The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins picked up their
20th win of the season on Sunday evening, posting
a 3-2 win against the Syracuse Crunch at the Onondaga
County War Memorial. The win pushed the Pens ahead
of the Hershey Bears in the East Division standings,
and gave the club the top record in the AHL at 20-4-2-2.
It wasn’t a pretty way to do it, though, as
the Pens had to grind out Sunday’s win during
a sluggish go with the Crunch, who reside at the bottom
of the North Division.
“It was one of those nights where the puck
wasn’t bouncing and we weren’t able to
execute,” said head coach Todd Richards. “But
good teams find ways to win and character teams find
ways to win. We were able to do that tonight.”
The man who kept the Penguins’ ship afloat
was goaltender Andrew Penner. The former Syracuse
netminder stopped 33 of 35 shots to record his 10th
win of the season, and his third consecutive victory.
The Pens were also the beneficiaries of some sloppy
stopping by Crunch goalie Tomas Popperle, who allowed
three goals in 35:18 of play before being pulled in
the second period.
“There’s no doubt [Tim] Wallace’s
goal was one he should have had,” Richards stated,
referring to an odd angle shot that Popperle got a
piece of but couldn’t handle. “But giving
Wallace credit, that’s what you do. You put
pucks at the net and you never know what’s going
to happen.”
Kurtis McLean opened the scoring with a slap shot
from the point, giving the forward four goals in eight
games with the Pens since being recalled from Wheeling
earlier this month.
Wilkes-Barre looked to be headed into the first intermission
with a 1-0 lead, but Mark Hartigan drove the Pens’
net from the right side, then roofed a spectacular
shot over Penner with 41 seconds left in the period
to even things up.
But Daniel Carcillo tallied his 12th goal of the
season – one goal more than he scored during
the entire 2005-06 campaign – with a nifty wrap
around, and Wallace chased the Syracuse netminder
from the crease with four-plus minutes left in the
second period to extend the lead to two goals.
Joe Motzko’s goal off a rebound made things
interesting, but Penner slammed the door on the Crunch,
stopping 10 of 11 shots in the final 20 minutes to
pick up his second win in as many days.
“I don’t think we were sharp. I think
a lot of it had to do with three games in three nights,
with the travel today,” said Richards. “We
made some mistakes, turned pucks over, Andrew made
some saves. I think we spent more time in our own
end than we had to. But you’re going to get
games like this during 80 games.”
