Penguins Making A Run At East Title

Winning the division again won’t be easy, but the team is giving its best shot.

HERSHEY – Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s dreams of repeating as East Division champs and earning home-ice advantage for the playoffs may be just that – dreams.
But at the very least, Sunday’s 3-2 win over Hershey at Giant Center has allowed the Penguins to dare to dream.
And, why not?
Catching and passing the Bears and Norfolk Admirals in the final seven games of the season will be easy compared to what the Penguins did Sunday.
Down two goals midway through the third to a goalie who’d shut them out for five consecutive periods on the weekend, the Penguins mounted a thrilling comeback, capped by a pair of Connor James goals in the final 1:59 to salvage a split in their home-and-home series with the Bears and move within four points of first.
“It was a great effort by the team,” said Penguins head coach Todd Richards. “The guys showed a lot of resiliency, a lot of tenacity to stick to the plan. A big credit to our guys for how they worked tonight.”
Penguins center Robert Nilsson sparked the comeback with a goal and two assists.
His wrister from just inside the hash mark with 4:25 to play snapped Cassivi’s streak of 115:35 minutes of shutout hockey against the Penguins.
But Nilsson, and linemates James and Rob Schremp were just getting started.
“We played good all game,” Nilsson said. “How many shots did we have? We played good. Sooner or later we were going to score.”
The next one came sooner rather than later, which was good for the Penguins, since time was of the essence.
Nilsson made a nice cross-ice pass to James, who was breaking down the left wing. James caught the pass about five feet out and let go a wrist shot that tied the score at 2-2 with 1:59 to play.
A mere 13 seconds later it was 3-2 Penguins.
This time Nilsson made a great spinning backhand pass from the right circle to find James all alone in front for the winner.
Hershey head coach Bruce Boudreau said he thought that James had kicked the puck in, but James said no.
“It went off my skate and I tapped it with my stick,” James said. “I was playing with Nilsson. It just shows how good he is. (On the first goal) he had a couple of guys on him and he just put it right on my stick. The second goal was all him too. He kind of banked it off me. I’ll take them where I can get them.”
The Penguins outplayed Hershey – tired after a Saturday night game with Bridgeport – all afternoon. They outshot the Bears 33-17, holding them to five shots or less in the final two periods.
Stephen Werner gave Hershey a 1-0 lead at 9:24 of the second.
Penguins goalie Jeff Deslauriers thought he had the puck trapped against the right post, but Werner was able to poke it past him.
Winger Chris Bourque made it 2-0 at 13:06 of the third.
Bourque scored on a long wrist shot after Joey Tenute won a faceoff from Stephen Dixon in the Penguins’ zone.
“You have to,” James said when asked if he thought that the Penguins had any shot at a comeback after Bourque made it 2-0 with 6:54 to play. “(Cassivi) is a great goalie, but you just have to keep going and going and going.”