The kid did it again.<\/p>\n
Rookie Bill Zonnon\u2019s goal in the third period proved the game-winner as the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins held off the Springfield Thunderbirds, 2-1, in Game 3 of the AHL Calder Cup Atlantic Division Final on Tuesday night at the MassMutual Center in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Rutger McGroarty also scored and goalie Sergei Murashov made 27 saves for the Penguins, who took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-5 set. They can wrap it up with a win in Game 4 on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. at Springfield. If necessary, a fifth and deciding game would be Saturday at 6:05 p.m. at Mohegan Arena.<\/p>\n
McGroarty gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead on a shorthanded goal with 19.1 seconds left in the first period. Avery Hayes stole the puck in his zone, skated to center ice and feathered a pass to McGroarty, sending him on a breakaway. McGroarty beat Springfield goalie Georgii Romanov to the blocker side.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact the Penguins outshot Springfield in the second, 12-4, the period was scoreless. But they struck again early in the third. Atley Calvert picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and led a 3-on-1 rush. He passed Boko Imama, who fed Zonnon and Zonnon beat Romanov at 5:58 to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
Zonnon, Pittsburgh\u2019s first-round pick (21st overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft, scored a goal in each game of the series. He made his pro debut in Game 1 after joining Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton when his junior team Blainville-Boisbriand was eliminated from the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League playoffs.<\/p>\n
In Game 2, Springfield rallied from a three-goal deficit in the third period to win in overtime. This time down two goals in the third, the Thunderbirds mounted another comeback bid.<\/p>\n
Juraj Pekarcik made things interesting when his shot trickled through Murashov and slid across the goal line with 3:39 remaining to cut the deficit to 2-1. Springfield pressed for the tying goal and pulled Romanov for the extra attacker, but the Penguins withstood the pressure and hung on for the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The kid did it again. Rookie Bill Zonnon\u2019s goal in the third period proved the game-winner as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1902,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-197532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-penguins","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}