I dogged it I must admit when drawing up the Gameday post for this game and “Why you should care”:

“Want to see them (the Pens) win? Come to the game tonight, Adirondack is a team in disarray…”

It takes a Bears fan in the comments section to remind me that Michael Leighton is down on a conditioning stint. I looked past that when writing up the Gameday and regret it. This was a trap game for Wilkes-Barre if there ever was one. John Curry opposed Leighton in the other net. No other lineup changes for Wilkes-Barre. Hutchinson out with injury and Veilleux scratched. Nick Johnson wore the other “A” tonight with Hutch out of the lineup.

First period: Eric Wellwood scored at 8:01 to give the Phantoms a 1-0 lead. He stopped, then put the puck five hole on Curry. Bad goal for John but nothing circumstance wise you really can do. From the get go however, the Pens were steamrolling the Phantoms with chance after chance and a lot of time was spent in the Pens offensive zone. Leighton was up to the task, stopping everything he saw. Greg Moore sat for a hooking call and as his penalty expired, Eric Tangradi was screening Leighton and Dustin Jeffrey (who else) scored to tie the game at one. Period would end with a 15-4 shots advantage for Wilkes-Barre.

Second period: John Curry was up to the task tonight, flat robbing Greg Moore not once but twice on the left face off dot. Leighton was flat out keeping Adirondack relevant as he was just a NHL caliber goaltender, scratch that, an Eastern Conference Champion, Stanley Cup Final caliber goaltender keeping his team in the game. I tweeted that Wilkes-Barre would need a dirty goal to beat him.

Third period: The aforementioned dirty goal would not come until 15:00 of the third period when Tim Wallace absolutely undresses Danny Syvret and beats Leighton to make it 2-1. I don’t think Michael expected that out of Wallace either. I know I didn’t. 1:46 later, Eric Tangradi scored from the same angle Chris Collins did the night before on the goal line to make it 3-1. Joe Vitale would sit for a late hooking penalty. Adirondack would use it’s timeout and pull Leighton and on the 6 on 4, AHL sniper Denis Hamel one time a bomb to the net which would be tipped by Ben Holmstrom. Adirondack would empty its net again but Wilkes-Barre would hold on for a 3-2 victory.

Robert Bortuzzo, Tim Wallace and Dustin Jeffrey were the three stars. Hershey’s Andrew Gordon went pointless as the Bears blanked the Senators 4-0 tonight so with tonight’s goal and assist, Dustin Jeffrey is tied for the league lead in points with Andrew Gordon. I will have to ask Pens beat writer Jonathan Bombulie when the last time someone from WBS was tops in the league in scoring.

Around the Division: You already know about Hershey, Albany blanked Rochester 2-0. Check out who got the game winning goal in that one. Norfolk storms back from a 3-0 deficit to come back and win 4-3 in a shootout over the Portland Pirates. Arrrgh!

Standings: WBS is first in the league to 40 points. Norfolk is second with 32 points. Hershey and Charlotte are tied with 29 points in third and fourth respectively. Bad weekend for the Binghamton Senators, two games and zero points. They are in fifth with 23 points. Albany has 20 points for sixth, Syracuse 18 for seventh and the Phantoms are last with 8 points.

Big stick tap to Tim McManus tonight who was not at the game but encouraged his followers on Twitter to follow me for the tweet by tweet. I appreciate it so much.

Pens back to work Wednesday at home against the Toronto Marlies. Tomorrow I will spend my day watching parts of all 8 AHL games.

Go Pens.

Business handled tonight. A 4-2 Wilkes-Barre win and the way you are supposed to handle a team who is four spots below you in the standings. If we somehow lose to Binghamton tonight, every team in the league is looking for the game tape to break down and try and find a way to duplicate it.

Let’s get this right out of the way: Max Talbot took a shot in practice today in Pittsburgh off of the foot / ankle area and is bruised. He will travel with the team tomorrow to Columbus, but head coach Dan Bylsma said today that if he cannot go either Dustin Jeffrey, Nick Johnson or Brett Sterling may get the call to Columbus tomorrow. Evgeni Malkin was given a “maintenance” day and Brooks Orpik missed practice due to illness. Max can still play if he is able, apparently. We’ll have to see.

Regardless, back to the matter at hand. Brad Thiessen v. Barry Brust tonight. Chris Collins returned to the lineup. Andrew Hutchinson was out due to injury and Keven Veilleux of all people was the scratch tonight with Joey Haddad. Bryan Lerg skated tonight.

First period: While Corey Potter and Zack Smith were in the box for separate slash and rough penalties respectively, Joey Mormina put a shot on Brust’s pads which kicked out to Joe Vitale on the doorstep and gave WBS the 1-0 lead. I find AHL stats interesting. Normally something the casual fan just ignores, I eat these stats up. That said, WBS is 11-3 when it scores first. You will be seeing me quoting a ton of these stats both here on the blog and on Twitter anymore now that I have found the AHL Media Kits online. Anyway, later in the period while Joe Vitale was sitting for a hooking call Dustin Jeffrey comes in shorthanded and snipes an NHL caliber goal. It was an NHL goal scorer’s goal. Dustin is just playing on another planet right now.

Second period: There was 1:45 of Brian Strait cross check penalty kill the Pens had to erase. Shots on goal at this point for Binghamton was only 3. Not only did they kill the penalty but they did not allow a single shot on Thiessen. An Eric Gryba hook saw Nick Johnson draw iron on the ensuing power play. I thought at the time that if we cashed in on the man advantage, the game would be over at that point. We didn’t score. In fact, we let Binghamton right back into it at that point via Bobby Butler’s goal. I called it a ridiculous goal on Twitter for two reasons. 1) It was a great goal by Butler, 2) The game was half over and it was Binghamton’s fifth shot of the game. If Wilkes-Barre is going to draw a comparison of being truly an elite team, they cannot let any of this happen. Especially against a team who, on paper, you should destroy. Well, apparently Binghamton didn’t get the memo and about 7 minutes or so later Kaspars Daugavins tied the game right at the end of the second period.

Third period: Chris Collins stole the show. Scored on Brust from an insane angle to give the Pens the 3-2 lead then pots the empty net goal with under a minute left to play. The only thing I did notice this period is that Coach Hynes had Dustin Jeffrey playing in the spot for the injured Andrew Hutchinson. That’s right, the left defensemen. To nitpick on Dustin, he played a bit shaky as a rearguard, but that is nitpicking with a capital N.

Final shots on goal would end up 29-14 for Wilkes-Barre. Three Stars were Dustin Jeffrey, Bobby Butler and Chris Collins. That’s all for Bingo this year at the Arena. Unless we see them in the playoffs which, despite the win, is NOT something I want right now.

Around the Division: Hershey beat Albany 3-2 in what was described by observers present at the game a really competitive game by the Devils. Nice to see I suppose. Andrew Gordon went pointless, so Jeffrey and Corey Locke close the gap on the points lead on him. Norfolk destroyed Atlantic Division leading Manchester tonight 7-2. Mike Angelidis had 5 points (2-3-5) and was +5 but was outdone by recently demoted Mathieu Roy’s +6. Yikes. Rochester defeated Syracuse 6-5. Adirondack and Charlotte were idle tonight.

Standings: At 19-4, we pace the entire American Hockey League with the best record. Norfolk sits second in the division, leapfrogging the idle Checkers with 30 points. Charlotte sits idle till Sunday in third with 29 points. Hershey is in fourth with 27 points, Bingo with 23 points, Albany and Syracuse sixth-seventh with 18 points apiece and tomorrow’s opponent Adirondack will be looking to get to 10 points tomorrow when they come to town to play us. Good luck.

I looked up who the ref is going to be tomorrow. His name is Graham Skilliter. Having never heard of him before and him not being listed on the AHL’s On Ice Officials Roster I did some research on him. He is a Saskatooner from the Dub. This by my research is his first AHL game tomorrow. Had a nasty accident while working a WHL game this year. I don’t have a book on him on how he calls a game. I guess we find out tomorrow. If you don’t know me, I am intrigued by referees and how each has his own personality calling games. With Jeff Smith, you need to bleed for him to raise his arm. With the now retired Nygel Pelletier, if you were on the ice and ten feet away from the play you’d get called for hooking. I like to know these things going in to a game.

Gameday post will be up at 3:30 tomorrow with the newly added Media Kit link. Educate yourself.

Go Pens.

When you are an elite AHL team like the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins are shaping up to be you need to take advantage of opportunities when the situation calls for it.

Pens beat writer Jonathan Bombulie ran a story today about how the Pens penalty killing was a dismal 20th overall in the 30 team AHL after being at or near the top just a month earlier.

Tonight the penalty killing was a perfect 4 for 4 tonight. The power play was 3 for 6 in a 5-1 Wilkes-Barre romp over the Trenton er, Albany Devils. One would have to count how many guys are up from the ECHL playing in Albany right now, as tonight just didn’t seem fair from a Penguins fan perspective.

Dave Caruso v. John Curry tonight. Lineup wise, Joey Haddad was back in over Bryan Lerg from Sunday. No Chris Collins, as he is expected back by the weekend.

First period: Right off the bat, John Curry was on his game. He gloved a Vladimir Zharkov shot. All things considered, if Curry does not make that glove save and Albany jumps out to a quick 1-0 lead then tonight may very well be a different story. Regardless, Trevor Kell took a holding call, then on the ensuing power play Dustin Jeffrey looked to have skated past every single Albany Devil and just fires a wrister at Dave Caruso to give the 1-0 lead. John Curry picked up the secondary assist on that one. Then with about 12 minutes to go in the first, Michael Swift scored for Albany to tie the game at one apiece. For as weird as the Curry assist was on the Jeffrey goal, familiar pest Louis Robitaille collected the second assist on the Swift goal. At this point in the game, we looked to be better off killing a penalty than playing 5 on 5 even strength hockey. Matt Anderson would sit for interference and Dustin Jeffrey would make the Devils pay :17 later. Soon after Andrew Hutchinson would get injured and would not return the rest of the game. The first period would end 2-1.

Lots of chatter back and forth between all of you regarding the play of Dustin Jeffrey and whether Wilkes-Barre fans need to worry about him getting the call to Pittsburgh to stay. Here are my thoughts on this. If Pittsburgh’s third line of Chris Conner Mark Letestu and Tyler Kennedy are not as successful as they have been of recent, then there is a case to call Jeffrey up. Since the third line is often time the best Pittsburgh line of the night, Jeffrey remains here in Wilkes-Barre. Plus, @CxJamesx9 replied to me on Twitter that when Jordan Staal finally does return from injury there will not be any room for him at all.

Second period: Pens would pull away this period. Brett Sterling and Tim Wallace would score :15 apart from one another to make it a 4-1 Wilkes-Barre lead. Dave Caruso would get yanked after that but I found it funny that Tom Grace, who was doing PxP tonight, completely missed that until well after Caruso was on the bench. Even after he was pulled and a random Penguin would fire a shot, he would say that Caruso made the save. He’s human. Regardless, it was Frazee’s first action since being injured in Wilkes-Barre a few weeks ago. Kory Nagy would sit for a cross-check and Robert Bortuzzo would snipe from the blueline to make it 5-1 and it was all she wrote. A complete lock down and shut down period by Wilkes-Barre also, as Albany would go 12:45 before registering a shot on goal.

The third period was uneventful as there was no scoring. I don’t know if it was because we wanted to preserve the lead, work on different hybrid things or just not embarrass the opponent or what, but it would end a 5-1 victory. Grace mentioned that the Penguins own the best record in North American hockey which reaches beyond the ranks of the American Hockey League.

• Big nights from Corey Potter and Steve Wagner, both had two assists apiece.
• If Hutchinson can’t go this weekend because of injury, we are in good hands with Joey Mormina. I have been itching to see him in the lineup.
• Three Stars were Michael Swift, Brett Sterling and Dustin Jeffrey.

No one in the East skated tonight, so WBS sits atop the division still with an 18-4 record. We have 36 points to second place Charlotte’s 29. The Checkers do not skate again until Sunday home against the Crunch. Third place Norfolk plays Friday in Manchester then Sunday in Portland. ManchVegas is tops in the Atlantic Division and Portland was tops before being passed by the Monarchs so those are games that if you are into wondering how the chase team fares against top competition from another division its worth keeping your eye on.

Binghamton in Friday for their last regular season visit to Wilkes-Barre Township. Will be interesting how we come out and play against the only fly in the ointment so far this campaign.

Go Pens.