Inside the East Division: AHL schedule, new division leader, Senators in Norfolk & more
February 27, 2004

Posted by: Bob Howard
Credit: Exclusive to Binghamton Hockey.net

Welcome to "Inside the East Division", an exclusive feature to Binghamton Hockey.net.

On tap for this edition will be the AHL schedule for tonight's games, how the East teams played this past week, a breakdown of the East Division games and how the standings can be affected & key's for tonight's Senators/Admirals game.

Tonight's AHL Schedule: 22 of 28 teams are playing tonight in the AHL. Three games start tonight at 7:00 PM & 4 separate games getting under way at 7:35 PM EST. All the East division teams are playing tonight with Bridgeport visiting Albany & Binghamton traveling south to Norfolk. (Preview) The Penguins, Bears and the Phantoms are all facing teams from outside the East division. All the East division teams are in italics.

Bridgeport @ Albany Game time is: 7:00 PM
Hamilton @ Cleveland Game time is: 7:00 PM
Houston @ San Antonio Game time is: 7:00 PM
Lowell @ Worcester Game time is: 7:05 PM
Chicago @ Grand Rapids Game time is: 7:30 PM
Binghamton @ Norfolk Game time is: 7:30 PM
Wilkes-Barre @ Syracuse Game time is: 7:30 PM
Philadelphia @ Cincinnati Game time is: 7:35 PM
Hershey @ Rochester Game time is: 7:35 PM
Hartford @ Springfield Game time is: 7:35 PM
Portland @ St. John's Game time is: 7:35 PM

For the East Division: Since Sunday, February 22nd, there has been 8 games played featuring East division teams.

Sunday: After scoring two goals in the 1st period, the Albany River Rats allowed the Hamilton Bulldogs to score one in the 2nd and one in the third to tie the game. Rats goalie, Ari Ahonen stopped 39 of 41 shots including 12 in each period and 5 shots in the over time period. The Binghamton Senators traveled to Springfield to play the Falcons at the Springfield Civic Center. Springfield scored 3 goals in the first 9:24 of the game and one more at the 15:47 mark of the 1st to carry themselves to a 5-3 win over the Senators.

Monday: The Binghamton Senators then traveled to the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire to play the Monarchs. The Monarchs scored to goals in the 3rd period from Jeff Giuliano and Noah Clarke to take the 2-0 win from the Senators. This was Adam Hauser's fifth shut out of the season to go with an impressive 1.96 goals against average.

Tuesday: The only game in the AHL on Tuesday pitted Albany vs. Manitoba with the two teams going to a 2-2 tie in front of 7,186 paying fans at the Winnipeg Arena in Manitoba. Manitoba went 0-7 in the power play department but saw goalie Alex Auld save 30 of 32 shots for the Moose.

Wednesday: The Binghamton Senators hosted the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena and witnessed their 3rd straight loss as the Penguins scored three times in the first and once in the third period to gain a 4-3 victory. The Phantoms skated past the Mighty Ducks, 4-1 at the Cincinnati Gardens in Cincinnati. Neil Little only saw 22 shots from the Ducks while saving all but one shot, which came from Duck's left-winger, Josh Gratton. Bridgeport lost its second straight game to the Hartford Wolfpack after Hartford scored 4 times in the first period. In the 5-2 loss for the Sound Tigers, All-Star Jeff Hamilton had two assists on the two goals scored by the Tigers. For the third straight game, Albany gained at least one point as they went to over-time with the Manitoba Moose at the Winnipeg Arena. Un-like Tuesday, Albany allowed the Moose to score in OT on Pat Kavanagh's short handed goal to lose the game 3-2.

With the Phantoms getting the win and Bridgeport losing on Wednesday, the two teams swapped positions in the East putting the Phantoms into first place with a one point lead over the Sound Tigers. Third place, Hershey and fourth place Norfolk did not play these past five days and they remained right where they were after Saturday's action. The Binghamton Senators lost all three games they played in the last five days and as a result remained one point behind the Admirals for a fifth position in the East. Wilkes-Barre's win against the Senators on Wednesday put the Penguins just two points behind the Sens for sixth place. Albany was able to capture three points over the last five days but still remained behind the Penguins by 10 points.

East Division Standings:
Philadelphia - 72
Bridgeport - 71
Hershey - 64
Norfolk - 61
Binghamton - 60
Wilkes-Barre - 58
Albany - 48

Tonight's action sees four East division teams going head to head tonight. Bridgeport travels to Albany to face the Rats at the Pepsi Arena hoping to get a win and possibly take first place back over. The Senators and Norfolk go head to head in a two game set that will end tomorrow. The two teams are separated by one in the East and play each other five more times before the season ends. The Penguins then head to Syracuse to face the Crunch; Wilkes-Barre is trying to catch the slumping Senators and could tonight with a win and a Sens loss. Like on Wednesday, Philadelphia is in Cincinnati and a win tonight would keep the Phantoms in first for at least one more day. Lastly, Hershey travels to Rochester to face the Americans. A win for Hershey tonight will keep either the Senators or the Admirals at least three or four points behind them in the East division race.

Senator's Need: The senators need to win tonight and tomorrow to put themselves a head of the Admirals and closer to Hershey for third in the division. The Senators need to start winning on the road (8-14-4-0) as the team has only eight remaining home games left out of 22 games remaining on their schedule.

Key's to tonight's game: Binghamton, losers of their last three games will have to go into the Scope in Norfolk and stop a red-hot Norfolk team that has won its last 8 out of 10 games. Marty Wilford has 33 (3+30) points for the Admirals and is one of the league's top defensive point getters. The Senators will have to contain Wilford as he creates many scoring opportunities for the Admirals, feeding passes to Ajay Baines & Pavel Vorobiev. Denis Hamel broke a goal-scoring drought in the game vs. the Penguins and will have to continue putting the puck into the net tonight if the Sens are going to score any points. You can read more of a preview for tonight's game by clicking here.

After tonight's AHL action come back to Binghamton Hockey.net for an updated East Division standings and a Senators/Admirals boxscore and articles about the game.

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