Click here to subscribe today or Login.
After eight consecutive road wins to open season, WBS has now last 2 in a row.
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire – For the second straight night Wilkes-Barre/Scranton needed a shootout to decide a winner. And for the second straight game the Penguins were forced to settle for a single point.
Jordan Nolan scored the game-winner in the fourth round of the shootout to lift the Manchester Monarchs to a 4-3 win in front of 7,508 at the Verizon Wireless Arena.
Friday night the Penguins dropped a 3-2 shootout decision to the Portland Pirates. That loss ended their season-opening eight-game road winning streak.
“I think it was a really challenging game,” said Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach John Hynes. “Credit to Manchester. They played really hard. They really pushed us in certain areas of the game.”
David Meckler and Marc-Andre Cliche were also successful in the penalty shots while Jason Williams was the only member of the Pens to beat Manchester goaltender Jeff Zatkoff.
The Monarchs carried the majority of the play in the opening 20 minutes, outshooting the visitors by a 12-7 count, but it was the Penguins who emerged from the period with a 1-0 lead.
A pair of Monarchs penalties led to a two-man advantage for the Penguins in the waning moments of the period. The second infraction led to an offensive zone faceoff with 13 seconds remaining. The Penguins controlled the draw, setting up Niko Dimitrakos for a blue-line blast that sailed cleanly through traffic and past Zatkoff with 4.4 seconds left in the period. Williams and Ben Street drew assists on Dimitrakos’ fifth of the season.
Manchester survived another extended two-man disadvantage to open the second before tying the game 3:36 into the period. Dwight King came up with the puck deep in the Pens end and quickly fed to the front where Linden Vey redirected it past Wilkes-Barre/Scranton goaltender Brad Theissen to even things at 1.
Some good offensive zone pressure allowed the Monarchs to grab a 2-1 lead with 4:08 left in the second when Andrew Campbell’s shot from the point beat Theissen high to the blocker side.
However, only 67 seconds later the Pens answered as Eric Tangradi forced a turnover deep in the Monarchs end. The puck came free to Street who beat Zatkoff high on the glove side to tie the game at 2. For Street, the goal marked his fourth in the last six games after going scoreless in his first eight games of the season.
“I like our response when we went through some adversity,” said Hynes.
The Monarchs lurched back into the lead midway through the third on a controversial power-play goal. Joey Mullin’s shot from the point was deflected into the pads of Theissen, who thought he had it covered. The referee ruled the puck was still loose and Jordan Nolan was there to poke it over the line giving the Monarchs a 3-2 lead.
But for the second time in the game the Pens had a quick answer. Just 1:16 later a Robert Bortuzzo shot from the blue line found the back of the net and the game was even at 3.