Checking in on the minor league team
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have dropped three of their last four games. Last night they suffered a 4-1 loss to Belleville in their first home game in the last seven games. They just couldn’t get enough going.
It was pretty cut and dry/self explanatory tonight with #WBSPens HC Kirk MacDonald.
The Penguins beat themselves tonight. Self inflicted wounds or “free goals” as MacDonald referred to them as with @InsideAHLHockey post-game.
— Tony Androckitis* (@TonyAndrock) March 5, 2025
Nick Hart from WBSPenguins.com has the prior three games:
Wednesday, Feb. 26 – PENGUINS 2 at Rochester 5
Three first-period goals by the Americans ultimately provided enough insurance to put down the Penguins. Rutger McGroarty and Boris Katchouk found the back of the net for the Pens.
Friday, Feb. 28 – PENGUINS 2 at Syracuse 0
An epic goalie duel ended with Filip Larsson posting a 31-save shutout. Valtteri Puustinen scored one minute into the game, followed by Atley Calvert’s first AHL goal late in the third.
Saturday, Mar. 1 – PENGUINS 4 at Hershey 5 (OT)
With first place in the division on the line, the Penguins couldn’t hold onto three-goal lead, and fell in overtime. Puustinen scored twice, while rookies McGroarty and Ville Koivunen added the other goals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
The team will put on a brave face but blowing a 3-0 lead against their rival Hershey was a tough one to swallow on Saturday. They didn’t respond that well last night either, so this mini-stretch of adversity will test them as a big weekend looms.
It’s a busy time of year in the AHL, Wilkes has games on Fri-Sat-Sun still to come. Perhaps partially due to that hectic schedule, the team recalled Sergei Murashov from the ECHL yesterday. Murashov served as the backup last night, and Joel Blomqvist (freshly back from the NHL) did not dress. Filip Larsson allowed three goals in the loss last night. Wilkes-Barre’s three goalies, for the moment anyways, lends some intrigue in the days before the trading deadline about what that might mean for the goalies within the organization. Time will tell, but frequent roster movement and re-assignments within the minors can be common place.
Roster movement has been a net-negative recently for WBS – their leading scorer Emil Bemstrom has been up in Pittsburgh for a while. In his place, the Penguins sent Matt Nieto to the AHL. Nieto only has two points (1G+1A) in five AHL games this season. In net, Blomqvist is back and Tristan Jarry departs. Jarry’s AHL stats weren’t eye-popping (6-5-1 record, .908 save% and 2.67 GAA) but he was a veteran and now Blomqvist’s confidence and game will need some rehabbing after he was shellacked in the NHL.
Rutger McGroarty continues to do well, he had a four-game point streak come to an end last night. McGroarty has 10 points (4G+6A) in his previous nine games, showing some offensive touch and production as the year goes along. Similarly, Ville Koivunen saw a four-game point streak (2G+7A) come to an end last night.
Overall the dog days have seen WBS fall a bit in the standings, though by points percentage they still have the second best mark in the division.
The top six teams in the division make playoffs so Wilkes is still in very good shape there. A reminder to more-NHL focused fans might fit in well here that there are 72 games in the AHL regular season, so the AHL Pens have 20 more to go.
Up next, everyone holds their breath to see what may happen by Friday’s NHL trade deadline. The Pittsburgh organization leads the NHL in the number of NHL contracts (maximum of 50, they have 49) so it remains possible that an AHL player may be included in a trade as simple balance of overall contracts, which would be necessary if Pittsburgh wanted to trade a player for multiple players under contract. That might not be in the cards, but almost everyone will be waiting before the deadline passes before exhaling and figuring out what their next steps will be.