Saturday's Morning Skate - Playoff Edition 4/26

It's that time of year again. The 2014 Calder Cup Playoffs got underway on Wednesday night and through the first nine games of the AHL's postseason, an incredible six of the nine games needed overtime to decide a winner.

Eastern Conference Playoff Action

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton - 3, Binghamton - 2 OT 

After three waived off goals with the score tied 2-2, including a Binghamton goal in overtime, Anton Zlobin played the role of hero in overtime for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

Andrew Ebbett lost a face-off at the WBS blue line, but Chuck Kobasew forced BSens defenseman Mark Boroweicki to send an errant pass to the WBS offensive blue line where Kobasew and Zlobin teamed up for the game winner.

Kobasew set a screen on BSens defenseman Patrick Mullen and let Zlobin weave his way into the slot and fire a shot past Andrew Hammond to give the Penguins a 3-2 win and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series.

The Penguins and Senators are back at it in Game Two tonight in Binghamton.

Manchester - 2, Norfolk - 0

In Manchester, the Monarchs held onto a one goal lead until 1:20 left in the third period before adding an insurance marker to preserve the 2-0 win in Game One. 

Sean Backman and Zach O'Brien tallied goals in the win for the Monarchs. Goaltender Jean-Francois Berube registered a 30-save shutout for his first career AHL playoff win.

Pittsburgh native John Gibson stopped 24 of the 26 shots he faced in the loss for Norfolk, who is dearly missing the likes of Emerson Etem, Devante Smith-Pelly and Rikard Rakell. 

Jaycob Megna, brother of Penguins forward Jayson Megna, is a defenseman on Norfolk. Jaycob, a 6-5 218 pound blue liner, appeared in two AHL games at the end of the regular season but has yet to make his AHL playoff debut.

Providence - 2, Springfield - 1 OT 

In Springfield, 60 minutes wasn't enough again in Game Two but this time it was Bruins coming out on top courtesy a Matt Fraser goal 3:54 into the first overtime.

The Falcons fell behind 1-0 in the first period after Blake Parlett opened the scoring for the PBruins before tying it up in the 2nd on Michael Chaput's first playoff tally of the postseason. 

Ex-Penguin Joe Morrow had a game-high five shots for the PBruins. Ex-WBS forward Paul Thompson got into a first period fight with Providence's Chris Casto. 

Both games in the series have gone to overtime and the series is tied 1-1 heading back to Providence for Game Three tonight. 

St. John's - 2, Albany - 1

In another game that looked like it was heading to overtime, IceCaps defenseman Ben Chiarot scored his first career AHL playoff goal with 24 seconds left in the third period to give the IceCaps the win in Game One.

The IceCaps took a 1-0 lead early in the first period courtesy of Eric O'Dell, but the Devils evened things up with an early 2nd period power play goal from Joe Whitney before Chiarot's heroics in the waning moments of the third gave the IceCaps a 1-0 series lead.

Game Two of the series is tonight in Albany at 7:00 p.m. ET 

Western Conference Playoff Scores

Chicago - 4, Rochester - 3 OT = Chicago leads series 1-0

Toronto - 6, Milwaukee - 2 = Toronto leads series 1-0

Grand Rapids - 2, Abbotsford - 1 2OT = Grand Rapids leads series 1-0