (51)

Wheeling Update: Nailers win 4-1 in Kalamazoo. Zack Torquato had two assists and was a +3.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. You’ll need to click off to see ’em.

Penguins come home to a sold out crowd tomorrow night against the Phantoms, playing their third game in three nights. Gameday for that will be up her eon the blog at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!