Cellar-dwelling Norfolk Admirals down Pens in OT

At the top of the American Hockey League’s East Division sits the Hershey Bears, a powerhouse that has given goaltenders nightmares all season long.

Below them sit the Bridgeport Sound Tigers and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, teams that will in all likelihood continue to vie for home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs until the final horn sounds on the regular season.

At the very bottom of the division lies the Norfolk Admirals, a team that is 20 points out of a playoff spot with two games remaining in the regular season. Norfolk’s 265 goals against is the highest total in the 29-team AHL.

But at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza on Wednesday night, Norfolk raced out to a 2-0 lead by the first intermission and eventually defeated the Penguins 4-3 on an overtime goal by Radek Smolenak.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton interim head coach Todd Reirden said that his team knew that even though the Admirals were skating with four new players in their line-up and would not qualify for the playoffs regardless of the game’s outcome, Norfolk is not a team that would roll over and play dead.

“These are difficult games to play… This was a dangerous game, a dangerous team for us,” Reirden said. “We have to continue to work on getting ourselves ready for playoff hockey and we didn’t do that for the first two periods.”

Brandon Segal scored on a long-range slap shot to open the scoring midway through the first period. With Norfolk on the power play just over six minutes later, Pete Zingoni lifted a rebound past Penguins’ goaltender John Curry to give the Admirals a 2-0 advantage.

Miroslav Satan’s power play tally 1:18 into the middle frame pulled the Penguins within a goal, but Juraj Simek restored Norfolk’s two-goal lead when he scored a power play marker of his own halfway through regulation.

The Penguins mounted another third period comeback, receiving power play goals from Janne Pesonen and Jeff Taffe to force overtime but Smolenak secured the victory for his team when he drove to the net and jammed the puck around Curry.

“It’s good to be a good third period team, but we always put ourselves in that situation it seems like,” said defenseman Alex Goligoski, who recorded two assists. “It’s just a matter of us being a little bit more focused coming into games and starting the games the way we finish them.”

“You see teams, especially playoff hockey, it’s extremely tough to come from behind like this,” Reirden added. “We’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to have some things go our way, but (we) certainly have to have the urgency and desperation from the beginning of the game.”

The overtime loss gave the Penguins 100 points on the season. They became the first team in AHL history to record four consecutive 100-point seasons and now sit two points behind second-place Bridgeport with a game in hand. It remains possible for the Penguins to win the East Division, though it would require some help from the Bears, who have 104 points with three games to go.

“We’re not really worried with where we’re going to get seeded,” Goligoski said. “These next three games we’re just looking to start somewhere again and build these next three games going into the playoffs so we have a routine down of the way we need to play.”

NOTES

Prior to the game, the Penguins released forward Nathan Moon and defenseman Robert Bortuzzo from their amateur try-out agreements.

Defenseman Lane Caffaro made his professional debut.

Pesonen’s goal was his 30th of the season. He and Chris Minard (34 goals) became the first Penguins’ to score 30 goals in the same season.

Pesonen’s 76 points in a season are the most by any Finnish-born AHL player since the 1992-1993 season. His countryman Jarkko Immonen had 70 points for the Hartford Wolf Pack during 2005-06.

Brad Thiessen, Jon D’Aversa, Bill Thomas, Andy Wozniewski, Dave Gove, Luca Caputi, Aaron Boogaard, and Adam Henrich were scratched from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s line-up.

Norfolk signed five players to try-out contracts before Wednesday’s game – goaltender Doug Raeder, defenseman Mike Knight, and forwards Mason Graddock, Andrew Sarauer, and Mike Sgroi. All but Reader were in the line-up. Sgroi played 39 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton during the 04-05 season, registering two points and 122 penalty minutes.

BOXSCORE

Norfolk Admirals 2 1 0 1 – 4

W-B/Scranton      0 1 2 0 – 3

First Period: 1, Nor, Segal 26 (Zingoni) 11:47. 2, Nor, Zingoni 7 (Kinrade, Keller) 18:07 (PP). Penalties: WBS, Lovejoy (cross checking) 8:37; Nor, Zingoni (goaltender interference) 9:32; Nor, Zingoni (slashing) 13:35; WBS, Johnson (slashing) 17:11.

Second Period: 3, WBS, Satan 3 (Taffe, Goligoski) 1:18 (PP). 4, Nor, Simek 9 (Keller, Boyle) 9:16 (PP). Penalties: Nor, Kinrade (hooking) 1:04; WBS, Goligoski (interference) 3:23; Nor, Buck (hooking) 4:08; WBS, Lovejoy (cross checking) 7:58; Nor, Bench minor – served by Graddock (too many men) 15:04.

Third Period: 5, WBS, Pesonen 30 (Johnson, Goligoski) 7:20 (PP). Penalties: Nor, Knight (hooking) 0:12; Nor, Jones (fighting) 3:25; WBS, Jeffrey (fighting) 3:25; Nor, Keller (slashing) 5:48; WBS, Goligoski (holding) 9:48; Nor, Kinrade (hooking) 12:51.

Shots on Goal: Norfolk 12-4-3-5--24. W-B/Scranton 9-13-14-1--37.

Power-play opportunities: Norfolk 2 of 5; W-B/Scranton 3 of 8.