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Penn State spring preview: A position-by-position look at the Nittany Lions

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<p>With 14 games left in the regular season, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins know they&#8217;re running out of time to catch the Hershey Bears for first place in the Atlantic Division.</p><p>That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re more than happy to face them twice this weekend. The Penguins host the Bears Saturday and travel to Hershey to cap off the home-and-home series on Sunday. The Penguins are 3-4 against the Bears this season, they&#8217;re separated by three points in the standings and face Hershey five more times.</p><p>And despite being outscored by the Bears 23-8 in the last five contests, the Penguins say they aren&#8217;t intimidated.</p><p>&#8220;Hershey&#8217;s a good team, but we&#8217;re a good team too,&#8221; said head coach Clark Donatelli, who said Tristan Jarry will get the start in net on Saturday. &#8220;Like any game, it&#8217;s going to come down to minimizing mistakes and playing a full 60 minutes.&#8221;</p><p>While this weekend&#8217;s games are essentially &#8220;must-win&#8221; contests for the Penguins if they hope to catch the Bears, they&#8217;re not feeling any pressure. Perhaps it helps that in the last meeting on March 6, the Penguins out-matched Hershey&#8217;s firepower for a 5-4 win.</p><p>&#8220;We look at them as important games, but we want to have fun and go out there with controlled emotion,&#8221; captain Tom Kostopoulos said. &#8220;It will be intense, but just have fun and enjoy it.&#8221;</p><p>Defenseman Will O&#8217;Neill agreed with Kostopoulos&#8217; approach to have fun and said it&#8217;s important to put the &#8220;must-win&#8221; aspect in the back of their minds.</p><p>&#8220;You know what&#8217;s on the line and these are the games you like to play,&#8221; O&#8217;Neill said. &#8220;When something&#8217;s on the line, you can look after the game at the standings and see the jump or the extension of the lead.&#8221;</p><p>After playing three games in three nights for two straight weekends, this will mark the second week the Penguins go into a Saturday game while having Friday night off. Considering there&#8217;s so much on the line in the two contests against Hershey, O&#8217;Neill doesn&#8217;t mind having the extra night off.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not bad. You get to watch the other games on Friday and it makes the weekend a little bit shorter,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Playing Hershey on a Saturday and Sunday is nice because you usually get a good home crowd and anytime you play Hershey at their place on Sunday it&#8217;s a nice big crowd.&#8221;</p><p>NOTES</p><p>- Pittsburgh reassigned F Dominik Simon on Friday and recalled F Oskar Sundqvist.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Up next&#8230;</strong></p><p>Hershey Bears (35-17-3-7, .645, 1st place in the Atlantic Division) at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (36-21-4-1, .621, 2nd place in the Atlantic Division)</p><p>Saturday, 7:05 p.m. at the Mohegan Sun Arena</p><p>Listen live on 103.1FM-WILK</p><p><strong>Players to watch:</strong></p><p>Hershey &#8212; Nathan Walker has four goals in seven games against the Penguins.</p><p>Penguins &#8212; Dustin Jeffrey has six points in six games against the Bears this season.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins get another shot at league-leading Hershey Bears