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When Jeff Deslauriers came in at the start of the season I thought that the Penguins didn’t have a chance.

Boy, was I wrong.

The Penguins respond to a 5-0 shutout by the St. John’s IceCaps Friday last night with a 3-0 shutout of their own Saturday night. Jeff Deslauriers stops all 30 shots seen.

Has Deslauriers been the MVP of the team or, what? Every time he steps in the crease he gives the Penguins a chance to win.

I strung for the Great Jonathan Bombulie of the Citizens’ Voice tonight. Check out my story in the paper Sunday.

In it, I led with the fact that the Pens may be missing a large majority of their best players, but they still have a pretty intact blue line and goaltending department. The Pens got goals tonight from Tom Kuhnhackl, Brian Gibbons and Bobby Farnham then played prevent defense all third period and won the game.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. Eddie Pasquale

Two lineup changes: John Hynes went 11F/7D tonight. Peter Merth and Carter Rowney were out for Reid McNeill and Harrison Ruopp. Ruopp made his season debut for the Penguins.

First Period: About as inert a period you can get. With 5:27 left in the period, shots were 2-1 Penguins. It ended up 4-2 St. John’s at the end of the period. Best chances were a high slot shot by Gibbons and a Eric O’Dell cross ice saucer pass to Kael Mouillerat that Deslauriers made a cross ice post-to-post save on.

Second Period: IceCaps made their best efforts to jump ahead in the hockey game. I remember Mike O’Brien saying that the shots were 10-2 IceCaps at some point. Despite that, the Pens headed to a power play where Tom Kuhnhackl would score to break the deadlock. Brendan Mikkelson kept a puck in the far wall, fed Nick D’Agostino in the low far circle, he throws it at the net, it caroms off of Pasquale to Kuhnhackl who hacks and whacks and stuffs it past Pasquale.

Then, Mikkelson holds up Eric O’Dell on the half wall and Brian Gibbons comes in out of no where to pick O’Dell’s pocket to start a three-on-one up the ice with Cody Sylvester and Bobby Farnham. Gibbons passes to Farnham who touch passes back to Gibbons who scores an easy goal to put the Pens up 2-0.

Third Period: It took :21 for Bobby Farnham to find the back of the net for the Pens. Mike Carman tries a cross ice pass to Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond. Defenseman Brenden Kichton puts a stick on the puck, but in the process sets the table for Farnham to step into one and laser it past Pasquale for a 3-0 lead.

Pens let off after that, and played prevent defense. Jeff Deslauriers made some sprawling saves in the period, most notably this one on Eric O’Dell, which will likely go on Deslauriers’ highlight reel.

Deslauriers first shutout of the year, and he’s tied for wins by goaltenders with 11.

Three Stars: 3) Bobby Farnham (goal, assist, +2) 2) Brian Gibbons (goal) 1) Jeff Deslauriers (30 save shutout)

Around the Division: Norfolk, hot on the heels of the division leaders, sweeps Syracuse this weekend with a 2-1 victory in Central New York. The Hershey Bears are halted by a resurgent Bridgeport Sound Tigers and lose 4-2. Binghamton gets a point in a 3-2 shootout loss to the surprisingly good Albany Devils, who are just two points behind the Northeast Division leaders the Springfield Falcons who are the Penguins next opponent.

That means that, despite a patchwork lineup of ECHL call ups, your Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are in sole possession of first place in arguably the best division in the AHL, the East Division.

Standings: Penguins 31 — Binghamton 30 — Norfolk 28 — Syracuse 25 — Hershey 21

Conference: 1) MCH (36) 2) SPR (32) 3) WBS (31) 4) BNG (30) 5) ALB (30) 6) PRO (29) 7) NOR (28) 8) STJ (27)

Wheeling Update: Nailers are a point factory right now. Nailers win 2-1 in a shootout over the Cincinnati Cyclones tonight and lead their division by 8 points.

SendToNews Highlights: Despite last night, a ton of good things to look at from a Penguins fan perspective tonight. Here you go.

Pens probably travel Sunday back to Wilkes-Barre, off Monday, and prep Tuesday for a home game vs. Springfield Wednesday.

Blog wise, barring anything huge, the Week 10 AHL Power Rankings will be here Monday afternoon.

Let’s Go Pens!!

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Jonathan Bombulie summed up the current state of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lack of experience up front in a single tweet:

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The results were predictable. St. John’s goaltender Eddie Pasquale stops all of twenty shots faced and Wheeling Wilkes-Barre loses 5-0.

The two teams rematch tomorrow night.

News of the day was the recall of Harry Zolnierczyk to Pittsburgh and Andrew Ebbett to injured reserve with a fractured ankle. Mike O’Brien said on the pre game show that Ebbett is expected to be out 4-6 weeks. He also stated that Nick Drazenovic is about a week away from returning. He is hopeful for a return Wednesday vs. his old team the Springfield Falcons.

Eric Hartzell vs. Eddie Pasquale. With the Zolnierczyk recall, it was all hands on deck up front for the Pens.

First Period: Bobby Farnham fought J.C. Lipon for the hit Lipon put on Tom Kuhnhackl a few weeks ago in Wilkes-Barre, where Lipon was suspended for the hit. The Pens struggled to get shots in close on Eddie Pasquale. Seemed that anything from the face-off dot or higher that the Pens shot at Pasquale, he saw like a beach ball.

Finally, just past the halfway mark of the period, Eric O’Dell wheeled around the Wilkes-Barre net, threw a weak shot at Hartzell and Carl Klingberg backhanded it home over the left shoulder of the Penguin net minder.

Other than that, Hartzell was pretty flawless otherwise for the Pens in the period, stopping shots in traffic, on a power play and even on a give away at the blue line that saw Patrice Cormier skate in unabated.

Second Period: Pens came out with much more life to start the period. They’d be rewarded with a power play, and that seemed to halt all momentum as the Pens would gain center red and dump and chase.

Then, Peter Merth and ex-Penguin Ryan Schnell are fighting for a puck along the wall and Blair Riley comes flying in with a check on Merth. Merth’s head collides with Schnell, cuts him badly, and then Merth and Riley fight. Merth would pick up the extra minor. Then, my AHL Live feed wet the bed. During the outage and me rushing to bring it back, Carl Klingberg scored his second of the game with a one timer in front for a 2-0 St. John’s lead. Then, Zach Redmond scores on a power play to extend the IceCaps lead to three.

The Penguins obviously weren’t doing themselves any favors taking lazy penalties. They needed to kill a carryover one heading into the….

Third Period: They would, then would get a power play but about fifteen seconds later would take a penalty. But that wasn’t the story of the period. It was this:

What little offense the Pens could muster at Pasquale and the IceCaps, the St. John’s net minder handled easily. This display was the most heat in his kitchen all night, and he came up with ten bell save after ten bell save.

Oh, that thing I said about the Pens getting a power play then taking one? Happened again. Seemed that any momentum the Pens got rolling they just applied the brakes themselves with dumb penalties.

Jerome Samson and Andrew Gordon strike in 1:05. Samson strips Brian Gibbons, skates the length, and fires a shot on Hartzell that was deflected by a stick. So, it badly changed the speed and the angle as the puck approached Hartzell. It was an ugly goal. Then, Zach Redmond fires a shot on goal that Andrew Gordon gets a stick on that appeared to be a high stick. I have an iPhone 5S that has a slo-mo camera on it. I looked at the goal again. It looked like, to me, that Gordon’s stick was legal at the point of contact then a split second later, as Gordon was raising his stick, illegal.

Referee Darcy Burchell must have saw it that way too, as he emphatically ruled goal and there wasn’t a replay.

That was it. Five goals scored against. Ain’t that enough?

Three Stars: 3) Eddie Pasquale (20 save shutout) 2) Zach Redmond (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Carl Klingberg (two goals, +2)

Around the Division: Hershey storms back after being down 2-0 in the second period and get by the B-Sens 4-2 in Binghamton. Norfolk does the same and wins 4-3 in a shootout in Syracuse for Brad Thiessen’s first win on North American soil this season.

Standings: Penguins 29 — Binghamton 29 — Norfolk 26 — Syracuse 25 — Hershey 21

Conference: 1) MCH (34) 2) SPR (30) 3) WBS (29) 4) BNG (29) 5) ALB (28) 6) PRO (27) 7) STJ (27) 8) NOR (26)

Wheeling Update: You’d think that you should feel sorry for the ECHL affiliate Wheeling. Yeah, no. The Nailers beat the defending Kelly Cup Champion Reading Royals 4-3 at home in a shootout. The Nailers are 9-0-2 in their last 11 games and are a point factory despite being stripped of all their players by call ups.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Not much to look at if you are a Penguin fan.

Rematch tomorrow on The Rock between these two teams. Gameday will be here at 2 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!