WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins avenged last weekend’s loss by blanking the Bridgeport Islanders, 5-0, at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza on Friday night.
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (9-4-1-0) put forth a clinic on both the offensive and defensive side of the puck to pick up the team’s third shutout of the season. Emil Bemström led the offense with three points (2G-1A), while Joel Blomqvist backstopped the Penguins with a 23-save clean sheet.
Avery Hayes jumpstarted the Penguins and secured the night’s first goal nearly seven minutes into the game. Hayes sparked a breakaway after a great defensive play and deked Bridgeport’s Jakub Škarek into a split, sliding the puck through his five hole.
Later in the first, Bemström buried another breakaway off a set-up from Ville Koivunen and Boris Katchouk, going bar-down over Škarek’s left shoulder.
Bemström’s second tally arrived at 3:50 of the third period, extended the Penguins’ lead to three. Katchouk found the back of the net shortly thereafter, giving Wilkes-Barre/Scranton a 4-0 advantage.
Bridgeport was afforded a full, two-minute five-on-three power play late in regulation. Even though the Penguins already had a four-goal lead with under four minutes to play, the team up forth a sterling effort to stave off the full two-man advantage. As soon as Jonathan Gruden and Hayes escaped the penalty box, the two raced ahead for an odd man rush that culminated in Gruden scoring to make it 5-0.
Joel Blomqvist was perfect in his second game back in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, making a series of brilliant saves when the game was still close. The finest of his 23 stops came when he sprawled to his left for an acrobatic denial of Islanders super veteran Chris Terry.
Škarek stopped 28 of 33 shots faced in defeat.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s next game is on Black Friday, Nov. 29, when the Laval Rocket cross the border to visit Northeast Pennsylvania. That night marks another WBRE 28 / WYOU 22 Fan Friday, featuring select draft beers on sale for $2 from 6:00-7:30 courtesy of Coors Light and postgame player autographs presented by Northeast Music Center.
Game time for the Penguins and Rocket is slated for 7:05 p.m. at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza.
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