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Penguins get two goals confirmed on replay and win what would end up being a tight one, 3-2. Cardiac Penguins forever!

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Frederik Andersen

Cody Wild slotted in for the recalled Robert Bortuzzo. Clark Seymour is on the trip. Reid McNeill was not, attending to a personal matter. Steve MacIntyre took warmups but was scratched.

First Period: All Norfolk to open the period, who had three shots on goal. Then, Trevor Smith corrals a loose puck, catches the Norfolk defensemen flatfooted and gets space, shoots and corals his own rebound and the puck goes in. Referees reviewed for a possible kicking motion, but the goal stood.

Then the Pens get the benefit of three straight power plays and are unable to score on them. If the Pens have even a marginal power play, it’s a 2-0 or even 3-0 lead.

Second Period: Penguins would have to kill off two power plays by Norfolk to open the period. They do. Then, late, Riley Holzapfel scores on a wired wrist shot that hits the inside top of crossbar and out. Referee Mar Lemelin took a look and confirmed his call. Later, Pens come in four on one, shoot, and Chris Collins is there in the slot pouncing on a rebound. Collins’ first WBS goal since his return.

Third Period: They ain’t the Cardiac Penguins for nothing, Norfolk cuts it to 3-2, Newcomer Kyle Bonis scores his first AHL goal on a Hail Mary pass from deep in the Norfolk offensive zone from Josh Brittain, slows down a bouncing puck and wires it past Zatkoff to put the Admirals on the board. All Admirals this period. Cody Wild takes a delay of game call. Hampus Lindholm winds up from the point, Devante Smith-Pelly tips it on the way home.

John Hynes then calls a time out. Huge time out in retrospect. Pens lock down the Admirals from there. Tom Grace says postgame that Norfolk maybe had two shots on goal after the timeout, with 5:36 remaining in the third.

Miscellany: I said four games ago that the Pens needed to go 3-1 in these last four games to cement themselves in playoffs. This after a terrible showing against these very Admirals two Saturdays ago when things looked, at least to me, bleak as bleak could be. 3-0-0-1 ain’t too shabby, which is 5 out of 6 points and one back of Portland for the five seed.

And how about Chad Kolarik? Three points off of the overall AHL point lead with 59 points. Something worth watching as the season winds down.

Three Stars: 3) Kyle Bonis (goal, even) 2) Chad Kolarik (two assists, +2) and 1) Riley Holzapfel (goal, +2)

Around the Division: Nothing to see here.

Standings: Syracuse 87 — Binghamton 87 — Penguins 78 — Hershey 73 — Norfolk 71

Conference: 1) SPR (87) 2) PRO (87) 3) SYR (87) 4) BNG (87) 5) POR (79) 6) WBS (78) 7) CT (74) 8) HER (73)

Pens have 69 games played, which is most out of all of what you see above. Portland has 67. Binghamton, if things get really weird, have 67 games played.

SendToNews Highlights: I have something even better than this, YouTube highlights which are the same thing! I’d love to see WBS put the SendToNews package up on YouTube every night. For your viewing enjoyment…

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Pens stay in Norfolk tonight then will bus ten and a half hours straight to Glens Falls, NY tomorrow for Friday’s tilt vs. Adirondack.

Trade deadline is tomorrow. Syracuse and Hershey made some moves and transactions today. There may or may not be more tomorrow. I would love to see Pittsburgh land a scorer for Wilkes-Barre. Twitter will have it first, then Facebook then later the blog. I will have a recap of all the transactions tomorrow.

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Thought about the headline that the Pens used in tonight’s 3-2 shootout win over Binghamton tonight and figured I would run with it. The Pens did inch by the B-Sens tonight. It’s the Jekyll and Hyde of this team, really. They run with one of the best teams in the league in Providence last night and scrap and claw and find themselves with the “pesky” Binghamton Senators tonight. They are doing what it takes to get points right now, which, when battling for your playoff lives, is everything you can ask for.

I said Wednesday morning that the Pens needed to go 3-1 in these next four games. The first three were all better competition, a win Wednesday at home vs. Binghamton, a shootout loss Friday vs. Providence and a shootout win in Binghamton. Tuesday they go to Norfolk for another huge test.

Jonathan summed it up nicely in saying that one night you win, and everyone around you loses and you look golden. Another night you lose, everyone around you wins, and you look like a loser. He said, “buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Nathan Lawson. No lineup changes for the Pens tonight.

First Period: Penguins with a decent power play would have blown Binghamton off the Southern Tier with all of the calls referee Mark Lemelin was making that favored Wilkes-Barre. Chad Kolarik and Shane Prince traded goals in the first. In the…

Second Period: … it was more of the same for the Penguins on the man advantage. The B-Sens were disappointed with every call made by Lemelin or, in the event that a Penguin player would get whistled for something, Lemelin would take a Binghamton player post whistle after pushing and shoving. This continued. Finally, with the Pens on a 4:00 double minor power play, Chad Kolarik shoots it and Trevor Smith deflects it for his 20th goal of the season, six seasons strong.

Third Period: Taking a page from last night, the Pens found themselves on the wrong end of a 2:00 5 on 3 against. But, with huge saves from Jeff Zatkoff, the Penguins special teams unit killed it. However, the B-Sens, who didn’t register their first shot of the game until twelve minutes into the first period and at that time were being outshot 8-1, had caught up to the Pens in the shots department and ultimately in the goal department when Danny New ripped home a one timer from the top of the slot to make it a 2-2 game.

The two teams would fight like dogs for the remainder of the period not to make a mistake and capitalize on one made. No further scoring would come about and it was onto….

Overtime: I got the sense that the Senators played like they wanted to win overtime and the Pens played like they didn’t want to lose overtime. A dangerous concoction. Nothing was decided so it was onto the…

…wait for it…

Shootout: Chad Kolarik, Riley Holzapfel and Trevor Smith score score in the first three rounds and Jeff Zatkoff stops Cole Schneider, Hugh Jessiman and Louie Caporusso to seal it for the Pens.

Three Stars: 3) Mark Borowiecki (+1) 2) Chad Kolarik (goal, assist, +1) and 1) Shane Prince (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: The Syracuse Crunch will have to wait another day to be the first team to clinch playoffs. The Norfolk Admirals shut them out in Virginia 2-0. The Hershey Bears, in a gotta have it game, come back from trailing after two periods for the first time this season and beat the unbeatable Niklas Svedberg and the Providence Bruins 3-2.

Standings: Syracuse 87 — Binghamton 87 — Penguins 76 — Hershey 73 — Norfolk 71

Conference: A four way tie at the top. 1) SPR (87) 2) PRO (87) 3) SYR (87) 4) BNG (87) 5) POR (79) 6) WBS (76) 7) CT (74) 8) HER (73)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers closed out their season at home vs. the Trenton Titans and lost 4-3 in a shootout. I’d anticipate a taxi squad of eligible players on their way to Wilkes-Barre fairly soon.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Nice packaging.

But for the aforementioned taxi squad of Nailers on the way to Wilkes-Barre, expect the next blog update to come Tuesday for the Gameday setup vs. the Norfolk Admirals that night. I expect Robert Bortuzzo to get called back up to Pittsburgh for good, but that’s hardly newsworthy, since we all knew it was happening anyway.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Pens should have had this one.

The good is that the Pens hung with one of the top five teams in the league tonight only to lose in the shootout 3-2. Brad Thiessen gets 85% of a Christian Hanson shot in the shootout and the puck falls in the net.

Dylan Reese had two power play goals, one in the first and another in the second. My, this power play looks great with Beau Bennett running things, that’s for sure.

Pens had to kill a full 2:00 of 5 on 3 when John Hynes did not particularly like the way that Chris Cozzan and Tremt Knorr were calling things. The Penguins did so successfully.

Providence is an extremely quick team that has highly skilled forwards. The Penguins did a fantastic job hanging with them tonight.

I got the sense that the coaching staff did their homework on the eighth ranked Providence power play unit. Pens were generating many shorthanded chances tonight and really had all the passing lanes bottled up.

Oh, Providence goaltender Niklas Svedberg’s right pad should be registered as a lethal weapon. It stopped Jayson Megna on a 2 on 1 shorthanded rush. Several other times it was flashed.

Bobby Farnham and Alden Hirschfeld had a memorable fight. I have a link to it on my Pheed page here.

Oh, it’s here on YouTube too:

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The above is unconventional, yes, because the majority of it was typed on my iPhone after the game watching a high school all-star game that occurred immediately following the Penguins game.

Here’s the rest of the conventional stuff:

News: Reid McNeill was recalled to WBS according to ECHL transactions and Jeff Zatkoff was back from Pittsburgh and backed up Brad Thiessen. The Peoria Rivermen are no more, starting AHL affiliation “silly season” early.

Around the Division: Hershey lost up in Albany 5-3. The Bears play these same P-Bruins tomorrow in Hershey. The Norfolk Admirals and Syracuse Crunch squared off in Virginia. The Admirals battled back down 4-1 to win 5-4 in overtime. The Binghamton Senators avoid losing three in a row for the tenth time this season, winning 5-2 at home vs. Adirondack.

Standings: Syracuse 87 — Binghamton 86 — Penguins 74 — Hershey 71 — Norfolk 69

Conference: 1) PRO (87) 2) SYR (87) 3) SPR (85) 4) BNG (86) 5) POR (77) 6) CT (74) 7) WBS (74) 8) HER (71)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers lost 8-5 at home to Toledo tonight. Wheeling closes out its season tomorrow.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Has everything you like in one highlight package.

Pens travel to Binghamton tomorrow. Gameday for that will be up at 3.