BDevils Drop Season Finale 5-2 to Pens

It’s over.

After 76 games the Binghamton Devils second season comes to an end with a 5-2 defeat to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena. Binghamton ended up with a league worse 0.414% going 28-41-7-0 for 63 points, the same amount as last season with a 25-38-9-4 record.

Goalie Logan Thompson in his first AHL game, took the loss blocking 22 of 27 shots as the Devils sat out a handful of veterans. Ex-BSens’ netminder Matt O’Connor signed to a PTO prior to the game, ended up with 31 saves.

Ryan Schmelzer gave his team the lead late in the first with his 14th on a tip-in past O’C by the crease off a shot from Nick Lappin. That would be all the scoring in the opening twenty minutes with the Devils up 12-9 in the shot category.

After a lengthy delay to start the second, the Penguins broke it open with three in a span of 3:16 with Sam Lafferty (13), Cedric Lacroix (1) and Sam Miletic (12) the goal scorers.

In the final period, Jake Lucchini made it 4-1 on the powerplay as Thompson was screened and had no chance of coming up with a save. Soon after, Lacroix scored his second off a rebound shot that gave Wilkes-Barre/Scranton five unanswered goals after nearly two periods.

John Ramage managed to score on the powerplay coming off the wall and stuffing home a backhander for his 12th of the season as that would round out the scoring of the afternoon. Shots ended up 33-27 Devils.

Line-Up, Game #76

Forwards: Seney - McLeod - Anderson, Saracino - Schmelzer - Lappin, Krushelnyski - Larsson - Dudek, Baddock - Gignac - Studenic

Defensemen: White/Ramage, Hammond/Jacobs, Groleau/Murphy

In Goal: Logan Thompson, Sebastien Caron

Scratches: Brian Strait, Eddie Lack, Blake Speers, Nikita Popugaev, John Quenneville, Eric Tangradi, Nathan Bastian, Eric Gryba, Blake Pietila, Egor Sharangovich, and Cam Johnson

Post Game Notes

• Johnson appeared to be okay after Saturday night’s collision but not good enough to suit up for Sunday. 38-year-old Sebastien Caron was the back-up in his first appearance since the 2015-’16 season playing for the Hamburg Freezers of the DEL.
• A Binghamton team has not won a game vs the Penguins in over two years since Dec 31st, 2016 with a 3-2 victory.
• WBS lone Zamboni decided to die after a resurfacing attempt during the first intermission. It was pushed off the ice and after a delay, the game marched on with terrible ice conditions. But both teams had to skate so there is no excuse except perhaps the Pens might want to consider purchasing a second Zamboni at some point. Just a thought.
• Brett Seney looked to have made it a one-goal game as he was tripped up on a breakaway. How that wasn’t a penalty shot is beyond me, but after a long review that took nearly 10 minutes, the play on the ice stood.
• Two fights took place with the first being Joey Anderson and Macoy Erkamps with not much thrown between the two. Different story for the second fight as once again Erkamps dropped the gloves but too a much tougher opponent being Brandon Baddock, as he managed to land some rights to the face of Erkamps sending him to the ice.
• Coming up this week final 4th Quarter Grades & Player Evaluations.

Three Stars

#1. Cedric Lacroix (2g), #2. Sam Lafferty (1g, 2a), #3. Sam Miletic (1g, 1a)

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