BRENT SENDS FORMER TEAMMATES HOME, PENS TO THE FINALS

POST-GAME AUDIO: Todd Richards | Tim Brent | Dave Gove

WILKES-BARRE, PA – Tim Brent knows the heartbreak of a Game Seven loss in the Eastern Conference Finals.  He was a member of the Portland Pirates team that fell to the Hershey Bears in the third round of the 2006 Calder Cup Playoffs.

Saturday night, he took a step towards erasing that stinging memory.

Brent scored with 30.7 seconds left in regulation, giving the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins a 3-2 win over the Pirates at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.  With the win, the Penguins earned their third trip to the Calder Cup Finals, where they will meet the Chicago Wolves for the American Hockey League championship.

“There isn’t another goal I can even come close to thinking of that meant as much as that one to me,” said an exuberant Brent.  That tally was only Brent’s second of the seven-game series against Portland, who leads the AHL with 11 goals in the postseason.

“That line has been great for us all season,” head coach Todd Richards said of the trio of Brent, Chris Minard and Kurtis McLean.  “I think a lot of them were frustrated with the way the series was going, that they weren’t producing and scoring goals.  Minard scores two [Friday] night and then they get the winner [Saturday].”

Brent dangled during a late scramble in front of netminder Jean-Sebastien Aubin, who returned to the lineup after missing four games due to a leg injury.

“We were just trying to get the puck through the net, and there were bodies there,” Brent said.  “Mac made a great play at the line and backed their defenseman off.  [Alex Goligoski] got the shot through, Minnie tipped it.  I just had to skate around Aubin and put it in the open net.”

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton peppered the former Penguins goalie with 40 shots on the night.  Aubin turned aside all 17 he faced in the second period, allowing his team to climb back from a 2-0 deficit.

Dave Gove gave the Pens the early lead, throwing a shot on goal from the left point that deflected off Portland defenseman Brendan Mikkelson and found the net at 9:54.

Ryan Stone picked up his fourth of the postseason before the break, picking up a Nick Johnson rebound and swatting at the puck to give the home club a two goal lead after 20 minutes.

“I liked the way we came out,” said Richards.  “All season long these guys have done nothing but work…all we’ve done is push these guys and push these guys.  Everything they’re getting right now, they’ve earned.”

But the Pirates had some fight left in them, and former Penguin Stephen Dixon pulled the Atlantic Division champs to within one goal by potting a Bobby Ryan rebound into a virtually empty net midway through the game.

The Pens missed an opportunity to extend their lead when they failed to score on a five-on-three power play that spanned two minutes.

Slightly more than two minutes later, the game was knotted up when Geoff Platt crashed into goaltender John Curry and pushed the puck over the goal line. 

“All year we’ve faced a lot of adversity, and I think that’s made us a better team down the stretch,” Gove said.  “That’s something we were prepared for, we knew they were going to come hard, they’re a great team.  They’re here for a reason.”

Curry rebounded well, making a lunging glove save on Tyler Bouck to send the game to the third period tied at 2-2.

Gove nearly put the Pens back in front early in the third, but just missed a redirect from Stone on a two-on-one, and Dustin Jeffrey was hauled down on a breakaway attempt with 16:48 left in the game during another great opportunity.  But it would take 16 more minutes to decide the game and the series.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton outshot Portland 11-4 in the final frame, in what proved to be an atypical deciding game.

“It was hard, fast, intense hockey, the way playoff hockey should be,” said Richards.

Now the Pens move on to face the Western Conference Champion Wolves, who finished the regular season with 111 points, the second-best mark in the league this year. 

But just making it to the finals won’t satisfy Gove or his teammates.

“We had a goal here when we started the playoffs to win 16 games, and right now we have 12 out of the way,” he said.  “It’s certainly a step in the right direction, but our goal isn’t finished.”