It was practice time again Tuesday morning for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins hockey team. Coming off a (3-2) win against Albany on Sunday in Atlantic City-the Pens are now just one point behind division leader Binghamton. Providence is up on Wednesday then a double-dip in Norfolk over the weekend. Three keys games in one week for coach Hynes and company.
"In a week like this it's more about getting prepared to make sure you have maximum energy for the games and even your practices you're not doing as much teaching this week as more just straight game preparation," said John Hynes.
"It's a big game for us all the games this year. This time of the year is big-big two points they're chasing us for a playoff spot," said Nick Drazenovic.
A pretty sweet deal for the Penguins last year in the American Hockey League playoffs an overall record of (8-7), nice series wins over Binghamton and Providence we're nice but it all ended against Syracuse in the conference finals. So with one month left in the regular season this year this Penguins team is looking towards the playoffs.
"Towards late in the season we got a veteran group in here-there's a lot of urgency. If we come down in the 3rd period if you lose that game you could be sitting in 7th, 8th on the bottom. If you win you're back in a good position up in the middle of the standings," said Andrew Ebbett.
"What's key here the last month of the season? Obviously playing good hockey and getting a good spot in the playoffs and go in with a little momentum. I think consistency. We've had weeks or days-stretches of games where we've played really well, but to be consistent over this last month to be real consistent so that we and what their going to bring every night if we can nail that down as a team i think we'll do all right," said Tom Kostopoulos.
The Penguins go for their 7th win in the last 8 games Wednesday night against Providence.