The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins halted their three-game winless streak by defeating the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 4-3 on Sunday afternoon.
Although the Penguins secured two points, they went about it the hard way, blowing a 3-0 lead, before holding off a late Phantoms rally to improve to 27-12-5-1. The win propelled WBS ahead of the Providence Bruins for second in the Atlantic Division.
Unsurprisingly, Avery Hayes opened the scoring for the second consecutive game, extending his point streak to five. His first point came at 6:46 and was set up by Sam Poulin and Filip Král.
Ten minutes later, Poulin scored an unassisted goal at 16:03 for his second point and was only one fight away from a Gordie Howe hat trick while extending the Penguins lead to 2-0.
Almost mid-way through the second period, at 8:47, Tristan Broz scored his 15th of the year and third since coming from an injury that sidelined him for over a month. Hayes earned an assist, while Rutger McGroarty had a second helper for his third point in five periods.
Finally, Lehigh Valley got on the board at 19:02 of the second when Jon-Randall Avon beat Joel Blomqvist. They didn’t wait long to get their next one, scoring just 1:10 into the third when Rodrigo Ābols lit the lamp for the Phantoms’ second goal in two minutes of gameplay.
The game-winning goal came off the stick of Král at 5:40, when he scored thanks to a setup from Owen Pickering and McGroarty, who is now one assist shy of 20 for the season.
However, less than a minute later, at 6:28, Helge Grans made it a one-goal game again with a tally to make it 4-3.
As expected in a close game against cross-state rivals, the intensity was kicked up a few notches. In the first period, there were several fighting majors.
Once Isaas Belliveau (WBS) and Zayde Wisdom (LVP) went off for roughing, Dan Renouf (WBS) and Garrett Wilson (LVP) dropped the gloves leading and received game misconduct penalties for fighting at puck drop.
Meanwhile, at the end of the second period, Poulin fought with Louie Belpedio, giving him a Gordie Howe hat trick with a goal, assist, and fight.
An assist on Avery Hayes’s goal, a goal of his own shortly after, and a fight to end the second—Sam Poulin’s got a Gordie Howe! 🫡 pic.twitter.com/H3EnsOvhS5
— Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (@WBSPenguins) February 16, 2025
Surprisingly, neither team scored on the man advantage as WBS went 0-for-2 and Lehigh Valley went 0-for-1.
In goal, Blomqvist avenged an earlier loss to the Phantoms on Tuesday by backstopping his team to a 4-3 win thanks to 31 saves and .912 SV%.
On the other end, Parker Gahagen made 25 saves to lose to the Penguins for the second time this season, finishing with a .862 SV%.
After three games in three days, the Penguins are off until Friday, Feb. 21, when they visit the Hartford Wolf Pack, kicking off another set of three games in three days.
