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It would have been a shame if the Penguins lost this game tonight.

Wilkes-Barre badly outshot and outplayed the Hershey Bears tonight through two periods of hockey and faced a 2-0 deficit on the scoreboard despite the 19-9 shots advantage through 40 minutes.

The Bears, to this point though, were capitalizing on opportunities in the game. The Penguins were too, they just couldn’t get anything by starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

Then, in the third period, the luck changed.

Taylor Chorney would get the Penguins on the board first with a power move to the net and slipped one past Grubauer to put the Penguins on the board at about the 10 minute mark.

The Pens knocked, and knocked, and knocked some more.

Then, with under 1:17 left and starting goaltender Matt Murray vacated from his crease, Taylor Chorney put a shot on net that went through bodies and Jayson Megna got the last of it to tie the game at two.

Then, at 1:01 of overtime, Megna ended it to give the Penguins the thrilling and much deserved 3-2 overtime come back win. The play was set up by a nice down low cycle by Beau Bennett who passed to Derrick Pouliot who found a wide open Megna at the far post who buried the game winner.

Prior to all of this, the two teams skated to a scoreless draw in the first period where the Penguins held the Bears to just two shots on goal. In the second, Hershey got their two goals when they started the second period full of vim and vigor. A Jon Landry cannon shot from the blue line eluded Murray with traffic in front of him. The Bears later doubled the lead with a laser by Casey Wellman.

There was a play in between Bears goals where Beau Bennett rang the pipe loudly. The puck must have popped in the air and hit Grubauer’s back and slid in the net. Referee Ryan Murphy had, “intent to blow” because he must have lost the puck and the would be goal didn’t count and wasn’t reviewable.

The Penguins stayed disciplined tonight. Hershey was held to just one power play, and that came with a minute of four on four before it. My keys to the game were stay out of the box and limit Hershey’s big guns. The Penguins did just that.

Three Stars were: 3) Derrick Pouliot (two assists, +1) 2) Taylor Chorney (goal, assist, +3) and 1) Jayson Megna (two goals, +3)

I thought Philipp Grubauer played well enough to garner at least third star honors. But circumstances being what they were, he gets left out.

Bobby Farnham, Pierre Leblond, Nick D’Agostino and Conor Sheary were your healthy scratches. Carter Rowney, Josh Archibald and Beau Bennett made their WBS debuts. Bennett played on a line with Andrew Ebbett and Jayson Megna. How many points would those three put up in a 76 game AHL season? 100? 125? 150?

Around the Division: Lehigh Valley won up in New Hampshire 3-2….Norfolk beat Syracuse in overtime 4-3 and Binghamton’s losing streak is over as they beat Rochester 3-1.

Standings: Hershey 13 — Penguins 13 — Lehigh Valley 11 — Norfolk 10 — Binghamton 10

Conference: 1) HFD (15) 2) WOR (13) 3) HER (13) 4) ALB (14) 5) PRO (13) 6) BRI (13) 7) WBS (13) 8) SPR (13)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost to the Evansville IceMen 6-3 in Indiana tonight. Matia Marcantuoni had all three goals for the Nailers in the loss.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here in YouTube fashion:

Pens head up I-81 for a date with the Binghamton Senators tomorrow. Gameday for that will be here on the blog at 3 p.m. I’ll be making the journey also. I’ll have pictures of the newly renovated place with new video boards and stuff.

* – ran a pun contest on Twitter off of the Megna goals and Kaitlyn won two tickets to an upcoming Penguins game with the headline suggestion. And apparently a Megalodon was an actual thing. It was a shark. We here at Chirps from Center Ice strive to educate and humor at the same time.

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The Penguins may only lose games to teams that play the way the Norfolk Admirals played tonight.

The Admirals, winners 2-1 tonight, bottled up the Penguins at requisite times, jumped out to a 2-0 lead and Norfolk Admirals starting goaltender Jason LaBarbera made the necessary saves late to preserve the big win for what was a floundering Admirals team and sweep the Penguins on Hampton Roads this weekend.

Matt Murray vs. the aforementioned Jason LaBarbera

Lines were….

Scott Wilson – Andrew Ebbett – Tom Kostopoulos
Conor Sheary – JS Dea – Bryan Rust
Tom Kuhnhackl – Adam Payerl – Dominik Uher
Pierre Leblond – Matia Marcantuoni – Bobby Farnham

Brian Dumoulin – Taylor Chorney
Scott Harrington – Philip Samuelsson
Reid McNeill – Alex Boak

Matt Murray – Eric Hartzell

Sheary’s first appearance since October 12 vs. Manchester and Boak’s first appearance since October 18 at St. John’s.

Anton Zlobin and Barry Goers are the two latest names on the injury list. Goers took a shot in the game late and is out with an upper body injury. Zlobin is week to week with an upper body injury. The others are still the status quo.

First Period: Two things happened in this period that happen in nearly every Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins game this season:

1) Tom Kostopoulos took a dumb penalty (a cross-checking minor, his 10th minor penalty which leads the entire AHL)
2) On the ensuing Norfolk power play, Andrew Ebbett led a shorthanded rush up ice with Tom Kuhnhackl and DID NOT SHOOT. Rather, he tried to pass it to Kuhnhackl and over passed, on the ensuing odd man rush up ice, Jesse Winchester fired a low wrist shot that beat Murray five-hole.

Kostopoulos takes dumb penalties every game and Ebbett never shoots. Like clockwork.

Oh, the Penguins were held to just one shot on goal in the period.

Second Period: Not much happened the Penguins way. They had a sustained offensive rush of shots on net about halfway through the second, but that was about it. The teams traded power plays but neither capitalized. Late, Matt Murray turned a puck over behind his net that Dave Steckel picked off. Steckel centered a pass to Nic Kerdiles, who picked his spot and doubled the Admirals lead at 2-0.

Third Period: Penguins didn’t do themselves any favors in taking two penalties in the period to put themselves in a further hole. They would get the kills and started to chip away. Finally, Tom Kostopoulos steals an Admirals clearing bid and puts a shot on net that rebounds to a wide open Conor Sheary who scored to put the Pens on the board. LaBarbera would make two huge saves, one on his rump and the other with Murray pulled, to preserve the 2-1 win for the home team.

The Penguins, as fate would have it, manage to outshoot the Admirals 15-6 in the period, and 23-19 for the game.

I wouldn’t pin this loss on Matt Murray as much as I would the overall lack of team effort to generate anything resembling a solid offensive chance. Credit the Admirals, who came into the weekend with a game plan of limiting Wilkes-Barre shots, and sticking to it.

Three Stars: 3) Conor Sheary (goal, +1) 2) Jason LaBarbera (22 saves on 23 shots) and 1) Brad Winchester (goal, even)

Around the Division: The Penguins passed up a golden opportunity to pass the Hershey Bears for first in the division as the Bears lost 5-4 in Worcester in a wild one….Binghamton lost 6-3 to Syracuse and Lehigh Valley lost 4-2 to Hartford.

Standings: Hershey 12 — Penguins 11 — Lehigh Valley 9 — Norfolk 8 — Binghamton 8

Conference: 1) ALB (13) 2) HER (12) 3) WOR (11) 4) PRO (11) 5) HFD (11) 6) BRI (11) 7) WBS (11) 8) LV (10)

Wheeling Update: Nailers hold on and win 3-2 at home against the Reading Royals. Clark Seymour was a +1. Harrison Ruopp cancelled him out with a -1.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Make sure you turn your clocks back Sunday.

Pens are back in action again Friday at home vs. Hershey. Monday will see the Week 4 AHL Power Rankings. Tuesday I will have a blog piece about my Chart that I have a dedicated page on. Check that out if you haven’t already and see me Tuesday here on the blog for some thoughts once I update it from this weekends action on Tuesday.

But for breaking news, talk to you again Monday. Latest always on Twitter.

Let’s Go Pens!