Bill Zonnon extended his goal-streak to three games, matching the number of games he has suited up in the AHL to help the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins win the pivotal Game 3 in their best-of-five series against Springfield last night. Here was the Pens’ lineup
Rutger McGroarty opened the scoring, notching his second goal of the playoffs in the final minute of the first period. McGroarty jumped out on a shorthanded breakaway and made it count to give WBS the lead.
The score would remain that way until the third period until Boko Imama (!!) made a beautiful pass over for Zonnon to finish and extend WBS’s lead to 2-0 with 14 minutes to go.
For a while this game looked similar to Game 2 in this series, where WBS took a multi-goal lead and Springfield then made a desperate late comeback effort. The Thunderbirds scored with 3:39 remaining to drop the score to 2-1. They kept pushing as time wound down but in Game 3 there would be no overtime, Wilkes hangs on for a 2-1 win. Sergei Murashov stops 27 of 28 with another strong performance, especially down the stretch in the final segment.
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WBS will have the opportunity to close the series out and move onto the winner of Toronto/Cleveland by winning Game 4 tomorrow night.
Up at the NHL level, the Penguins have to be excited to see another strong night from so many important players. Murashov is showing mastery of the AHL level (1.82 GAA, .942 save% in the playoffs) to suggest he’s ready for NHL action. McGroarty scoring while shorthanded gives a reminder that he should be in the conversation for a spot next season. Zonnon is still playing AHL fourth line in his very first taste of pro hockey, but it’s becoming harder to remember the more green aspects of where he’s at in his journey when he scores a goal every game he plays – especially since the AHL is known to be lower scoring hockey than the NHL and goals in the playoffs come at a huge premium. Good run so far for Wilkes, Pittsburgh has to be extremely encouraged to see a lot of the important names for the NHL radar continually show up and stand out in this playoff run.
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