AHL Providence Bruins

P-Bruins Beat AHL-Best Penguins 5-2 for Fifth Straight Win

December 30, 2016 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Providence Bruins News Release


Wilkes-Barre Scranton, PA - The Providence Bruins defeated the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins Friday night 5-1 for their fifth straight win. This ties their longest win streak of the year as the team has points in 18 of their last 19 games. Justin Hickman, Colby Cave, Rob O'Gara, Zac Rinaldo and Peter Cehlarik all scored goals while Zane McIntyre remained perfect between the pipes despite facing the number one team in the AHL.

Providence jumped out to an early 1-0 lead at the 5:41 mark of the opening period. After taking a pass from Sean Kuraly, Zac Rinaldo put a shot on net from the left hash that Casey DeSmith got a glove on. Hickman batted the puck out of midair for his second goal of the season and second goal of the road trip. Just 90 seconds later, Cave put in his fifth goal of the season to make it 2-0. While on the power play Alex Grant and Jake DeBrusk created traffic in front of the net, and Cave took a rebound in the crease and lit the lamp. Josh Archibald's goal cut the lead for the Penguins off a sweet pass from Oskar Sundqvist, but Providence took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

The P-Bruins dominated the second period, netting three goals in the period. The team scored their fastest goal to open up any period, as just 19 seconds into the period Chris Porter and O'Gara had a 2 on 1 break. Porter delivered a pass to O'Gara who went top left corner for his second goal of the season as Providence went back up by two. At 12:39, Rinaldo came out of the penalty box and Tommy Cross found him all alone even while still down a man. Some nifty moves from the veteran led to a shorthanded goal, his third of the year, and Providence had a 4-1 lead. Nifty passing from Danton Heinen and Cave led to Cehlarik's team leading 14th goal of the year at 16:44, and Providence took a commanding 5-1 lead into the intermission. Sundqvist added a third period power play goal, but that wouldn't be nearly enough as Providence would go on to win 5-2.

McIntyre, leads the AHL in GAA and save percentage, improved to 10-0-0-0 in net stopping 29 of 31 shots. DeSmith stopped 17 of 22 shots before getting pulled for former Providence goalie Doug Carr. Carr stopped both shots faced in the third period in his Penguins debut. The P-Bruins were 2 for 3 on the power play and 7 for 8 on the penalty kill. Providence closes out the calendar year and their five game road trip Saturday afternoon at 5 pm in Hershey for a faceoff with the Bears.

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