It's not too often that you match up against a goaltender with over 200 NHL starts under his belt at the AHL level, and it showed tonight as Nittymaki carried his team to a win.
Just 3:33 into the middle frame, Scott Munroe made an awkward save and left the game after an apparent lower body injury. I'm hearing a pulled muscle, but we won't speculate until I see something official. Anyway, Patrick Killeen stepped in to relieve Munroe, making only his 3rd appearance with the AHL Penguins in his career.
All three of the game's goals came in the second period.
At about the midway point of the period, with the Crunch on the power play, Dan Sexton tapped in a really nice goal after a series of tape-to-tape passes to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead.
The Penguins responded with a power play of their own less than four minutes later with a great effort from Ryan Craig. Geoff Walker's initial shot was saved by Nittymaki but Craig was able to smack the rebound home from his stomach as he was knocked down in front of the net during the scramble.
The eventual game winner was scored with just 7 seconds left in the period when Penguin killer Kyle Palmieri set up Patrick Maroon with his 25th goal of the season.
LINEUP NOTES:
- Philip Samuelsson, Cody Wild, Nick Petersen, Cody Chupp and Matt Rust were all healthy scratches tonight.
- Cal O'Reilly made his WBS debut tonight and although he didn't get on the score sheet I really liked his play tonight. Just needs to get acclimated with his new teammates/linemates.
- Heard that Brad Thiessen might be on his way back to the AHL before Munroe's early exit occurred tonight. Nothing against Killeen, but I'm hoping Thiessen is in Wilkes-Barre tomorrow afternoon.
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