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If you didn’t watch the game tonight and all you looked at was the score line, you would think that the Penguins lack of scorers all on recall to Pittsburgh did Wilkes-Barre in tonight.

You’d be wrong. This game involved a chess match intertwined between a goaltenders duel. Two players scored for their respective teams. One just did it twice, and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lose the game 2-1 and the East Division lead.

Rookie goaltender Pheonix Copley turned in a dazzling 28 save performance for the Bears. They say that Penn State University is “Linebacker U” – well, Hershey may as well be known as, “Goaltender U” with the depth and vast amount of backstoppers that have given the Penguins teams fits through the years.

An overall not bad performance by the Penguins. They just ran into a more stiffer team in Hershey that knows how to kill penalties and knows how to play this Penguins team. If there is a team in the AHL that has the Penguins number this season, I would be hard pressed to find one that isn’t anyone other than the Hershey Bears.

The aforementioned Pheonix Copley vs. Matt Murray. Battle of the backups tonight.

(And yes, I know that he spells his name wrong. It is what it is.)

With Bryan Rust’s demotion back to Wilkes-Barre this afternoon from Pittsburgh and the Penguins wanting to see what they have on defense, Matia Marcantuoni was out and Rust was in, and Alex Boak was out for Clark Seymour.

One thing worth mentioning was the fact that a PTO guy like Sahir Gill got a second game in a row while a draft pick like Marcantuoni watched this game from the stands.

First Period: Bears had a great opening jump to the game but the Penguins stood tall. Later the Penguins would get a power play but fail to convert against Hershey’s top penalty killing unit. Reid McNeill slashes a stick to break up a two on none and :18 later, Chris Conner undresses Scott Harrington and slips the puck under Murray for a 1-0 Bears lead.

Second Period: Bobby Farnham had a breakaway when the puck found him off of a funny bounce off the boards. He missed, but then goaded Chris Brown into taking a penalty. The Penguins appeared to have scored on the power play on a Scott Harrington point shot, but referee Terry Koharski was in perfect position and immediately waved the goal off on account of a high stick. I think that the AHL Live feed they use in the arena is a camera across from my center ice seat in the corner, so the replay that they showed on the video board never caught up to the players at the front of the net to see if the puck went in off of a high stick or not.

Third Period: Pens were given golden opportunities to score goals on the power play, but the glove or blocker of Phoenix Pheonix Copley kept the Penguins off of the board.

Later, puck caroms off of a linesman’s skate to Chris Conner, who tacked on his second goal of the night with a quick wrist shot. Puck beat Murray clean. It was one that he probably would have liked to have back.

Bryan Rust had seen enough. He started in from his own blue line and skated in past everyone, whiffed on his shot and in the second effort beat Copley to put the Penguins on the board. But the Penguins could never find the equalizer after pulling Murray.

Three Stars: Pheonix Copley (28 saves on 29 shots) 2) Bryan Rust (goal, +1) and 1) Chris Conner (two goals, +1)

The Penguins are 0-for-the-season on the power play against Hershey. But the Penguins play disciplined when they play the Bears and don’t hand them power play after power play. when they do however, it costs them, most of the time.

Around the Division: Binghamton beats Adirondack 5-3. Lehigh Valley loses to Bridgeport 3-2 in a shootout. Norfolk loses to Manchester 5-2.

Standings: Hershey 28 — Penguins 28 — Binghamton 25 — Lehigh Valley 21 — Norfolk 18

Conference: 1) SPR (35) 2) MCH (30) 3) HER (28) 4) SYR (29) 5) POR (28) 6) WBS (28) 7) ALB (27) 8) BNG (25)

Wheeling Update: Nailers are seemingly unfazed by all of the raiding the Penguins are doing to their roster. They hang seven goals on the Utah Grizzlies and win 7-3. Patrick McGrath, on Mcgrath bobble fist night, had a goal and was named first star of the game. Eric Hartzell stopped 32 of 35.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Nothing in the highlight package that shows anything conclusive on whether the Harrington shot from the point should have counted or not.

Rematch tomorrow at 5 in Hershey. Gameday setup here Sunday afternoon at 1. Giant Center has been a house of horrors for the Pens as of late, they have lost eight in a row there.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Ex-Penguins radio play-by-play man Tom Grace used to have a saying that seems apropos after the Penguins handed the Lehigh Valley Phantoms a 5-1 defeat tonight…

“It was OK if you like perfect.”

A roster stripped of four of its top six scorers due to call ups to Pittsburgh, injuries to key contributors here and the Friday afternoon trade of Philip Samuelsson to the Arizona organization and the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins play their best game in a while, if not all season.

Think about it for a second. These guys are professionals. The call-ups from Wheeling, guys like Sahir Gill, don’t want to go back to the ECHL and want to show that they belong at the AHL level. Guys like Tom Kuhnhackl and Conor Sheary want to prove that they are worthy of being next in line should the need for a call-up need to be made again in Pittsburgh. Mix in all these variables and you get the results that showed tonight.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Rob Zepp

Lines looked like this…

Conor Sheary – J-S Dea – Josh Archibald
Dom Uher – Carter Rowney – Tom Kostopoulos
Tom Kuhnhackl – Sahir Gill – Adam Payerl
Pierre Leblond – Matia Marcantuoni – Bobby Farnham

Scott Harrington – Barry Goers
Reid McNeill – Derrick Pouliot
Nick D’Agostino – Alex Boak

Jeff Zatkoff – Matt Murray

First Period: The Penguins jumped all over the Phantoms in the first. Sahir Gill made an immediate impact with a nice goal line pass on the backhand to Tom Kuhnhackl who scored on the one timer to put the Penguins on the board first. Gill created unlimited chances for the Penguins on a later power play and was all over the place tonight. Slowly, as the period wore on, you could feel the momentum tipping the Penguins way. Later, Scott Harrington throws a shot on net that Tom Kostopoulos got a stick on to deflect in for a 2-0 Penguin lead. The Penguins were running the Phantoms all over the place, bottled them up and had them on tilt. The first period ended with the Pens on a 5-on-3 heading into the….

Second Period: Wilkes-Barre fails to score on the power play, but Tom Kostopoulos shovels a puck past Zepp on the far side to make it 3-0 Penguins. This was the Penguins captain first two goal game since January 10, coming against these same Phantoms, only when they were known as the Adirondack Phantoms.

Later, Adam Payerl uses his body to create interference in front of Zepp’s net and a puck squeaks to Conor Sheary who buries it short side to give the Penguins the 4-0 lead. That goal would send Zepp Over the Hills and Far Away. Enter Anthony Stolarz.

Third Period: Was a period where the Phantoms finally awoke and threw all that they could against the wall at Zatkoff and the Penguins. The first half of this period turned into a goaltender duel. Finally, the Phantoms broke through when Brett Hextall poked a puck past Zatkoff. An argument could have been had that the Phantoms played the puck with a high stick prior to the puck getting to Hextall but referee Tim Mayer never looked at a replay.

Derrick Poulot skated to the slot and went high on Stolarz to squelch any thoughts of a Lehigh Valley comeback late.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kuhnhackl (goal, +1) 2) Conor Sheary (goal, two assists, +3) and 1) Tom Kostopoulos (two goals, +1)

Overall, an impressive win by the Penguins given the patchwork lineup John Hynes, one that you wish you could bottle up and use whenever the need arose.

Around the Division: Hershey dispatches the Bridgeport Sound Tigers by a score of 6-3. Someone other than Stan Galiev scored in that game, but Galiev scored the first two goals for good measure anyway….Binghamton continues to rack up points and goals with a 4-1 win in Rochester…Norfolk lost to Springfield 3-2. The Falcons have won a franchise record 10 games in a row.

Standings: Penguins 28 — Hershey 26 — Binghamton 23 — Lehigh Valley 20 — Norfolk 18

Conference: 1) SPR (33) 2) MCH (28) 3) WBS (28) 4) SYR (27) 5) ALB (27) 6) POR (26) 7) HER (26) 8) BRI (25)

Tonight’s postgame info graphic provided by Brian Coe & Company is here.

SendToNews Highlights: How about YouTube instead?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrfC0laVUWw]

Wheeling Update: The Nailers felt the brunt of the call-ups and injuries also, but that didn’t stop them from beating the Utah Grizzlies at home tonight by a score of 5-2. 

Penguins are back home Saturday against the Bears. Gameday setup will be at 3 p.m. here on the blog.

Let’s Go Pens!