The Penguins found their scoring touch at exactly the right time. Now Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is one win away from its first playoff series win in four years.
Rutger McGroarty deflected home a point shot five minutes into overtime to rally the Penguins to a 4-3 win over Hershey in Game 3 of the Atlantic Division semifinals on Tuesday night at Giant Center.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton leads the best-of-five series 2-1 and can close it out in Game 4 on Thursday in Hershey.
For a long stretch of the night, though, it looked like the Penguins would be the ones facing elimination.
An early 2-0 lead quickly evaporated as the Bears tied it up before the first period ended and then went ahead on Brett Leason’s goal just 37 seconds into the second period. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was still trailing with three minutes left in regulation when coach Kirk MacDonald pulled the goalie for an extra attacker.
The early pull paid off as Avery Hayes whipped a shot from high in the right circle past Bears goalie Clay Stevenson to tie it up with 2:53 left.
In overtime, Gabe Klassen won a puck battle and got it back to the blue line, where Sebastian Aho’s long range shot was tipped in front by McGroarty for the game-winner.
Captain Phil Kemp and rookie Mikhail Ilyin also scored for the Penguins in the first 6:16 of play. Hershey answered with goals by Ivan Miroshnichenko and Bogdan Trineyev.
Sergei Murashov stopped 26 of 29 shots for the win in net. Stevenson made 23 saves.
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