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Penguins win 2-1 in a shootout in thrilling fashion. A game that had pretty much everything:

1) A close to sell-out crowd.
2) A team desperate to get back on track and win again.
3) An Albany team that beat the league best Syracuse Crunch last night.
4) An untested goaltender in Max Clermont making his AHL debut for the Devils.
5) Action back and forth all night by two tight checking hockey clubs.

Adam Payerl got the better of Clermont in the shootout in the sixth round. Jeff Zatkoff stops Steve Zalewski to secure the win for the Penguins.

I couldn’t put my finger on what the bigger storyline was in the game. Whether it was Clermont, an untested goaltender coming in with a 3+ GAA with Elmira this season who didn’t know any better or the Penguins lack of puck luck.

Trevor Smith scored a power play goal in the slot in the first period which by all accounts was pretty even. I don’t know if Albany matched the same intensity that was seen by the Penguins last night or if the Pens were 100% invested in the game like they were not the first ten minutes of the game last night vs. Hershey.

Clermont established himself early on. All pucks hit him and stuck to him it seemed. He game up little rebounds. He looked relaxed.

In the second, Darcy Zajac slips away from the defense overloaded on the left side, and scores a goal to bring things even. Penguins had the better of the chances but Clermont was more than up to the challenge.

Overtime solved nothing. Devils had the better of the chances. There was a sequence where the Penguins thought they had scored but referee Ryan Fraser reviews it on replay and determines that the puck does not go in.

Shootout time. Mike Sislo in round one, Jayson Megna in round four, Tom Kostopoulos and Joe Whitney in round five and Adam Payerl in round six with Zatkoff stopping Steve Zalewski.

It was Albany’s tenth shootout loss, tops in the AHL.

Three stars were 3) Trevor Smith (goal, even) 2) Jeff Zatkoff (26 saves on 27 shots) and 1) Adam Payerl (shootout game winner)

Another night where I thought that the opposing goaltender deserved a star of the game. Clermont was spectacular when he needed to be, which was often.

Around the Division: Binghamton was in Toronto and won 4-2. Norfolk traveled to Hershey in an important game for both teams and coughed up a 2-1 lead with 2:33 left in regulation and lost 3-2. Rochester edged Syracuse in overtime 2-1.

Standings: Syracuse 75 — Binghamton 71 — Penguins 63 — Hershey 62 — Norfolk 54

Conference: 1) SYR (75) 2) SPR (73) 3) PRO (69) 4) BNG (71) 5) POR (67) 6) WBS (63) 7) HER (62) 8) CT (59)

Bears host the Crunch tomorrow and can leap frog the Penguins if they win. It is their game in hand against the Pens.

Wheeling Update: Nailers win 3-0 at home, shutting out the Trenton Titans. Chris Barton was 1-1-2, Paul Crowder was 1-2-3. Keven Veilleux had an assist.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Cut up are both regulation goals and the shootout goals.

Pens hit the road for seven straight games, hitting a ton of New England stops along the way.

Third Quarter Grades are due! 19 games left! The playoff push is on! Stick with me on Twitter for when to expect the grades. Probably some time early on in the week.

Let’s Go Pens!

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J’ever show up late to something and ask, “what’d I miss?” and be told, “everything!” That’s how the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins felt when tonights game started. The Pens do nothing for 9:30, look flat as a pancake, allow the Bears to score three goals on them and before you knew it, starter Brad Thiessen was chased and Jeff Zatkoff was in.

Pens mounted a comeback the rest of the way, locking the Bears down and only allowing the Bears 9 more shots on goal, but the end result was a 3-2 loss on home ice to yet another divisional foe.

Bears goals in the first went like this: Boyd Kane spin-o-rama roof job on Thiessen to make it 1-0. Then Jeff Taffe in similar fashion and it’s 2-0. Later. Ryan Potulny under the bar and in. Referee Trevor Hanson reviewed it on replay and it stood and it was 3-0. Enter Zatkoff. Penguins settle, get a power play, no shots. Uh oh. Casey Wellman then boards Tom Kostopoulos. Another power play.

J’ever see something happen before it happens? That’s what this Penguin power play looked like. You could see the ferocious tenacity in the eyes of the Penguins. They were going to score. They just were. Sure enough, they did. Tom Kostopoulos scored his 100th goal as a WBS Penguin, his third straight and second on the power play. Penguins caught up in shots at nine a piece heading into the second.

The second period could best be described as a textbook way that you control the puck, pressure the opponent and back and fore check like madmen. That’s exactly what the Penguins did the entire period. The Bears only manage two shots on Zatkoff this period. Joey Mormina brings things to within one when the puck hits everything but the kitchen sink and clangs off the post and in. Wave after wave of pressure. All lines rolling.

Then three things happened the rest of the way home that didn’t really happen. Trevor Smith finds a cutting Riley Holzapfel towards the net. Holzapfel could not corral the puck on the back hand and it hops over his stick. Then, in the third period, Bobby Farnham shoots, Jayson Megna pounces on a rebound and Sabourin dives over to block it. Finally, in the dying minutes of the third Warren Peters has the game on his stick but is unable to control the puck and it skitters off his stick and out of his reach. Ballgame.

I thought Sabourin won the game for Hershey tonight. He was spectactular when he had to be.

Three stars were 3) Jeff Taffe (goal, even) 2) Joey Mormina (goal, -1) and 1) Ryan Potulny (game winning goal, +1)

How Sabourin didn’t earn a star was beyond me.

It is too late in the season to count this game as a “moral” victory. There are no more moral victories. The Penguins took 34 shots and allowed the Bears only 14. But the first 7 of those shots resulted in 3 goals. You have to be better than that. You just have to. Your biggest rival comes into your building with a game in hand on you and you let it be 3-0 before the game is 10 minutes old then fight like dogs just to get back even.

Anyway, here’s what happened outside of Wilkes-Barre:

Albany wins it’s third in a row by beating Syracuse 3-1 in Syracuse. The Devils are in town tomorrow night. The B-Sens beat Hamilton in the Steel CIty 3-2 and the Admirals beat the Charlotte Checkers (remember those guys?) 6-2 at home.

Standings: Syracuse 74 — Binghamton 69 — Penguins 61 — Hershey 60 — Norfolk 54

Conference: 1) SYR (74) 2) SPR (71) 3) PRO (68) 4) BNG (69) 5) POR (66) 6) WBS (61) 7) HER (60) 8) CT (59)

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose at home to the Trenton Titans 3-2 in a shootout. Keven Veilleux had a goal and an assist and did not convert his shootout attempt.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here. Include Kostopoulos’ 100th goal as a Penguin.

Albany is in tomorrow on “Eric Tangradi Bobblehead” night. The good thing I guess that can be said here in this situation is that the Pens play seven non-divisional foes starting tomorrow and six of those seven on the road after tomorrow.

Gameday for tomorrows game vs. Albany will be here at 3. Check it out then then come back later for the “live tweet” feed.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Spot the Penguins three goals a game and plan the parade, baby. Here are three things you know going into to a Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins game on any given night:

1) Either Jeff Zatkoff or Brad Thiessen have a legitimate chance at a shutout.
2) The defense is going to shut the other teams top line down.
3) The penalty kill is going to be rock solid.

Notice above that I mentioned defense and goaltending as my main points. I did not mention offense. There isn’t any. The Pens are relying on the defense and goaltending to get them through and hoping for a good bounce here and a good bounce there to muster enough offense to hopefully win a game for them.

Going back to the start of 2013, that’s 24 games if my late Wednesday night math is correct, the Penguins are 8-0 in games where they score three or more goals.

Driving home, I thought that it had to be scouting that prevents the Penguins from having success against the teams in the East Division. It isn’t that. It’s a total lack of offense. Maybe a bad break here and there mixed in, but the bottom line at the end of the day is that you need offense and goals to win games and right now the Penguins don’t have that. The power play is poop, 26th in the league at 13.7%. The offense is ranked 28th in the 30 team league at 2.35 goals a game and dead last in the Eastern Conference.

The Pens lost tonight 2-1 by the way. Tom Kostopoulos scored a rebound goal on a power play in the second period. Jeff Zatkoff took the loss, stopping 31 of 33.

Norfolk tied the game late in the second on a power play goal from Brandon McMillan shot that Zatkoff was heavily screened on. Then at just past the midway point of the third period, Dan Sexton and Ryan Parent work a puck off a Penguins defenseman and throw it at the net from a ridiculous angle. Josh Brittain gets a stick on it on the way by to put the Ads up front 2-1. With the anemic offense that is the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, that’s all they would require to skate away with the two points.

Penguins lose out on a golden opportunity to put distance between them and Hershey in the division and teams around them in the conference. The Penguins have now played 55 games and have 61 points. Providence, ahead of them in the conference has 53 games played with 66 points. Binghamton at the four seed has 53 games played and 67 points. Hershey has 54 games played and 58 points. Worcester and Albany at the nine and ten seeds have 52 and 51 games played and 56 and 54 points respectively.

No one else in the division skated. Wheeling lost 5-1 in Elmira.

SendToNews highlights aren’t up yet, here they are. I’ll have to link up in the morning.

Hershey is in Friday for a game which is more important now because of points and divisional / conference jockeying. Oh, and the Bears are upset over the last two games played against Wilkes-Barre and how we celebrated each overtime win. It’s dollar beer night, too. Should be a wild ride.

If I think of anything for the blog, I’ll have my idea first on Twitter then if I remember Facebook. If not, Gameday for Hershey will be up Friday at 3.

Let’s Score Some Goals Go Pens!