Scott Munroe shuts out the Connecticut Whale for the third time this season, his second 3-0 decision, and the Penguins inch closer to locking up the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference.
The current 5th seed Hershey Bears lost to the Syracuse Crunch in a shootout, so with a five point cushion (93 to 88 currently) it appears as though the magic number to clinch the 4th seed is three. I think on the Twitter side I said one point but my current math is giving me three. The Penguins own all the tiebreakers with the Bears.
But back to Munroe. He shut out the Whale in his WBS debut back in October, while losing the game in the shootout, 1-0. He also shut them out last Friday in Hartford. This was his 3rd shutout of the season against the Whale, his 5th of the season overall.
Do we have a decision to make in net or is Munroe simply "The Whale Killer"?
Recap after the jump.
It was Scott Munroe vs. Chad Johnson in net tonight. Phillip Samuelsson was called up from Wheeling and took Joey Mormina's spot in the lineup. Matt Rust remained the healthy scratch up front. Here's what the lines looked like tonight:
Lerg - O'Reilly - Thompson
Petersen - Street - Walker
McDonald - Gibbons - Williams
DeFazio - Sill - Craig
The Penguins came out firing again tonight against the Connecticut Whale, racking up ten shots in the first half of the period.
The Penguins took a 1-0 lead 12:16 into the first period on a goal from Simon Despres, his 5th goal of the season. Cal O'Reilly passed it back to Despres on the point and Despres flung a wrist shot past Johnson.
Scott Tanski came in hard on Brian Gibbons behind the WBS net later in the period, resulting in a fight between Tanski and Alex Grant. Give the decision to Grant, who landed a few shots and got the takedown.
The Pens got two more goals in the second period. Bryan Lerg tipped a pass out of the defensive zone and tallied his 26th goal of the season on an unassisted breakaway. Lerg's nifty backhander 49 seconds into the period really showed that the Pens first period start wasn't a fluke.
Geoff Walker tapped in his 15th of the season on the power play after a great pass from Jason Williams. Simon Despres got the second assist on the goal, his second multiple point game as a WBS Penguin.
The Penguins were out shot by the Whale 12-6 in the third period, but the Pens rode Munroe to the 3-0 victory tonight.
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