They’re in the endgame now.
The Penguins and Bridgeport Islanders have only four weeks to settle who grabs a playoff spot in the Atlantic Division, and a near-record performance by Wilkes-Barre/Scranton dealt a major blow on Saturday.
Playing in front of a capacity crowd on Marvel Super Hero Night, the Penguins tied the franchise mark with nine goals in an eventual 9-2 rout of the Islanders at Mohegan Sun Arena.
The teams entered the night virtually even in percentage points, making the game the biggest the Penguins have had all season. With the win, WBS improved to 30-27-4-4 and took hold of the Atlantic’s sixth and final postseason berth. Better yet, it moved only one point off rival Hershey for fourth place and into a near-tie with Hartford for fifth.
“It’s hard to look at any one player in the lineup and say we could have gotten more,” Penguins head coach J.D. Forrest said. “Top to bottom, a really good effort from goaltending down.
“As the game went on, we just picked it up. Just started really bearing down on pucks and getting some traffic and mayhem around the net.”
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton fell behind, 2-0, in the first but quickly regrouped with a goal from Alex Nylander at 13:48.
Then that momentum carried into the second in a big way. With the help of a few adjustments during the break to combat Bridgeport’s puck retrievals, the Penguins broke the game open with five goals in a span of 12 minutes. Sam Poulin started the surge at 5:43, and Jamie Devane took advantage of a turnover by Bridgeport goaltender Jakub Skarek for his third of the year to put them ahead for good.
Felix Robert, Kyle Olson and Michael Chaput all scored soon after, and WBS kept its foot on the gas with three more goals in the third on…