@          

2                                                3

–

With the state of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins now, with half of their scoring on recall to Pittsburgh, a dogfight in Hershey was going to be expected. The Bears are underachieving right now, and they did not want to get outclassed by their rivals in Wilkes-Barre by going 0-fer in the season going into December.

So the Penguins get a point tonight in Hershey with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Bears and lead the Eats Division coming into December.

They also accomplished this feat by yet another third period comeback, down 2-0 after the second intermission.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. David Leggio

Peter Merth was in for Dustin Stevenson. Dominik Uher needs “further evaluation” per Mike O’Brien on the pre game show from his upper body injury suffered Wednesday in Adirondack.

First Period: Pierre-Luc Letourneau Leblond and Joel Rechlicz fought in a dandy of a fight. Then, the Pens took a penalty and Stan Galiev scored to put the Bears ahead 1-0. Pens go 0-for-2 on the power play the rest of the way. The Bears really did a nice job of bottling up the Pens all period long.

Second Period: Pens fail to score on extended 5:00 major for charging on Garrett Mitchell on a hit from Brain Gibbons. Pens couldn’t do anything with it. Tempers flared as custom between these teams. Dave Leggio makes a nice save on Scott Harrington, Harry Zolnierczyk had about five chances all game to score but did not. Bears double the lead on a backhander just as a power play for them expires from Jeff Taffe.

Penguins really owned the period, but could not solve Leggio and gave up a goal to Taffe for a 2-0 deficit heading into the….

Third Period: Pierre Leblond scores his first goal for the Penguins on a firecracker of a shot from below the blue line to cut the Bears deficit in half. Hershey would then play full on prevent defense but Mike Carman would score in a scrum to tie the game late. Brian Gibbons and Harry Zolnierczyk were magic all night but just could not connect all night and missed one late. Deslauriers with a save on a Bear from the point. Penguins ice the puck three times in the final third seconds and it was onto…

Overtime: Mike Carman strips a Bear of a puck, feeds a streaking Kostopoulos but the captain misses. Then the Bears score with 6.6 left as David Kolomatis would receive a pass from the corner after Deslauriers directed a puck there. The Penguins goaltender was out of position as Kolomatis let loose and the Bears would take this one in overtime.

Three Stars: 3) Casey Wellman (two assists, +1) 2) Mike Carman (goal, +1) and 1) David Kolomatis (game winning OT goal, even)

Around the Division: Brad Thiessen loses in his 2013-14 AHL debut with the Norfolk Admirals 3-2 as the Providence Bruins sweep the weekend series with the Admirals. The Binghamton Senators lose 4-3 in a shootout to the St. John’s IceCaps and remain tied with Wilkes-Barre in points, but remains second in the division due to tiebreakers. The Syracuse Crunch bus broke down and arrived late for a game with the Adirondack Phantoms in Glens Falls but the Crunch still won 1-0 anyway.

Standings: Penguins 29 — Binghamton 29 — Syracuse 24 — Norfolk 24 — Hershey 18

Conference: 1) MCH (34) 2) SPR (30) 3) WBS (29) 4) BNG (29) 5) ALB (26) 6) STJ (25) 7) SYR (24) 8) NOR (24)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers shutout the hapless Toledo Walleye 3-0 tonight in West Virginia. The Walleye have been shutout in three straight game. Anton Zlobin had a goal for the Nailers in the win.

SendToNews Highlights: Here they are. Or, alternatively, watch this…

Content wise, if anything breaks Sunday, I will have it here. If not, the Week 9 AHL Power Rankings will be here Monday afternoon at 4 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

          vs.      

  0                                        1

–

It took 20 games, but the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have their first shutout.

Against a divisional foe.

By a rookie goaltender starting his second ever AHL game.

For first place.

Anchored by a 25 save performance by Eric Hartzell, the Penguins get a goal from Harry Zolnierczyk in the second period and ride solid defense the rest of the way to win 1-0 over rival Binghamton and are now in first place in the division.

Nathan Lawson vs. Eric Hartzell

Dominik Uher was listed as out with an “upper body” injury. Carter Rowney made his WBS debut for Uher. Peter Merth took warmups but was the lone healthy scratch.

Pre-game, the Pens announced that Jeff Deslauriers was signed to an AHL contract for the rest of the year. This should surprise no one. It wasn’t a matter of if they were going to sign Deslauriers, it was a matter of when.

First Period: Penguins went 0-for-7 on the power play and it showed early, especially with the second one of the night in the first period where the Penguins couldn’t get a single thing going. Late, shorthanded, Brian Gibbons hits the top of the goal post and the puck goes in at the buzzer. Only problem is, the puck went down and not in then was pushed in but after time expired. Replay confirmed the call.

Second Period: Eric Hartzell must have had six eyes and eight legs this period because he had every puck hit him this period. A redirect from in close? Saved. Penguins defensive turnover? Dial 555-BAIL – Eric is there to bail you out. A shot that goes through nine bodies on the ice that mere mortal goaltenders never see? Insured by Hartzell, we keep pucks out of the net! He saw everything and let everything hit him, closed his angles and was on money all period.

Then, Brian Gibbons takes a puck off the near low corner, sweeps it to Harry Zolnierczyk for the backhander to put the Pens up 1-0. Pens kill a 4:00 Brian Dumoulin high stick call, thanks in large part to the stout penalty kill and one Eric Hartzell.

Third Period: More terrible power play by the Penguins. A scary moment when Hartzell goes down and doesn’t move. The arena was quiet because most fans knew there wasn’t another goaltender in Wheeling for a call-up. Turns out, by my eyes, it was nothing but a cramp, as I saw trainer Kyle Moore mouth “cramp” while walking to the bench. Binghamton would have a power play to mess with after, but Hartzell and the stellar Wilkes-Barre penalty killing unit would deny all chances.

Three Stars: 3) Nathan Lawsn (25 saves on 26 shots) 2) Harry Zolnierczyk (goal, +1) and 1) Eric Hartzell (25 save shutout)

Around the Division: Syracuse guts out a 4-2 win at home vs. St. John’s, Norfolk loses 5-4 to Providence. Hershey was off.

Standings: Penguins 28 — Binghamton 28 — Norfolk 24 — Syracuse 22 — Hershey 16

Conference: 1) MCH (32) 2) SPR (28) 3) WBS (28) 4) BNG (28) 5) ALB (24) 6) NOR (24) 7) STJ (23) 8) SYR (22)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers win in Elmira vs. the Jackals 3-1. Anton Zlobin had a goal in the winning effort.

SendToNews Highlights: Better yet, how about a YouTube package?

Wilkes-Barre travels to Hershey tomorrow for a 7 p.m. gave with in-state rival Bears. Gameday for that will be up at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

          @      

  1                                         3

–

This headline is an all purpose one.

Since Phantoms are ghosts, and ghosts scare people, and you say “Boo!” to scare people, you have that angle.

When you don’t like something, you boo. I never like when the Penguins lose.

Wilkes-Barre lays an egg in Glens Falls, NY and lose 3-1 to the Adirondack Phantoms. The Phantoms bottled up the Penguins all night, especially in the second period onward, only allowing the Pens 12 shots on goal after the first period, where the Pens outshot the Phantoms 16-3.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. Yann Danis

Carter Rowney was the lone scratch for the Penguins. Peter Merth is day-to-day. Reid McNeill and Nick Drazenovic are week-to-week.

First Period: Penguins steamroll the Phantoms in the period, outshooting them 16-3. Phantoms won the game in this period by not going down multiple goals, as Danis was spectacular for Adirondack, only rearing one goal, on the power play to Tom Kostopoulos. Prior to, Brandon Manning had scored on the power play.

Second Period: The Pens played a great first five minutes then could not even muster a shot on goal, as it was noted in Adirondack that the Pens hadn’t registered a single shot on goal for the last three fourths of the period.

Some controversy with the second Adirondack goal scored by Petr Straka. Here, take a look:

–

Sorry about the letter boxing. I never remember to put my iPhone on landscape mode when shooting video.

Didn’t look like, to me, that that goal should have counted. Referee Geno Binda was the ref you saw there waving it off at the last second but T.J. Luxmore was the high ref and overruled the call WITHOUT replay. You decide.

Chris VandeVelde later pounces on a puck in the slot while the teams were 4-on-4 to put the Phantoms up 3-1. It would turn out to be all the insurance Adirondack would need.

Third Period: Dominik Uher took a puck up high in the second period, left with a towel on his mouth with the trainer and didn’t return. Pens get two power plays in the period but do not cash on either and that’s your ballgame.

Three Stars: 3) ben Holmstrom (assist, +1) 2) Brandon Manning (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Yann Danis (27 saves on 28 shots)

Around the Division: Binghamton beats a decimated Crunch team 5-1. St. John’s beats Hershey 4-2 and Norfolk beats Charlotte 5-2.

Standings: Binghamton 28 — Penguins 26 — Norfolk 24 — Syracuse 20 — Hershey 16

Conference: 1) MCH (30) 2) BNG (28) 3) SPR (27) 4) WBS (26) 5) NOR (24) 6) ALB (23) 7) STJ (23) 8) SYR (20)

Wheeling Update: Nailers shutout Cincinnati 3-0. Reigning ECHL player of the week Zack Torquato had a goal and an assist and was named first star of the game.

SendToNews Highlights: Aren’t up yet. Nothing much to see other than what I gave you above, but for the sake of completeness I will check later and link if one comes out.

Penguins back at it Friday vs. Binghamton. Looking ahead to that one, starting goaltender Nathan Lawson left the game with an apparent injury and Andrew Hammond came on in relief to start the second period.

Blog wise, I’ll have my First Quarter Grades here sometime tomorrow. I’m shooting for noon but only have the forwards done, so who knows. But they will be up, so check back at some point tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s Go Pens!!