Those pesky Springfield Thunderbirds simply won\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n
Goals by Dillon Dube and Marc-Andre Gaudet backed the 20-save performance of goalie Georgii Romanov as Springfield staved off elimination with a 2-0 win over the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins on Thursday night in Game 4 of the AHL Calder Cup Atlantic Division Final at MassMutual Center in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
A deciding Game 5 is Saturday at 6:05 p.m. at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza.<\/p>\n
Springfield\u2019s story has been told throughout the playoffs. The Thunderbirds didn\u2019t qualify for the postseason until the final week, then pulled off upsets in the first two rounds of the Charlotte Checkers and regular-season champion Providence Bruins. They improved to 3-0 when facing elimination and 4-0 after a playoff loss.<\/p>\n
After a scoreless first period, Springfield struck first on a power play late in the second period. With the Penguins\u2019 Phil Kemp in the box for tripping, Hugh McGing and Dube played give-and-go with Dube firing a wrist shot from the slot past goalie Sergei Murashov at 16:14. It is Dube\u2019s third goal of the series and fifth of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Early in the third period, the Thunderbirds tacked on an insurance goal. Off a 3-on-2 rush, Thomas Bordeleau\u2019s shot was stopped by Murashov, but Gaudet followed up the rebound and lofted it over Murashov\u2019s shoulder and into the net at 6:48.<\/p>\n
That was more than enough offense for Romanov, who made seven saves in the first period, six in the second and seven in the third to record his second shutout of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Murashov finished with 30 saves for the Penguins.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s Atlantic Division Final Game 5 winner advances to the Eastern Conference Final against either the Toronto Marlies or the Cleveland Monsters. Cleveland leads that best-of-5 series, 2-1, with Game 4 scheduled for Friday in Toronto. If necessary, Game 5 would be Sunday in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
The Western Conference Final is set after the Chicago Wolves eliminated the Grand Rapids Griffins in Game 4 of the Central Division Final on Thursday, 3-2, to take the series, 3-1. Chicago will face the Colorado Eagles, who took the Pacific Division Final from the Coachella Valley Firebirds, 3-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those pesky Springfield Thunderbirds simply won\u2019t go away. Goals by Dillon Dube and Marc-Andre Gaudet backed the 20-save…\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-199654","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\/199654","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=199654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199654\/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=199654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}