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By STEVE SEMBRAT steves@leader.net
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 Page: 1B
WILKES-BARRE TWP. – Things never felt right for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on
Monday.
Even when the Penguins rallied twice in the third period to tie the score,
neither they nor the crowd of 8,207 at the First Union Arena seemed
comfortable.
In a game that made fans fidget in their seats from start to finish with
some occasional booing directed at the home team, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
suffered a damaging 4-2 loss to Syracuse.
“We came out in the first period and we couldn’t get anything going,”
Penguins defenseman Brendan Buckley said. “Hopefully this loss doesn’t come
back to haunt us.”
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (29-27-5-5, 68 points) missed an opportunity to pick
up ground on Hershey and Norfolk in the South Division of the American Hockey
League’s Western Conference. The Penguins still trail Hershey by five points
and Norfolk by eight. Meanwhile, Syracuse (22-35-6-4, 54 points) kept its
faint hopes for a Calder Cup playoff spot alive with its fifth consecutive
victory.
The loss was troubling for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for several reasons.
Syracuse was weary coming off a road trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland, yet it
was the Penguins who lacked some spring in their step at the outset.
Additionally, the Crunch won the game with a style of play that is commonplace
in postseason play.
Syracuse won using a simple style, dumping the puck deep in the
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton zone whenever possible, clogging up the middle of the
ice, and keeping the Penguins away from the front of the net while making the
most of its own scoring chances.
It’s a brand of hockey that is quite common in postseason play and, to put
together any kind of playoff run, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton must find ways to be
successful against it.
“We were going hard to the net. We just didn’t go to the net hard
enough,” Penguins assistant coach Mike Yeo said. “We have to score goals by
doing that the rest of the season.”
Syracuse took a 1-0 lead in the second period, eight seconds after a
Penguins penalty expired. Crunch forward Mathieu Darche set up the play when
he pried a puck loose in Syracuse’s right offensive corner. Darche then sent a
pass out to Matt Davidson, who didn’t try to stop the pass but instead timed
in perfectly and with one swing of his stick rocketed a pinpoint shot past
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton goalie Jean-Sebastien Aubin. Davidson’s one-timer came
at 9:33 of the middle period.
The Penguins tied it with a gift goal early in the final 20 minutes. With
the Crunch on a power play, Syracuse goalie Karl Goering came way out of his
net in an attempt to clear a puck that had been dumped into
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s offensive zone. Goering tried to send the puck up the
middle of the ice, but Michal Sivek intercepted it just inside the blue line.
Sivek then circumnavigated Goering, and scored a short-handed tally 24 seconds
into the third period.
“I thought things were going to go our way after that,” Buckley said.
“It just didn’t happen.”
Syracuse regained the lead on a power-play goal that followed a dubious
tripping penalty against Colby Armstrong on what was an obvious dive by a
Crunch forward. Syracuse cashed in on that break when Don MacLean poked in a
rebound of Derrick Walser’s shot from the blue line at 8:06.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton tied the score again 11 seconds later. Milan Kraft
took a pass from Tom Kostopoulos in the right offensive faceoff circle and
ripped a quick shot past Goering and inside the far goalpost.
“In the third period we did respond well and we came out with emotion,”
Yeo said. “Unfortunately, we made some mistakes that cost us.”
The most damaging was a turnover that led to Kent McDonell’s game-winning
goal with 9:54 remaining. Andrej Nederost came up with the miscue, skated in
from the blue line on the offensive right wing, then passed the puck to
McDonell, who was left wide open on the opposite side of the net.
The Crunch sealed the deal on an empty-net goal by Jeremy Reich with 1:31
remaining.
“We’re going to have to find ways to score goals against teams that play
certain ways,” Yeo said. “We’re going to have to find different ways to
score.”
Two other factors were troubling from a Wilkes-Barre/Scranton point of
view. For the second consecutive game, the Penguins wound up 0-for-7 on the
power play. Plus, it was the 10th time this season they had won two
consecutive games but failed to make it three victories in a row.
“For us to be successful in the playoffs, we can’t come out and play well
one night and then play badly the next,” Buckley said. “That just won’t
work.”