WBS Pens' weekly report - 12/5

[eastonpensfan]

Hello again. This week has been very bittersweet for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The 2 games they played this weekend were both wins by a combined score of 6-2. The bitter part is that the Pens are looking for players. This past week has seen them lose Mikhnov, Pouliot and Jacques to Edmonton and DuPont and Nasreddine to Pittsburgh. Besides that, Ryan Stone is hurt and may be out for a while due to hand surgery. They have received some very capable replacements in D Noah Welch (returned from Pitt), F Arpad Mihaly (PTO from Reading of ECHL), and Fs Kurtis McLean, Joe Jensen and Tim Wallace (recall from Wheeling of ECHL). That means that the Pens need a 6th D-man before they play on the 8th. On to this week’s observations:

GOOD:
G Jeff Deslauriers – JDD had an incredible weekend. Other than a brain freeze by the team in front of him, he should have had a shutout on Friday and only allowed 1 on Sat. for a .964 S%. After a very good fight happened, WBS fell asleep on the center-ice faceoff and a Bears player was in alone and made a very good move to score their lone goal.

F Kyle Brodziak – He wasn’t all that noticeable on Friday, but scored the game-winner in the last minute of the game on Saturday. His stats showed him 1G+1A and a +3, but the +3 might be the more telling stat. He has started to settle into a defensive role while taking advantage of the offensive opportunities that he has.

LW Daniel Carcillo – Scored 2 goals this weekend, the first goal in each game. His Saturday goal just beat the 2nd period buzzer to tie the game. He seems to be taking control of this team now that Christensen and Talbot have been called up and Schremp has hit the rookie wall. He has been providing the energy and spark that the team needs when they need it, including a decent fight on Friday against Hershey (1 of 5 fights in that game).

D Wade Skolney – Didn’t do much as far as hockey goes, but absolutely pounded Louis Robitaille, which was long overdue and well-received by the fans. Robitaille has a long history turtling and drawing penalties from Pens players at the worst time.

UNDECIDED:
RW Jonathan Filewich – Has only scored 1 goal over the 2 games and has kind of disappeared. No doubt, he will be back with a vengeance when needed. His past record is that he doesn’t stay cold for long.

BAD:
C Rob Schremp – Has steadily been declining and seems to have hit rock-bottom. Had no points and was a -1 on a weekend where the opposition was outscored 6-2. He was the only – rated player over the 2 games. These games saw him playing on the 4th line with Dennis Bonvie and Arpad Mihaly. He shows flashes of offensive brilliance, but seems to make one too many moves at times and turns the puck over a lot. His defensive play needs some work also.

2 more games coming up this weekend. @ Hamilton on Friday night and home to play Chicago on Saturday. 2 of the possible candidates for the open D spot are Paul Bissonnette, who really hasn’t played well in Wheeling lately and Andy Schneider, who played in WBS last year and wasn’t signed this year due to a wrist injury that took a while to heal.

If you click on the pic below, it will take you to the pics that I took at Friday's game.