My other headline was going to be, “December to Remember?” – but I think I like this one better.

What a horrible month of December for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

After a 5-3 win on December 1 vs. the St. John’s IceCaps, the Penguins were in second place in the division. Here’s how the the East Division shook out when it was all said and done on December 1: Syracuse 28 — Penguins 26 — Binghamton 24 — Hershey 19 — Norfolk 16

They also sat fourth overall in the conference, the best of the best not a division leader.

Then, a 5-4 overtime loss to Hershey. Up 3-0 vs. Portland and they lose in a shootout. Then the Zatkoff injury. A bad loss to the last place at the time Albany Devils 6-3. A 3-1 loss to Binghamton on my birthday. A 4-0 shutout loss to Syracuse. Then the implosion on the Southern Tier when they are up 3-0 to Binghamton to start the third and ultimately lose 4-3. They finally break the funk and win in Syracuse 3-2 to get John Hynes the coaching record. Then, shutout in Hershey 2-0 on Boxing Day, then the next night utterly dominated by the Bears on home ice 4-1. Then the OT loss to Norfolk 3-2 on Saturday night then finally tonight a 2-1 loss to the Syracuse Crunch.

December 2012 will go down 2-7-2-1 for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

The talk of “we will figure it out” or “there are guys with a lot of pride who are very talented in this room” or “we aren’t worried about this” have gone stale. Something has to give.

You can’t win a Calder Cup in December, but you sure may lose out on the chance to compete for one in December if you let things slip away.

Brad Thiessen opposed Dustin Tokarski tonight. Beau Bennett returned from injury. Benn Ferriero was scratched. He’s been playing poorly. That scratch is justified. Dylan Reese was scratched too. That’s a few games now. Something is up there.

Thiessen kept the Pens in it in the first period with some sharp saves on Syracuse’s gunners. Same held for the second period, but the run support just was not there. Richard Panik gets sprung on a mini-breakaway and scores with Joey Mormina hooking him. Then, Panik scores in the opening minutes of the third period while the Crunch were on a power play to make it 2-0. Trevor Smith would score with :01 in the third period left to spoil Tokarski’s shutout bid. Ballgame.

I’m going to look up the last time the Penguins scored a shorthanded goal.I’ll probably tweet it out later. Edit: Benn Ferriero November 21 in Hershey, a 4-0 win. The only one of the season. The power play in the third period looked terrible. People were booing. Myself included. I try to stay above the noise and not troll or go to negative town just for the sake of or because I like to, but the Penguins right now just are not making smart decisions with the puck and are just playing sloppy, sloppy hockey. It’s really awful to watch.

Things don’t get better for the Pens as they are in Binghamton on Friday. I hope that a weeks worth of practice fixes what is ailing the team right now.

Divisionally, Norfolk and Hershey were off. Binghamton hosted the St. John’s IceCaps and won 4-2. This means that B-Sens head coach Luke Richardson will coach the Eastern Conference All-Stars January in Providence as he’s the coach at December 31 in the Eastern Conference with the best winning percentage.

Standings look like this: Syracuse 45 — Binghamton 41 — Hershey 34 — Penguins 31 — Norfolk 29.

Conference is as follows: 1) Syracuse (45) 2) Springfield (39) 3) Portland (38) 4) Binghamton (41) 5) Worcester (37) 6) Bridgeport (37) 7) Providence (34) 8) Hershey (34) 10) Wilkes-Barre (31)

SendToNews Highlights are here.

Wheeling lost to the Elmira Jackals at home 3-2. Andrew Hotham had a goal and Carl Sneep an assist for the Nailers in the loss.

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Want to thank the people who read this blog. WordPress sent me the end of year report and the blog has been seen 36,000+ times just in 2012 alone. I am close to 100,000 views all time. I am not Jonathan Bombulie, nor do I want to be, but thank you, thank you, thank you for reading what I put up here. I strive to do the best that I can and be the best at it and bring you information relative to the Penguins and the American Hockey League in general from a fan perspective. I really appreciate all the compliments I get as someone who doesn’t have a journalism degree and someone who pushes paper for a living that people actually: a) read my blog b) enjoy reading my blog c) recommend my blog to others. I can’t thank you guys enough. Here’s to a great 2013!

Let’s Go Pens!

The effort looked there at times, but the Penguins could not win again tonight losing 3-2 in overtime to a better than their standings place shows Norfolk Admirals team. The Penguins are 2-7-1-1 in December. The Admrials are 7-3-1 in December. Like two ships passing in the night going the opposite direction.

I can’t explain it. I don’t think anyone can right now. It seems like the team is a ship without a rudder and just going wherever the current takes it.

No captain. No sense of urgency. No effort on most nights. No wins to show.

I don’t know. I am not in the room and around the team at all. The time for, “get it together” is over.

Jeff Zatkoff vs. Igor Bobkov

First Period: Brian Gibbons throws a puck at the net and it slips by Bobkov for a quick 1-0 Penguins lead. First fifteen minutes or so, all Penguins. Final five minutes were all Norfolk. Shots this period were 11-7 Penguins.

Second Period: Norfolk must have adjusted to something because they owned this period. Chris Wagner deflects a Gabe Guentzel shot six minutes in. They continue to sail around the ice, pun intended. Penguins then get some offensive zone time. They manage no shots on goal at Bobkov. Then, a puck hops a stick and Admirals leading scorer Peter Holland skates in and scores on Zatkoff to make it 2-1. Somehow, someway, the Penguins tie the game late off a Jayson Megna stuff after a Pens faceoff win.

Third Period: Uneventful, really. Both teams had a chance at the power play but nothing became of it.

Overtime: :27 in, Benn Ferriero gets called for hooking in the neutral zone. This is after referee Geno Binda calls just two penalties in the third period and many he either missed or let slide. :27 later, Peter Holland feeds Patrick Maroon in the slot and Maroon buries it for the game winner.

Three Stars: 3) Jayson Megna (goal, +2) 2) Peter Holland (goal, assist, even) and 1) Patrick Maroon (overtime game winner, even)

Around the Division: Syracuse coughs up a four goal lead to the worst offensive team in the AHL in the St. John’s IceCaps (2.34 goals a game) and lose 5-4 in overtime. Binghamton keeps rolling and win in Rochester 2-1. Hershey loses in regulation to the Albany Devils 3-2.

Standings: Syracuse 43 — Binghamton 39 — Hershey 34 — Penguins 31 — Norfolk 29

Conference: 1) SYR 43 — 2) SPR 37 — 3) POR 36 — 4) BNG 39 — 5) WOR 35 — 6) BRI 35 — 7) PRO 34 — 8) HER 34 — 10) WBS 31

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were shutout by Ryan Zapolski and the South Carolina Stingrays 3-0. Yes the same Ryan Zapolski who was in Wilkes-Barre on a PTO when Zatkoff went down with an injury.

SendToNewsHighlights: Aren’t up yet. Will be tomorrow morning most likely. Sunday Morning Edit: They are here. Went up 20 minutes after this published last night. Go figure.

Pens face off against the Syracuse Crunch at 5:05 Monday. Gameday for that will be up at 1 p.m. on New Years Eve.

Keep plugging. Go Penguins!

The slide continues.

The Penguins are now 1-8 in their last nine games. I can’t explain any one thing that could be the problem. Let’s walk through the basics:

1) Goaltending.  I don’t think there is an issue here. Jeff Zatkoff won goalie of the month in November. You don’t all of a sudden forget how to play goal. Brad Thiessen is a former AHL Goaltender of the Year as well.

2) Defense. An issue, but not a concern at this point. Okay, maybe a concern, because there have been more that a few times that a defensive gaffe has led to a turnover which in turn leads to a goal against. Still, a top unit in the AHL.

3) Forwards. John Hynes shook up the lines. It’s late, so I am not going to individually go through each players performance, but there really doesn’t seem to be an established fourth line. Second and Third lines rotate almost game to game, situation by situation, opponent to opponent.

4) Special teams. Big concern here. power play is running at a 1 for 41 clip at this time. Penalty kill is ranked third in the league, however.

5) Coaching. John Hynes is the all time winningest coach in Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins history. If you think he is the problem, please never read my blog again.

So in short, I don’t know.

The problem which scares me though is, I don’t think the Penguins do either.

They lost tonight and were swept in the mini-two game series against the Bears 4-1. Not a lot to get into here but I will do my best.

Lines were shook up. They were as follows:

Dupuis – Peters – Tangradi
Megna – Smith – Gibbons
Thompson – Ferriero – Holzapfel
Sill – Farnham – Uher

Dumoulin – Reese
Strait – Bortuzzo
Morrow – Despres

Zatkoff – Thiessen

First Period: Garrett Mitchell scores his 981st goal against the Penguins this season to make it 1-0 Bears early. Bobby Farnham and Kevin Marshall fought shortly thereafter. Farnham riled up his team and the crowd. It worked in part, as the Penguins would sustain offensive zone pressure throughout the remainder of the period but would be unable to crack netminder Dany Sabourin. Shots after one were 11-6 Penguins.

Second Period: Shots quickly jumped to 10 for the Bears in the opening minutes of the second period. They adjusted and quickly extinguished any pressure Wilkes-Barre had hoped to carryover from the first period. On a rush, Jeff Taffe sets up Steve Oleksy on a drop pass he wristed home past Zatkoff to put the Bears up 2-0. Seemed at the time to stop all momentum Wilkes-Barre had mounted or hoped to mount. Later, the Bears miss an open net, maintain pressure and capitalize on another and make it 3-0 via Mathieu Beaudoin.

Third Period: Brad Thiessen came in for relief of Zatkoff, who allowed three goals on fifteen shots. Penguins finally break through on a power play goal by Paul Thompson. Going back on my tweets from that point, all it was after that was tweeting time and score. Literally nothing was going on for the Penguins offensively the last ten minutes of the game. Boyd Kane picks a corner on Thiessen late and put the game away at 4-1.

Going back the last couple of games, it really hasn’t been Penguin hockey. It really has been hard to watch at times because nothing is going the Penguins way.

Three Stars: 3) Boyd Kane (goal, assist, +1) 2) Jeff Taffe (two assists, +2) and 1) Garrett Mitchell (goal, assist, +2)

Around the Division: We were the only divisional action on the schedule.

Standings: Syracuse 40 — Binghamton 35 — Hershey 34 — Penguins 30 — Norfolk 27

Saturday’s game against the defending champion Norfolk Admirals is HUGE in the scope of things.

Conference: 1) SYR (40) 2) SPR (37) 3) POR (34) 4) BNG (35) 5) HER (34) 6) BRI (33) 7) PRO (32) 8) MCH (32) 10) WBS (30)

So not only do the Penguins have to worry about last place they also have to worry about losing touch with the 7 and 8 seeds in the Conference.

SendToNews Highlights: Not much to see here, and they aren’t up at 11:05 p.m. on Thursday yet. Morning after edit: The highlights are up. They include all five goals and two fights including Simon Despres and Bobby Farnham.

Wheeling Update: Nailers lose in a shootout to the Greenville Road Warriors 5-4 at the Bi-Lo Center in South Carolina. The Nailers were up 4-2 at one point but the Road Warriors were able to tie it late and win in the shootout. Chris Barton had a goal and two assists and was a +2 in the loss. The same two teams meet again tomorrow night in Greenville.

Hang in there. That’s all I can say.

Let’s Go Pens!