Taylor Gauthier turned Sunday night into his own showcase, and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins backed him with a balanced attack in a 5-0 win over the Hershey Bears at GIANT Center.
The Penguins spread the scoring around to five different players, but the story was Gauthier, who stopped a career-high 43 shots to record Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s first shutout of the season. It was the third shutout of his AHL career.
Melvin Fernström got the Penguins moving again early, scoring for the second straight game. He took a frozen-rope pass from Owen Pickering at the far blue line, pushed through two defenders and finished with a backhand move past Hershey goalie Mitch Gibson at 6:58.
Hershey answered with a strong push and spent several shifts pressing Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, generating chances that could have tied the game. Gauthier shut that down, though, and finished the opening period with 15 saves. The Penguins then stretched the lead late in the frame when Bill Zonnon scored with 47.7 seconds left to make it 2-0.
The second period belonged to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Four minutes in, Jake Livanavage fired from the high slot, and the shot glanced off Rutger McGroarty before slipping into the net for a 3-0 cushion. Gauthier kept turning away Hershey looks, and with 1:16 left in the period, Mikhail Ilyin beat Gibson high over the glove to push the lead to four.
The Penguins added one more just 15 seconds into the third period, when Hugh McGing set up Rafaël Harvey-Pinard for his first goal since returning from a season-opening injury.
Hershey kept coming anyway. The Bears produced breakaways, odd-man rushes and long stretches in the offensive zone throughout the third, but Gauthier never blinked. He turned aside 19 shots in the final period to close out the shutout.
Gibson finished with 10 saves for Hershey.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, now 5-4-1-0, heads to Charlotte next for the first of back-to-back games against the Checkers on Friday, Nov. 6. Puck drop against the Atlantic Division leaders is set for 7:00 p.m. at Bojangles’ Coliseum.
The Penguins return home on Tuesday, Nov. 10, when they host the Comets in their first Winning Weekday of the season. If the Penguins win, fans in attendance will receive a free ticket to the team’s next mid-week home game. Puck drop is set for 6:35 p.m. at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza.
In Other News...
Penguins Just Created A New Opening For Rutger McGroarty
Rutger McGroarty is back with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after Pittsburgh reassigned the young forward, a move that trims the NHL roster but also keeps the door cracked open for him. Since breaking in during the 2024-25 season, McGroarty has appeared in 34 NHL games and put up four goals and nine points, while his work in the AHL has continued to show why the Penguins view him as a real part of their future.
For now, the assignment gives Pittsburgh a little more flexibility up front and keeps McGroarty in a place where he can keep building confidence and production. He has already shown he can handle the minors with scoring touch and strong underlying numbers over two seasons, so the next step may depend less on what he does in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and more on how the Penguins manage the rest of their roster in the days ahead. [Read more 🡒]
Penguins Loss Just Raised Bigger Questions About Where This Team Is Headed
The loss to the Canadiens did more than add another mark in the standings for Pittsburgh, it sharpened the sense that this season is drifting toward a tougher conversation about direction. There have been bright spots, including Tristan Jarrys consecutive shutouts, but the Penguins have also been living with the kind of uneven play that invites scrutiny from the coach and the front office alike.
Dan Muse now has a team that needs a reset in more ways than one, and the questions around the roster are only getting louder. Trade chatter keeps circling around names like Nikita Kucherov and Dylan Larkin, while the broader NHL landscape keeps moving around Pittsburgh, from Carolinas interest in Simon Edvinsson to the latest international hockey buzz, leaving the Penguins to decide what kind of next step they really want to take. [Read more 🡒]
Penguins Defensive Problems Are Becoming Harder To Ignore
The defensive issues that have followed the Penguins through October were back in plain view after the loss to Montreal, and Dan Muse did not try to soften the picture. Pittsburgh has spent much of the month living with mistakes and breakdowns that turn routine shifts into dangerous moments, and the result has been a team that has struggled to find any consistency in its own end while the rest of the Metropolitan Division sorts itself out around it.
Muses comments fit a larger pattern for a club that has not been able to string together reliable defensive performances, even as the standings continue to tighten. The Penguins have been trying to keep pace in a division where every point matters, but the recurring problems around their net are making the margin for error awfully small, and the next stretch will say plenty about whether these are fixable habits or a more stubborn issue. [Read more 🡒]