Gibbons' Speed Too Much For Bears, WBS Wins 3-1

Newcomer Andrew Ebbett centers the WBS Penguins top line.

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins broke open a tied game late in the third period to take a 3-1 win over the Hershey Bears tonight in the 15th home opener in franchise history for the Penguins. 

Brian Gibbons stole a puck at his own blue line with just under three minutes left in regulation and turned on the jets, springing himself to a breakaway. With a Bears defender on his tail, Gibbons decided to do something you don't typically do on a breakaway: pass. 

The pass couldn't have worked out any better as Gibbons slid a puck between his own legs and past the defender to an open Chris Conner, who made no mistake and went forehand to backhand past Bears netminder David Leggio to give the Pens a 2-1 lead. 

Dominik Uher set up Zach Sill in the slot 85 seconds later to seal the deal for the Penguins, who are now 2-0 so far this season. The Penguins travel to Syracuse to take on the Crunch tomorrow evening up in New York.

Gibbons and Conner were trouble for the Bears all night. Their speed, along with linemate Jayson Megna, was too much for the Bears late in the game. The Penguins have a ton of speed throughout their lineup and you saw the trouble it creates if you were at the Mohegan Sun Arena tonight.

The Penguins got their first goal of the night while shorthanded. Gibbons and Megna came in 2-on-1 and after a series of tic tac toe passes, Gibbons tapped a puck into what was basically an empty net to bring the Pens back even at 1-1 with 12:29 left in the 2nd period.

The only goal the Penguins allowed tonight came off a bad bounce. The Penguins were sending a puck into the offensive zone to get a line change and the cross ice pass struck a linesman, creating a turnover with a bunch of guys heading to the bench. Tomas Kundratek picked up the loose puck and carried it into the WBS defensive zone on an odd man rush and fired a quick shot past Jeff Desluariers. 

Tonight's lineup:

Starting Goaltender: Jeff Deslauriers (1-0, 2.02 GAA, .917 SV%)

Lines:

Zolnierczyk - Ebbett - Kuhnhackl
Megna - Gibbons - Conner
Uher - Drazenovic - Kostopoulos
Leblond - Sill - Payerl

Despres - Samuelsson
Mikkelson - Harrington
Dumoulin - D'Agostino

Scratches: Peter Merth, Reid McNeill, Mike Carman, Paul Thompson and Bobby Farnham