Crunch Double Up Penguins 4-2

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins got behind early and didnt have enough for the Syracuse Crunch tonight, falling 4-2 to their East Division foe. The Penguins travel to Glens Falls, New York for a Friday night match up with the Adirondack Phantoms.

The Crunch jumped out to a two goal lead in the first period on back-to-back power play goals.

Vladimir Namestnikov blasted a shot from the slot past Deslauriers with five seconds left on a five-on-three power play and 30 seconds later Jon DiSalvatore redirected a point shot in past Deslauriers to make it 2-0 Crunch.

It was more of the same in the second period, as the Crunch took a 3-0 lead 8:59 into the middle frame on a broken play. Reid McNeill lost his stick behind the net and in the shuffle, Brett Connolly wired a puck to the top shelf.

The Penguins took their timeout after that goal, but the Crunch made it 4-0 just 55 seconds later. Deslauriers stopped the initial shot, but the rebound was mishandled. Philip Samuelsson tried to corral the rebound to his goaltender, but inadvertently put the puck into his own net. 

That was the end of the night for Deslauriers, who allowed four goals on 17 shots in 28:59. Tough to blame Deslauriers for any of the goals, but at that point (after the team already used it's timeout) a goalie change was the last move to try and shift the momentum away from the Crunch.

Samuelsson took a delay of game penalty late in the period, but was in the right place at the right time as he exited the box. He received a stretch pass from Denver Manderson and scored his first goal of the season to get the Pens on the board with 2:21 left in the middle frame. 

Samuelsson scored his second of the night for the Penguins to cut the Crunch lead to 4-2 with 4:49 left in regulation, but that would be as close as the Pens would get.

Up next for the Penguins is an Adirondack Phantoms team that has won four straight. The two teams face off at the Glens Falls Civic Center on Friday.

ROSTER NOTES

Jeff Deslauriers got the start in net, allowing four goals on 17 shots in 28:59 before being replaced by Eric Hartzell. Hartzell stopped all five shots he faced the rest of the way.

Bobby Farnham returned to the WBS lineup after missing the last four games with an undisclosed injury.

Reid McNeil returned to the WBS blue line, replacing Harrison Ruopp who was a healthy scratch.

Carter Rowney didn't take the warmup skate and was also a healthy scratch.

Lines

Zolnierczyk-Drazenovic-Kostopoulos
Zlobin-Torquato-Kuhnhackl
Uher-Carman-Thompson
Leblond-Manderson-Farnham

Samuelsson-Dumoulin
Harrington-Mikkelson
McNeill-Goers