Penguins lose a special teams battle to the Adirondack Phantoms tonight. All of the goals in a 3-2 loss this evening were scored with a man or men down somewhere. Pens usually pride themselves on having a strong PK but the Phantoms score two goals on the 5 on 3 and get a power play goal and that would ultimately be all she wrote.

John Curry vs. Micheal Leighton – we at Chirps from Center Ice figured that Patrick Killeen would get the start in net. Brad Thiessen is still in Pittsburgh with no sign of coming back down as of yet as Brent Johnson is still day to day with an upper body injury. You would have to expect that Killeen gets the start tomorrow vs. Hershey. Braden Holtby is on recall to Washington and Nolan Schaefer has started two straight games so you would have to figure it will be Todd Ford vs. Patrick Killeen tomorrow afternoon.

Steve Wagner went home with Scott Stuccio last night and will not play tomorrow, and his status is in question Wednesday in Norfolk. Joe Vitale and Joey Mormina are still out and are not on this trip.

First Period: Michael Ryan took an interference penalty about 10 minutes in and Bryan Lerg converted on the power play. Then, Robert Bortuzzo and Andrew Hutchinson would sit for penalties and Ben Holmstrom would tie the game with a left dot snipe. Tons of penalties would ensue and the period would end 1-1.

Second Period: Geoff Walker crashed the net and Cullen Eddy trips him. In the ensuing power play, Ben Street would score off of a nifty Bryan Lerg point shot Street would deflect past Leighton. Off of the faceoff the Pens would have a four on two and not score due to too many passes. Later, Keven Veilleux would be on the ice too long and Nick Petersen had to play two guys out there and in doing so held a Phantom so the Phantoms would get a power play. In it, Brian Strait would get whistled for boarding and the Phantoms would have a 5 on 3. In that, they’d score to even the game at two via Ben Holmstom. Later, the Pens would have a three on one with Nick Petersen and Dave Marshall in the rush and would not score.

Third Period: Michael Leighton with perhaps the save of the year on the Pens as Geoff Walker had him all alone, had him drop, then fired it high but somehow Leighton got the glove up to just absolutely rob Walker win what probably can be top 5 saves of the year league wide. Later, Pens would get a power play and John Hynes mixed things up by putting the top power play line out for the second minute of the power play. No dice. Then, with Zach Sill in the box for hooking, Matt Read would get his first ever AHL goal to give the Phantoms the lead for good.

http://twitter.com/#!/PSPhantoms/status/51816231715618816

Yikes.

Later, Tim Wallace would fire a puck off of a faceoff off of the crossbar which fell straight down and not in. Other than that, the Pens would pull Curry but not find the equalizer and lose.

Three Stars: Matt Read (game winning goal), Michael Leighton (24 saves on 26 shots) and Ben Holmstrom (two goals)

Around the Division: Hershey wins a wild one 7-4 in a game that saw it delayed an hour due to ice issues. The Bears clinch a playoff spot. Make room. Charlotte beats Portland 5-4 in regulation. Norfolk scores two goals in :38 to beat Manchester 2-1. Both the Pirates and the Monarchs clinch playoff berths as well. Binghamton beat Providence 4-1 and Syracuse beat Rochester 6-4.

Standings: Bears draw to 10. Wilkes-Barre, barring an implosion, is going to clinch the East Division. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. It’s 103-93 over the Bears with two games in hand. Charlotte sits third with 89 points. The Pens have two games in hand over the Checkers too who are mathematically eliminated from winning the East. The Norfolk Admirals are fourth with 88 points. Binghamton lurks in fifth with 85 points. Then Syracuse, Albany and Adirondack bring up the rear with 65-65-62 points respectively.

Tomorrow: Head to head with the Bears. Check the AHL’s playoff primer tomorrow for WBS’ clinching scenarios. Norfolk plays Charlotte in Charlotte. Portland and Manchester are off.

Go Pens.

Don’t worry about the Hershey Bears.

Don’t worry about the Norfolk Admirals.

Don’t worry about the Charlotte Checkers.

Worry about the Binghamton Senators.

Bingo shutout the Penguins tonight 3-0 and with the win put itself three points to Charlotte for fourth and four points to Norfolk for third in the Division. Oh yeah, they will get about five players back from Ottawa when their season ends in a few weeks. The Senators are a thorn in the side of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. Wilkes went 0-4 in the regular season in Binghamton. 3-5 overall in the 8 game series. Oof. Dating back to last year, the Pens have lost seven straight games in Binghamton.*

John Curry vs. Robin Lehner. Patrick Killeen made it from Florida in time to make the trip.

First Period: Pens came out and just smothered the Sens. They had 1:10 of five on three to work with after Andre Benoit delay of game and a Ryan Keller hook. Pens could not score. Wilkes would not allow a SOG for 15:00 but then the Sens put three up in one shift. The top rated Sens power play would get a chance late with a Bryan Lerg hook but the Pens would hold the Sens to only one shot on goal more.

Second Period: While Steve Wagner was in the box for closing his hand on the puck, Andre Benoit would clank iron and put a puck in the net to give the B-Sens a 1-0 lead. Wheels would fall off afterwards, as Roman Wick just stickhandled right through Corey Potter to make it 2-0 after Jim O’Brien hacked and whacked on Curry’s pads until it went in.

Third Period: Five guys go after a puck in the defensive zone. I have it, no, you have it, no, I have it, no, wait…it’s a three on none for Binghamton. Ryan Keller scores to make it 3-0. Later, Steve Wagneer chases a puck in behind Lehner’s net and collides with him. The collision doesn’t look violent at all, but Wagner went off holding his wrist / arm / shoulder. I observed him walking out with his left arm not in his coat. Hynes told Bombulie in JB’s postgamer that Wags is out the rest of the weekend and maybe Wednesday @ Norfolk. Hello, Alex Grant. Late, the Pens would have a power play and pull Curry but not score.

Three Stars: Andre Benoit (game winning goal, even) Jim O’Brien (goal, two assists, +2) and Robin Lehner (31 save shutout)

I thought that after the Pens allowed a shot on goal the Pens folded up and went away. Almost like they expected to not give up a shot on goal. Despite that, you can’t hang this loss on John Curry. Hell, if Brad Thiessen was here he probably would have lost too. The Pens put up 31 shots on goal and only allowed 20. You take that going forward.

As an aside, nice to meet Bob Howard of the Power Play Post Show. If you haven’t heard his weekly radio show all about the AHL you should. It’s a great listen. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Around the Division. Help in the form of a Hershey loss to Adirondack 2-1 and a Norfolk was shutout by Manchester at home 4-0. Magic number to clinch the division, per Bombulie, is three. Elsewhere, Connecticut beat Charlotte in a shootout 3-2 and Syracuse beat Albany 6-2. In the Atlantic the Portland Pirates lost to Bridgeport 5-1.

Tomorrow: Wilkes-Barre travels to Adirondack, Hershey hosts Albany, Manchester and Norfolk rematch, Charlotte travels to Portland. Expect Killeen to get the nod in net tomorrow for Wilkes-Barre as Brad Thiessen is still in Pittsburgh with Brent Johnson sidelined with his upper body injury.

Go Pens.

* – Tony Androckitis with the research on this one

It looked like for much of the game tonight that the Albany Devils were going to get the first ever win in Devils minor league franchise history tonight. They did not. They battled the Penguins every step of the way tonight and the Pens prevailed in a shootout, 2-1. The win pushes the Pens to a franchise tying 51 win season, and 12 points up on Hershey for first with two games in hand and cuts the magic number to 5.

Brad Thiessen v. Mike McKenna. John Curry was back from his very minor injury. Alex Grant skated in warmups but was a scratch.

First Period: Keven Veilleux hit everything that moved in an early shift. He played well this game. Then, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond (PL3) sat for a roughing call and the Pens scored on the ensuing power play on a Ryan Craig hack and whack on McKenna’s doorstep. The teams would trade a few penalties in the last five minutes, seems like the last 5 was spent 4 on 4 and the score would be 1-0 Pens after 1.

Second Period: Devils had to kill off about :30 of an Adam Henrique boarding call. As he was coming out of the box a Devils player passed it to him wide open. He broke in and drew iron behind Thiessen. Zach Sill continued his strong play, everywhere on the PK and pretty much all game. Then, later in a scrum, PL3 scored on Thiessen. For those who are not familiar with his body of work, he has 250+ PIMs this year and is a fighter and not a scorer. It was really a bad goal given the circumstances because the Devils were out playing us.

Third Period: Pens would clamp down and allow Albany just three shots on goal all period. Brett Sterling and Ryan Craig would have a 2 on 1 chance and then later Ben Street and David Marshall. Neither would score. To overtime we went…

…other than a Brett Sterling high stick with 36 seconds left to play there were only a few anxious moments. To the shootout!

Keven Veilleux and Brett Sterling would score for Wilkes-Barre and Matt Anderson for the Devils.

Actually kind of sad to see it end in a shootout. I really wanted to see who would have scored what would have been the game winning goal. In playoffs, there are no shootouts.

Three Stars: PL3 (goal +1), Ryan Craig (goal, -1) and Brett Sterling (assist, game winning shootout goal)

Around the Division: Binghamton beat Syracuse 6-3 and Norfolk dropped Adirondack 2-1.

Standings: Pens get to 103 points and 12 up on Hershey’s 91. Survive the weekend with a 10 point lead and the race for the division is all but over. Norfolk and Charlotte are deadlocked in a tie for third with 86 points. Binghamton is fifth with 81 points and Albany, Syracuse and Adirondack are 65, 61 and 58 points respectively.

Friday: Charlotte is in Connecticut, Hershey travels to Adirondack, Manchester plays Norfolk in Virginia, Bridgeport plays Portland in Maine and the Penguins travel (as do I) to Binghamton in a must have game for their psyche. Binghamton has given us fits this year. We need to beat these guys soundly.

Go Pens.