W-B/Scranton skates circles round Admirals at Scope

On Wednesday night, Scope hosted the 700th regular-season hockey game in Admirals history.

In terms of quality of play by the home team, that's also about where this one ranked. So after Wilkes-Barre/Scranton skated circles around the locals from the first puck to the final horn, the Admirals did most of their skating after the game ended.

He’d seen enough

About 10 minutes after the Penguins’ victory, Admirals coach Darren Rumble filed his players back onto the ice and sent them through about 20 minutes of the hockey equivalent of “suicides’’ – continuous end-to-end skating.

Long-time ECHL Admirals fans no doubt will remember this as a familiar ploy of former coach John Brophy. But while not uncommon at lower levels of hockey, it’s a rare maneuver among AHL teams. Team officials said it was the first time the Norfolk Admirals have ever received such a rigorous post-game workout.

“I reached my boiling point,’’ Rumble said.

Man with a plan

Afterward , Rumble acknowledged it as punishment with a purpose.

“I’m not giving up on these guys, and I’m not letting them give up on themselves, either,’’ Rumble said. '’If they don’t want to work in the games, then we’ll skate after games. Until they realize that we’re still in the hunt, that we’re not out of this, we’ll just skate.”

Asked if he worried whether the rigorous post-game workout might leave them weary-legged for Friday’s game against Bridgeport, Rumble emphatically shook his head.

“They’re young,’’ he said. “They’ll recover.’’

Leadership void

The Admirals played without captain Zenon Konopka, who was recalled by Tampa Bay on an emergency basis Wednesday. Konopka joined the Lightning in Buffalo and skated in Tampa Bay’s 4-2 loss to the Sabres.

The fiesty Konopka logged seven penalty minutes in 47 seconds of ice time.

The game also featured the first NHL assist for ex-Admirals star Paul Szczechura, who completed his fifth game with Tampa Bay.

The dirty details

In the game at Scope, the Penguins scored four times before 12 minutes had elapsed to separate from a sluggish, passive home team.

“We lost all of our battles, all of our puck races. …’’ Rumble said. “We just weren’t ready to play.’’

The only first-period cheer from 2,660 on hand came at the 11:32 mark, when backup goalie Mike McKenna skated on to relieve a beleaguered Karri Ramo.

By the numbers

The loss dropped the Admirals (8-15-1-4, 21 points) to 3-9-0-1 in their past 13 games. It was also Norfolk’s 200th regular-season loss at Scope (427-200-73).

Brandon Segal, Jamie Heward and Justin Keller scored the goals for Norfolk, which trailed 4-0 after one period and 5-1 after two. Mark Letestu had a pair of goals to lead the Penguins (14-10-1-1).