{"id":202384,"date":"2026-05-26T09:51:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T09:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202384\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T09:51:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T09:51:29","slug":"photos-springfield-thunderbirds-vs-wilkes-barre-scranton-penguins-05-23-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202384\/","title":{"rendered":"PHOTOS: Springfield Thunderbirds vs. Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins \u2013 05\/23\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>          <img width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260523-20260523-5-23-26-Brian-Waksmunski1123821-scaled-e1779649440206.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Brian Waksmunski for Inside The Rink<\/p>\n<p>WILKES-BARRE, Pa. \u2013 The <a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/category\/ahl\/ahl-eastern-conference\/ahl-atlantic-division\/wilkes-barre-scranton-penguins\/\" type=\"category\" id=\"4941\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/category\/ahl\/ahl-eastern-conference\/ahl-atlantic-division\/springfield-thunderbirds\/\" type=\"category\" id=\"4945\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Springfield Thunderbirds<\/a> faced off Saturday evening in Game 5, with the Penguins delivering a dominant 8-1 rout to punch their ticket to the Eastern Conference Championship.<\/p>\n<p>The Penguins wasted no time setting the tone as Tristan Broz opened the scoring just 3:56 into the first period with his second goal of the playoffs. Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton kept the pressure on throughout the opening frame, adding three more goals before the intermission to take a commanding 4-0 lead into the locker room.<\/p>\n<p>Springfield showed more pushback in the second period, but the Penguins continued to capitalize on their opportunities. Late in the frame, Atley Calvert extended the lead, giving Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton even more breathing room heading into the third.<\/p>\n<p>The Penguins struck again early in the final period to make it 6-0 before the Thunderbirds finally broke through with a goal from Akil Thomas. Any hope of a comeback was quickly erased as Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton answered with two more goals to cap off the convincing victory and bring Springfield\u2019s season to an end.<\/p>\n<p>With the win, the Penguins now advance to play for the Eastern Conference Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Check out this photo gallery from Inside The Rink\u2019s Brian Waksmunski for highlights from the game <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ticketmaster.evyy.net\/c\/5142595\/410529\/4272?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ticketmaster.com%2Fnhl\" target=\"_top\" id=\"410529\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4272-410529.jpeg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"468\" height=\"60\"\/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4272.gif\" style=\"position:absolute;visibility:hidden;\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\tDiscover more from Inside The Rink<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px;font-size:15px\">Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Waksmunski for Inside The Rink WILKES-BARRE, Pa. \u2013 The Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins and the Springfield Thunderbirds faced off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[86879,5155,14897,89385,86880,9121,14899,11641,178,180,179,21952,5461,5161],"class_list":["post-202384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-2026-calder-cup-playoffs","tag-ahl","tag-ahl-photos","tag-ahl-playoffs","tag-akil-thomas","tag-atley-calvert","tag-game-photos","tag-photos","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-springfield-thunderbirds","tag-tristan-broz","tag-wilkes-barre-scranton-penguins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202384","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=202384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}