Penguins break Glass in shootout

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ goaltender John Curry doesn’t see a point to keeping his secret to shootout success under lock and key. After all, Curry doesn’t attribute his victories to anything that he does, but rather, what his teammates do for him.

Miroslav Satan, Janne Pesonen, and Mark Letestu all scored shootout goals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Curry denied three of the four shooters he faced to lift the Penguins to a 3-2 road victory over the Binghamton Senators on Wednesday night.

“My secret? Having Janne Pesonen on the shootout line-up and having Miro now going first. We’ve been able to bury in shootouts,” Curry said. “I don’t think its much of a result of me, it’s just we get ahead and I think that puts pressure on teams to score and guys grip the stick a little bit tighter.”

With the win, Curry improved to 5-0 in shootouts on the season. Pesonen’s goal made him 8-for-10 this season in the bonus round, and Satan has now scored on both of his shootout attempts since being assigned from Pittsburgh last month.

“They’re deadly,” Letestu said of the Satan-Pesonen punch. “… If Miro misses another one the rest of the year I’ll be shocked. You take the defenders out of the equation, those guys are going to bury you.”

After 65 minutes of play, the Penguins had a total of 49 shots on goal, which was aided by a third period that saw the club pepper Binghamton goaltender Jeff Glass with 20 pucks. But Glass was nearly unbreakable between the pipes, turning aside 47 of the attempts fired his way and taking home first star honors.

“We stepped our game up for about a seven minute period there where we completely got to what we call our Wilkes-Barre Penguin hockey,” interim head coach Todd Reirden said of the third period. “All the pucks were in behind their ‘D’ and we forechecked and we forced them to make turnovers. We had a lot of chances there and (Glass) played well. He played extremely well.”

Jeff Taffe initially gave Wilkes-Barre/Scranton a 1-0 lead early in the first period when he redirected Satan’s centering feed into the open cage behind Glass.

Nick Johnson had a golden opportunity to extend Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s lead later in the first period. The winger was awarded a penalty shot by referee Chris Brown after a Binghamton defenseman illegally foiled Johnson’s breakaway bid.

But as Johnson skated in, the puck jumped off of his stick and Glass was able to easily deny what could have been a dangerous scoring chance.

Just 21 seconds later, Binghamton defenseman Derek Smith drove to the net and knocked the rebound of Zack Smith’s shot past Penguins’ goaltender John Curry to tie the score at 1.

“That was kind of frustrating,” Johnson said. “But it was one of those games where I knew we were going to come back.”

Zack Smith gave Binghamton their first lead of the game at the 6:02 mark of the third period with a power play goal, but Letestu found the equalizer for the Penguins just 67 seconds later. After Janne Pesonen drove to the net, hitting the post and drawing a tripping penalty, Letestu ripped a power play slap shot past Glass that eventually forced overtime.

“It was definitely a momentum swing for us, I think it could have been easy to get down on the bench after they get a power play goal, but I thought we had one on the shift before there,” Letestu said. “Janne hits the post so right away we were back on them. We believed we were going to win that game. The power play stepped up and got one for us.”

NOTES

J.P. Cote, Bill Thomas, Dave Gove, Luca Caputi, Lane Caffaro, Adam Henrich, Nathan Moon, and Robert Bortuzzo were scratched from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s line-up.

In their ten-year history, the Penguins have not enjoyed success on penalty shots. They’ve scored just once on 20 chances, with Rico Fata tallying the only penalty shot goal in franchise history during the 2005-2006 season.

Penguins’ prospect Joe Vitale, a 24-year-old center who recently completed his collegiate career with Northeastern University, was in the building.

BOXSCORE

W-B/Scranton  1 0 1 0 1 – 3
Binghamton       1 0 1 0 0 – 2

First Period: 1, WBS, Taffe 24 (Satan, Minard) 3:41. 2, Bin, D. Smith 6 (Bois, Z. Smith) 16:36. Penalties: WBS, Bissonnette (fighting) 11:09; Bin, Yablonski (fighting) 11:09.

Second Period: No scoring. Penalties: WBS, Bissonnette (fighting) 2:59; Bin, Yablonski (fighting, boarding) 2:59; Bin, Z. Smith (hooking) 14:11; WBS, Wallace (boarding) 17:29.

Third Period: 3, Bin, Z. Smith 22 (Bois, Cavosie) 6:02 (PP). 4, WBS, Letestu 19 (Taffe, Minard) 7:09 (PP). Penalties: WBS, Wallace (interference) 4:32; Bin, Weller (tripping) 6:16.

Overtime: No scoring. Penalties: No penalties.

Shootout: Round 1, Bin, Mauldin G, WBS, Satan G. Round 2, Bin, Hamel NG, WBS, Pesonen G. Round 3, Bin, Zubov NG, WBS, Letestu G. Round 4, Bin, Z. Smith NG, WBS, No shot. Round 5, Game already decided.

Missed penalty shot: WBS, Johnson (16:10 of first).

Shots on Goal: W-B/Scranton 14-12-20-3-1--50. Binghamton 15-9-12-4-0--40.

Power-play opportunities: W-B/Scranton 1 of 3; Binghamton 1 of 2.

Goalies: W-B/Scranton, Curry (40 shots, 38 saves). Binghamton, Glass (49 shots, 47 saves).

Three Stars: 3, WBS, Taffe (goal, assist). 2, WBS, Curry (38 saves). 1, Bin, Glass (47 saves).

Attendance: 3,614. Time: 2:17.

Referee: Chris Brown. Linesmen: John Everett, Jameel Chaudry.