Penguins make it 9-for-9

It was a case of the usual suspects Saturday night at Wachovia Arena, as Matt Hussey, Ryan Whitney, Erik Christensen and Michel Ouellet scored goals to lead the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to a 5-1 win against the Syracuse Crunch.

The victory was the second in as many tries against the Crunch this season, and extended Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s team-record winning streak to nine games.

A sluggish first period produced just 13 total shots (10 for Wilkes-Barre, three for Syracuse) and yielded just one goal, a Hussey tally that found the roof of the opposing net with less than a minute to play in the opening frame.

Whitney, who scored six goals all of last season, picked up his fifth in the opening month of the 2005-06 campaign unassisted at 2:46 of the second. The league’s top-scoring defenseman now has points in seven of nine games this season.

Christensen took a Colby Armstrong feed and picked the near corner with a backhander at 18:52. The reigning CCM Vector/AHL Player of the Week then set up Ouellet with a feed on the doorstep which Ouellet redirected behind Andrew Penner eight minutes into the third to put the game out of reach.

Andy Delmore ruined Marc-Andre Fleury‘s clean sheet with an even-strength tally midway through the final period, but Armstrong re-established the four-goal cushion at 17:49, and Fleury cruised to his sixth win of the season.