Without both of the team's usual goaltenders, Brad Thiessen on recall to Pittsburgh and Scott Munroe hurt last night, and the team's leading scorer Bryan Lerg to an apparent illness, the Penguins lose a close game to the Norfolk Admirals this afternoon. Two tough losses this weekend for the Penguins, who are now off until next Sunday.
Patrick Killeen vs. Dustin Tokarski in net. I thought Killeen played well and was good enough to get the Pens the win today, but that wasn't the case today. Lerg and MacIntyre out and Nick Petersen and Cody Chupp inup front. Philip Samuelsson, Cody Wild and Matt Rust remained healthy scratches. Carl Sneep is still out with an injury, as is Boris Valabik and Keven Veilleux. Both of the latter are out long term.
After a scoreless first period, much like last night, the Penguins got on the board first when Ben Street fired a puck past Dustin Tokarski. Joey Mormina and Alex Grant got the assists on the power play goal, Street's 18th of the season.
The Admirals tied it with a power play goal of their own as Mark Barbiero beat Killeen and then literally beat Killeen as he plowed into him after scoring the goal.
The teams would come out for the final frame tied at one until Tyler Johnson won a face-off back to ex-Penguin J.P. Cote, who would rip a point shot past Killeen high to the glove side to give the Admirals a 2-1 lead.
Alexandre Picard (WBS) would tie the game at two about halfway through the third period on a point shot that eluded Tokarski and tied the game at two. The Penguins had been outplaying the Admirals most of the game to this point and you had that feeling that the Pens could find one more.
With 3:58 left in the game and the Penguins on the power play, Alex Grant sneezed and found himself in the box for what I'll call a very soft hooking minor on Norfolk's Tyler Johnson, who flew to the ice as soon as the slightest contact was made. The Admirals score on a bad angle shot with that power play with 2:04 left and that's all she wrote.
I will be running a live blog tomorrow morning covering the trade deadline with all moves made by the Penguins as well as moves that affect AHL relevant teams in the Eastern Conference. First reactions will be on the blog's Twitter feed, followed by a blog update. Should be an interesting day for a Monday morning/afternoon.
Lastly, for more up to the minute updates on the Penguins and relevant news follow Highland Park Hockey on both Twitter and Facebook and help spread word of this blog to all hockey fans.
We're approaching the one year mark of this blog and all of the pictures, interviews, game previews & recaps, breaking news and features are original content from yours truly. I finished my journalism degree last season and look forward to continuing and expanding the coverage of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins while looking for full-time work in the sports writing field.
So to all of the loyal readers who share this page to others I say thanks, to both Penguins fans and fans of other teams. I look to become the voice of reason when it comes to the AHL Penguins and it wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for those who have come here from the start.
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