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The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have won four in a row and five straight at home after tonight’s 3-1 win against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

This one wasn’t easy. There were a boatload of penalties called both ways and the Penguins were flat most of the game. But they did have an ace in the hole. It was the man in goal, Jeff Zatkoff, making his first start for the Penguins in about three weeks. Zatkoff was sharp all night long and kept the Penguins in the game to the very end.

It was the aforementioned Jeff Zatkoff vs. Rob Zepp. Sorry I didn’t have a Led Zeppelin pun in my headline or no place else in this blog recap. I’ll try and do better the next time.

Lines were….

Scott Wilson – Andrew Ebbett – Jayson Megna
Tom Kuhnhackl – JS Dea – Bryan Rust
Conor Sheary – Carter Rowney – Josh Archibald
Pierre Leblond – Dom Uher – Bobby Farnham

Brian Dumoulin – Taylor Chorney
Scott Harrington – Philip Samuelsson
Reid McNeill – Derrick Pouliot

Zatkoff – Murray

Adam Payerl participated in warmups but was scratches. Tom Kostopoulos is attending to a personal issue and is out the weekend. Barry Goers is cleared to play but with that Wilkes-Barre back six, good luck. Alex Boak is the extra man on D that was listed as a healthy. Nick Drazenovic is close but probably won’t play this weekend and Anton Zlobin is the longer of the two.

First Period: The Penguins were flat the entire first period. They managed to get on the board while on a five on three penalty when Andrew Ebbett threw a puck at Zepp which bounced right to Scott Wilson who roofed it to put the Pens on the board.

Let me use this space to say that referees Tim Mayer and Evgeny Romasko were downright awful tonight. At some point in a game there are going to be penalties. But to call nearly every infraction or near infraction is overkill and unnecessary. Look, it’s a tight game. There wasn’t a single fight the entire night, stay the hell out of the game with ticky-tack “roughing” calls while the play is going on (Dumoulin at 15:08 in the first) and concurrent interference and slashing calls (Megna and Robert Hagg at 16:46 of the third) – the ticket tonight said Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins vs. Lehigh Valley Phantoms, not, “The Tim and Evgeny Show.” If this was my first game I attended as a fan, I probably would never return. The referees downright ruined tonight’s game.

Alright. Enough griping about officiating.

Second Period: Really no flow to the period thanks to Tim and Evgeny, it was becoming clear that the Penguins were just flat and that the Phantoms were running into Jeff Zatkoff, who made dazzling save after dazzling save.

Third Period: A Brandon Manning laser while the Phantoms were on the power play (go figure) tied it at one. About six minutes later, Bryan Rust hits the post and follows his shot and eventually stuffs one past Zepp to put the Pens ahead 2-1. Later, with the Phantoms empty net, Bobby Farnham would feed Dominik Uher who hit the open net to ice it to make it 3-1.

Three Stars: 3) Jeff Zatkoff (21 saves on 22 shots) 2) Scott Wilson (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Bryan Rust (goal, +1)

Around the Division: Hershey gives up five unanswered goals to Syracuse and lose 5-1 in Central New York….Binghamton beats Norfolk by a score of 5-2.

Standings: Penguins 19 — Hershey 15 — Binghamton 12 — Lehigh Valley 11 — Norfolk 10

Conference: 1) BRI (19) 2) WBS (19) 3) WOR (17) 4) ALB (18) 5) HFD (17) 6) SYR (17) 7) MCH (16) 8) PRO (15)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost 6-3 to the Orlando Solar Bears tonight at home. Matia Marcantuoni had a goal and an assist and Nick D’Agostino had an assist as well. Marcantuoni was named third star of the game and ex-Penguin Denver Manderson had a goal for Orlando.

SendToNews Highlights: Pens will put YouTube highlights up. Never assume, Jason. There weren’t YouTube highlights, so here is the SendToNews package.

Syracuse is in tomorrow. Crunch are better than you think. Gameday for that hits the blog at 3.

Let’s Go Pens!

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This game, a 5-4 overtime win for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins had a bit of everything that the last two games had.

Friday against Hershey, the Penguins were getting good looks but couldn’t get anything past Philipp Grubauer. That was the first period of tonights game in a nutshell. Wilkes-Barre outshot Syracuse 13-4, but Andrei Vasilevskiy held firm and denied all shots coming his way.

In the second period, more of what the first period of Saturday nights game in Binghamton. A crisp, back and forth affair that saw four goals scored, two for both teams.

In the third, the Penguins jumped out to a two goal lead, similar to last nights game against Binghamton, only to see the lead dwindle then disappear when Syracuse fought back hard and tied the game. Binghamton never got to that point last night, but you get the idea.

Beau Bennett, on re-assignment from Pittsburgh, had 4 assists and was on the ice for all five goals scored. Jayson Megna had two goals. Taylor Chorney scored. I think we may have some strong representation for the AHL Player of the Week Award, usually announced by the League Monday at 2 p.m.

All in all, a perfect weekend for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. One that sees them ascend to the top of the division and tied for the conference lead coming into the middle of November.

Oh, Jean-Sebastien Dea scored the overtime game winner, his second in under two weeks (October 29 at Lehigh Valley) when Brian Dumoulin went to center the puck from out of the corner when it hit a Crunch players skate right to Dea who went bar down and in.

Scott Harrington, demoted from Pittsburgh today, was on the ice for Wilkes-Barre. He was in for Alex Boak. Bennett slotted in back on the top line and replaced Dominik Uher in the lineup.

Eric Hartzell started the third game in three days for the Penguins and stopped 24 of 28. I am not going to say that he is starting goaltender worthy quite yet, but he hasn’t lost yet and is doing what the backup is supposed to do.

The Penguins were 2 for 9 on the power play tonight. Derrick Pouliot scored from the blue line at the beginning of the third period and Taylor Chorney tallied his goal late in the second.

Syracuse scored their goals the following way: 1) Dalton Smith on a shot that deflected in when the Penguins were caught out on the ice for too long. Need to be better. 2) Tanner Richard on a cross ice / crease pass into his skates, he corrals it and fires it home top shelf falling down. More skill by him than anything on Hartzell. 3) Richard scores his second when Hartzell doesn’t completely seal off his post and the puck bounces off of him and trickles over the line and in. Bad goal to give up given the momentum Syracuse was building. 4) Dalton Smith again when Nikita Nesterov shoots from the blue line and Smith gets a piece of it on the deflection. This came on the power play. The discipline was nil to non-existent.

Three stars were Dea on the game winner in overtime, Megna with two goals and Bennett with four assists.

Around the Division: Hershey loses to Hartford 3-2. Norfolk, Binghamton and Lehigh Valley were all off.

Standings: Penguins 17 — Hershey 15 — Lehigh Valley 11 — Norfolk 10 — Binghamton 10

Conference: 1) HFD (17) 2) WBS (17) 3) WOR (15) 4) BRI (17) 5) ALB (15) 6) PRO (15) 7) HER (15) 8) POR (14)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers won at home against the Indy Fuel 4-3. Zack Torquato had two goals, Matia Marcantuoni had two assists. I think I sense a trend.

SendToNews Highlights: Howza bout some YouTube Highlights instead?

Power Rankings tomorrow at 4. If there is word on a Wilkes-Barre player getting player of the week, it will go up here before. Again, the League usually puts this out on Monday, but because there are two Monday games, they may wait till Tuesday. I’ll standby so you don’t have to.

Let’s Go Pens!