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First Posted: 12/7/2014 HERSHEY &#8211; Even though fans at Giant Center threw 17,295 stuffed animals onto the ice Sunday as part of Teddy Toss Night, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins took pride in several smaller numbers.
Derrick Pouliot scored a pair of goals, including the eventual game winner 6:13 into the third period, and Jeff Zatkoff made 30 saves in a 3-2 victory over the Hershey Bears.
The win was John Hynes&#8217; 200th as head coach of the Pens and came on a night when Wilkes-Barre/Scranton halted an eight-game losing streak in Hershey.
The Pens (14-9-1-1, 30 points) snapped a first-place deadlock with the Bears (13-9-1-1, 28 points) and celebrated their first triumph in Chocolatetown since Nov. 2, 2013.
After failing to score on its first 26 chances against Hershey this season &#8211; including a full two minutes of 5-on-3 manpower advantage in the second period Sunday &#8211; Wilkes-Barre/Scranton&#8217;s struggling power play cashed in on Pouliot&#8217;s blast with 13:47 remaining.
&#8220;For our team, we came in with the mindset of, &#8216;We want to find a way to win a hockey game,&#8217;&#8221; Hynes said. &#8220;For us, it&#8217;s not [about] the past or the future. It&#8217;s playing in this game.
&#8220;I thought we had good energy, good legs, and we deserved to at least compete for a chance to win the game going into the third period and fortunately for us, we were able to do it.&#8221;
The Pens killed off six of seven Bears&#8217; power-play chances in the victory. And Pouliot provided the decisive margin with Hershey&#8217;s Chris Brown sitting out a tripping minor. The rookie defenseman took a Tom Kostopoulos centering feed and hammered a shot past Bears goalie Philipp Grubauer.
&#8220;TK made a good play,&#8221; Pouliot said. &#8220;He was under pressure and got it back up top. I knew I had a lane to get around the guy and get it to the net. Not sure if the goalie didn&#8217;t see it or what, but it went upstairs, so it was good.&#8221;
Zatkoff made the lead stand up. He stopped all 15 third-period shots from the home team.
&#8220;I thought we did a good job keeping everything to the outside,&#8221; the goalie said. &#8220;They had a lot of shots. They had a few power plays, but I thought our special teams was a big part of the game tonight.
&#8220;Usually that&#8217;s where we&#8217;ve struggled &#8211; on the PK against these guys &#8211; and tonight we were able to come up with the kills in the third period that we needed. Ultimately, that&#8217;s what we needed.&#8221;
Steve Oleksy scored on Hershey&#8217;s first shot just 39 seconds into the game, unleashing the cascade of plush toys that were donated to local organizations for distribution to children in need.
The game was delayed 22 minutes while the stuffed animals were cleared off the ice. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players waited things out in their dressing room.
&#8220;Savvy move by our team getting it out of the way early,&#8221; Zatkoff joked. &#8220;It gave us a chance to settle down. This is a team that feeds off their crowd and feeds off the momentum. It kind of gave us 20 minutes to go back in and regroup. Now it&#8217;s like starting the game all over again. That&#8217;s what we did.&#8221;
Pouliot scored at 5:01 of the first period, pulling the Pens even. Stanislav Galiev&#8217;s power-play goal 2:57 into the middle period put Hershey ahead again, but Bobby Farnham&#8217;s first goal of the season 63 seconds later knotted the score again.
***Boxscore goes in Agate*****
Penguins 3, Bears 2Penguins`1`1`1` &#8211;` 3
Hershey`1`1`0` &#8211; `2
First Period &#8211; Scoring: 1. Hershey, Oleksy 4 (Kennedy, Brown), 0:39; 2. Penguins, Pouliot 4 (Kostopoulos, Letourneau-Leblond), 5:01. Penalties &#8211; Letourneau-Leblond, WBS (interference), 2:46; Brown, Her (tripping), 6:56; Oleksy, Her (hooking), 12:03; Letourneau-Leblond, WBS (slashing), 16:40; Harrington, WBS, double minor (high-sticking), 19:28.
Second Period &#8211; Scoring: 3. Hershey, Galiev 7 (Conner, Carrick), 2:57 (pp); 4. Penguins, Farnham 1 (Boak, Marcantuni), 4:00. Penalties &#8211; Galiev, Her (holding), 0:50; Oleksy, Her, double minor (holding-roughing), 7:24; Schilling, Her (delay of game), 7:59; Carrick, Her (cross-checking), 12:43; Uher, WBS (roughing), 19:44.
Third Period &#8211; Scoring: 5. Penguins, Pouliot 5 (Kostopoulos, Dea), 6:13 (pp). Penalties &#8211; Brown, Her (tripping), 5:00; Brown, Her (unsportsmanlike conduct), 6:13; Dea, WBS (tripping), 8:08; D&#8217;Agostino, WBS (hooking), 10:38.
Shots on goal: Penguins 12-8-6 &#8211; 26; Hershey 6-11-15 &#8211; 32. Power-play opportunities: Penguins 1 of 7; Hershey 1 of 7. Goalies &#8211; Penguins, Zatkoff 7-5-1 (32 shots-30 saves); Hershey, Grubauer 9-6-2 (26-23). A &#8211; 9,652 (10,500). T &#8211; 2:45. Referees: Dave Lewis, Tim Mayer. Linesmen: Bob Goodman, Bill Lyons.

Penguins honor Hynes with 200th win