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AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

Syracuse 4, Penguins 0

March 31, 2002 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins News Release


WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania (Saturday, March 30, 2002) – The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins lost their seventh consecutive game, 4-0, to the Syracuse Crunch before crowd of 8,372 at the First Union Arena at Casey Plaza.

Kent McDonell led the Crunch with a goal and two assists. Blake Bellefeuille had a goal and an assist and Jamie Heward chipped in with two assists for the first-place Crunch.

Goaltender Jean-Francois Labbe made 30 saves to record his eighth shutout of the season and his second of the season against the Penguins.

The Penguins have had a hard time scoring against Labbe, especially this season. Since Martin Sonnenberg's goal late in the third period on Feb. 22, the Penguins have gone 172 minutes and 28 seconds without scoring a goal against him.

Prior to tonight's game, Labbe shutout the Penguins on February 27 and was on his way to recording back-to-back shutouts before being ejected with 12:55 left in the St. Patrick's Day game. This season, Labbe was 6-0-2 against the Pens with 1.50 goals against average and a .950 save percentage. Overall, he is 10-1-3 lifetime against the Penguins with a 1.77 goals against average and a .947 save percentage.

Labbe got all the support he would he need as the Crunch took a 1-0 lead on Derrick Walser's power play goal at 14:48 of the first period. Walser scored 11 seconds in on a 5-on-3 power play. Late in the first period, Mathieu Darche increased Syracuse's lead to 2-0 with his 21st goal of the season at 19:29 of the period.

It looked the like the Penguins would go into the third period down by only two goals but Bellefeuille scored a power play goal, his 11th goal of the season, with 0.7 seconds left in the second period to give the Crunch a commanding 3-0 lead. The Penguins disputed the goal to the officials, but to no avail. The Penguins argued that forward Shawn LeGault had run into goaltender Robbie Tallas and that the goal should have been disallowed.

In the third period, McDonell closed out the scoring with his 18th goal of the season at 5:07 to give the Crunch a 4-0 lead.

Tonight's game was the first meeting between the two clubs since the March 17 game that featured 284 minutes penalties. For the most part, both teams' were on their best behavior tonight except for late in the game when Penguins' forward Brendan Walsh was given a match penalty for slashing after giving a vicious two-handed whack to LeGault with 1:19 left in the game.

The Penguins were shutout for the 12th time this season and the second time this season by Labbe. The loss dropped the Penguins' record to 20-42-12-3 on the season.

Syracuse converted on two of nine power play chances, while the Penguins were 0 for 4 with the man advantage. The Penguins are now scoreless on their last 39 power play chances.

With the win, Syracuse improved to 36-22-13-5 (90 points) and moved ahead of Grand Rapids into first-place in the Western Conference. The win was the third straight for the Central Division champions, who clinched the division title on Friday.

Syracuse finished the season 8-1-3 against the Penguins. The Penguins have been shutout by the Crunch in four of the last five meetings in the season series. Syracuse leads the lifetime series, 17-8-5.

The Penguins got another strong effort from Tallas, who finished with 29 saves. Tonight was the fifth time this season that the Penguins have been shutout with Tallas in goal. The Penguins have not given more support to the veteran goaltender. This season, the Penguins have scored two goals or less in 20 of Tallas' 34 starts.

The Penguins travel to Philadelphia on Wednesday to play the Phantoms at 7:05 p.m. at the First Union Spectrum. The Penguins host the Phantoms on Friday and end the season at Hershey at 7:00 p.m. in their last ever visit to Hersheypark Arena.

GAME NOTES

Scratches for the Penguins tonight were Jason MacDonald (suspension), Alexandre Mathieu (wrist) and Steve Parsons (suspension) and Rob Scuderi (bruised ribs) ... The Penguins will have to win their three remaining games of the season to equal the win total from the first year team ... The 1999-2000 Penguins' finished their first season in the AHL with a 23-43-9-5 (60 points) record ... The sellout was the Penguins' 38th of the season in 39 home games ... The one home game that the team did not sell out was played in Pittsburgh at Mellon Arena ... Friday's home finale against Philadelphia is already a sellout.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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