PENS STILL IN SECOND AFTER 3-2 LOSS TO BRIDGEPORT

WILKES-BARRE, PA - The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins entered Wednesday night's game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers with a chance to take over first place in the East Division.

They went home still sitting in second place.

Mike Morrison turned aside 34 shots for the visiting Sound Tigers, who posted a 3-2 victory at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza. The win upped Bridgeport's record to 36-30-1-2 on the year, and kept them three points behind the Binghamton Senators in the East Division standings. The B-Sens grabbed a 7-1 win against the Hamilton Bulldogs earlier in the night.

The Penguins fell to 42-36-0-3, and remained one point behind the idle Philadelphia Phantoms for the top spot in the division.

Dave Brown, who had been stellar in his previous two starts, allowed three goals in just 23 shots in the loss.

"The difference of the game was their goalie was better than our goalie," said head coach Todd Richards. "But we also...we didn't have everybody going tonight. We had a handful of guys that weren't able to make plays, seemed to lack energy. So we didn't have everybody on board. Everyone always looks at the goalie as the last line of defense, and he needed to be better. But we had a handful of guys that weren't good in front of him."

In what was a see-saw game, one player that was hard to blame was Mark Ardelan. Coming off of a 16-game layoff after suffering a knee injury, the Penguins defenseman picked up his fifth goal of the season 4:48 into the second period to tie the game at 1-1.

But a hooking call three minutes later on Ben Lovejoy allowed Bridgeport's Matt Keith to poke home his 11th of the season, once again putting the visitors in front.

"I know when you give up goals, it can be deflating, sucks the life out of you," Richards said. "I think that happened on a couple of occassions tonight. You want to get things going and you give up a goal and it deflates you."

Despite the setback, the Penguins found their way back into the game in the closing minutes of the second, as Nathan Smith got his nose dirty in front of the Sound Tigers goal, and chipped his 18th of the year over a sprawling Morrison to make the score 2-2 at the end of two.

But less than four and a half minutes into the third period, Colton Fretter tucked a shot underneath the crossbar for what turned out to be the decisive goal of the night.

Clearly unhappy with the effort of some of his players, Richards promised to shake things up for Friday night's home contest against Hamilton.

"It's a critical game on Friday. The guys know it in the locker room. I think they're disappointed with the way the game went. Well I hope some guys are disappointed with their games tonight," he stated. "What it showed me tonight is we have to make changes to our lineup. We've got guys coming in, we signed Nick Johnson. We've got Dennis Bonvie and Kyle Rank and Mark Letestu and Jon D'Aversa.

"If you're not going, step to the side...and we put somebody else in."