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WILKES-BARRE TWP. — Alex Nylander scored his team-high 11th goal, Rem Pitlick took sole possession of the team point lead and Joel Blomqvist stopped the first 28 shots he faced for his team-leading ninth goalie win of the season.
There were no numbers, however, to explain Jack St. Ivany’s contribution to a 4-1 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins victory over the Charlotte Checkers on Friday night before 5,373 at Mohegan Sun Arena.
A little more than a minute after the Penguins took a 2-0 lead early in the second period, Charlotte defenseman Michael Benning’s shot squirted through Blomqvist’s pads, getting behind the goalie and sliding toward the net.
“I thought we did a good job on that,” Penguins coach J.D. Forrest said. “It was a line rush. I thought we did a good job tracking it. It went off our stick, off a foot, right to the guy and he blasted it.”
St. Ivany reacted, diving behind the goalie while making a backhand swipe that sent the puck out of the crease from inches in front of the goal line.
“It just kind of snuck through Joel there and Jack was Johnny on the spot or Jack on the spot, or whatever,” Forrest said. “He made a good, desperation play to knock it out of there.
“It changes the dynamic of the game if they get one in there.”
St. Ivany said he had a little help.
“It was right on the goal line,” he said, “but luckily the ice was a little snowy. Maybe it slowed it down.”
St. Ivany took away the biggest threat of the first 53 minutes by a Charlotte team that applied steady pressure throughout the night.
The Checkers (14-11-3-0) came into the game with a chance to climb into a tie for fifth place in the Atlantic Division with a percentage-point edge over the Penguins.
Instead, it was the Penguins who were able to look above them in the standings and Charlotte will not have a shot at fifth place when the teams meet again Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena.
The Penguins (16-11-3-0) gained one position, moving into a fourth-place tie with the Hartford Wolf Pack and moving to within one point of the second-place tie between the Springfield Thunderbirds and Providence Bruins in a division where all have lost touch with the first-place Hershey Bears.
Colin White had a goal and an assist for the Penguins while Peter Abbandonato and Corey Andonovski had two assists.
While Blomqvist stopped 30 shots total, he got help from a penalty kill until that stopped all five Charlotte tries.
Charlotte had a 12-4 lead in shots on goal in the first period, but it was the Penguins who came out of the period with a 1-0 lead.
Aggressive forechecking led to a Checkers turnover.
Defenseman Will Butcher moved up and scored on a wrist shot from the left side of the slot at 9:25.
“He can make some play that other guys don’t see,” Forrest said of Butcher.
Pitlick and Andonovski had the assists.
It was the 23rd point of the season for Pitlick, the only Penguin to appear in all 30 games this season.
Work deep in the offensive zone led to the second Penguins goal.
Abbandonato and White applied the pressure behind the net and the puck came out to the slot where Nylander got off a quick shot for his team-high 11th goal 59 seconds into the second period.
White set up in front of the net for the third goal on a power play at 18:08 of the second period. He deflected Xavier Ouellet’s shot from inside the blue line off a give-and-go with Abbandonato as they controlled the puck high in the offensive zone.
Charlotte cut the deficit to 3-1 on a Lucas Carlsson goal, but Matt Filipe hustled to win a race, reaching a puck that he sent into the empty net from along the left-wing boards with 12 seconds left.
The Checkers finished with a 31-16 advantage in shots on goal, but Forrest pointed out the Penguins had some scoring chances where they fired shots that were not on net. Charlotte had at least four more shots on goal in each of the three periods.
The teams will do it again Saturday at 6:05 p.m.
“When you win the first one, you expect them to want a big response the second night,” Forrest said. “There’s not a ton of secrets. I’m sure they’ll try to adjust to some things we did and vice versa. We both have our styles of play that we stick to. It’s just little tweaks here and there to try to get an advantage on an opponent.
“ … You’re ready for some push back on a team that wants some vengeance and you’ve got to be ready to match it and hopefully come out with even more energy.”
NOTES
• White was named first star, followed by Abbandonato and Blomqvist.
• The Penguins added two of the most successful players from the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL earlier in the day. The parent Pittsburgh Penguins reassigned ECHL goals against average leader Taylor Gauthier and Wheeling scoring leader Dillon Hamaliuk.
Neither played Friday, although Gauthier was dressed as the back-up to Blomqvist. Gauthier has a 2.06 GAA in the ECHL where his .932 save percentage is second-best in the league. The 22-year-old was 1-1-1 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton earlier this season with his first AHL shutout, a 3.06 GAA and a .908 save percentage.
Hamaliuk, who came to Pittsburgh in a summer trade with the San Jose Sharks, has 11 goals and 15 assists in 24 games while sharing the Wheeling lead in power-play goals (four) and plus-minus (+14).