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Gavenus to speak at photography symposium

Class reunion notices

<p>There are eight rookies on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins roster that don&#8217;t have a bit of AHL playoff experience. There are four others that have also never experienced the AHL postseason.</p><p>But the Penguins do have a handful of players that have been to the Calder Cup Finals, including one who got to raise the cup, and they will be relied upon heavily to guide a young team into the playoffs.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s another gear in the playoffs and those guys know how to get to it,&#8221; head coach Clark Donatelli said. &#8220;They drive the bus. We&#8217;ve got some good bus drivers.&#8221;</p><p>Dustin Jeffrey was a member of the Texas Stars team that won the Calder Cup in 2014. He played with the Dallas Stars in their postseason that year, and once the parent club was eliminated, Jeffrey came down to help the AHL squad go all the way.</p><p>He knows what it takes for a team to make a deep playoff run.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot. But the biggest thing is there&#8217;s going to be ups and downs in each series. It&#8217;s just managing the way you let stuff affect you, like travel, referees or the way the games go.&#8221; Jeffrey said.</p><p>There are some differences between the Texas team of 2014 and the current Penguins squad, Jeffrey said. The Stars won games with their offense and didn&#8217;t blink an eye at beating teams with lofty totals on the scoreboard.</p><p>The Penguins, according to Jeffrey, aren&#8217;t built like that.</p><p>&#8220;Here, we have a better grasp on our defensive responsibilities. We&#8217;re going to win games 3-2, whereas in Texas we were fine playing games that were 6-5,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Will O&#8217;Neill and Kael Mouillierat also have a bit of Calder Cup Finals experience. They were members of the St. John&#8217;s team that lost to Texas in 2014. They both said leadership in the room and having the right mindset are critical factors to reaching the finals, and they see both elements with the current Penguins team.</p><p>&#8220;What we had with St. John&#8217;s was everybody bought in,&#8221; Mouillierat said. &#8220;Guys are pretty pumped up to play this time of year and you know that every team has a chance once you&#8217;re in.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s why O&#8217;Neill cringes when people refer to the playoffs as a &#8220;grind.&#8221; The middle of the regular season might seem to drag, he said, but the postseason? There&#8217;s nothing not to like.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a completely clean slate. A whole new season and a fresh start. You get a lot of energy from that,&#8221; O&#8217;Neill said. &#8220;The playoffs are actually the beginning of a season to me.&#8221;</p><p>Still, the word &#8220;grind&#8221; does have a place in the postseason.</p><p>Defenseman Ryan Parent is the only Penguin player who played on an NHL team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals. Parent played in 17 postseason games with the Flyers in 2010, who lost at the end to the Chicago Blackhawks.</p><p>He said a critical factor behind the 2010 Flyers was their ability to play a grinding style of hockey that wore teams down during a series.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a different game and it just takes the right makeup of a team,&#8221; Parent said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been on teams that fought to make the final playoff spot. We had the mentality that we were going to work harder than every team we faced, and we ended up doing that.&#8221;</p><p>When it comes to hard work in the postseason, no one does it better than captain Tom Kostopoulos. He was a member of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton teams that reached the Calder Cup Finals in 2001 and 2004.</p><p>Kostopoulos said the current Penguins team is similar to the one that made the finals in 2001.</p><p>&#8220;We weren&#8217;t the best team by far that year and going into playoffs we weren&#8217;t close to being the favorite,&#8221; Kostopoulos said. &#8220;But we had contributions from everyone, one thing led to another and before you know you&#8217;re in the finals.&#8221;</p><p>So does that mean this year&#8217;s Penguins team has a bit of an underdog mentality heading into the postseason?</p><p>&#8220;I think so,&#8221; Kostopoulos said. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say this team, on paper, is the favorite by any means. We&#8217;re a team that needs every single guy to contribute every night, and with that you never know what can happen.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Dustin Jeffrey won the Calder Cup in 2014 with Texas, and he said the Penguins squad has the right elements to make a deep playoff run. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_DJ.jpg</photo0><caption0>Dustin Jeffrey won the Calder Cup in 2014 with Texas, and he said the Penguins squad has the right elements to make a deep playoff run. </caption0><photoCredit0>Fred Adams|Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_TK.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Tom Kostopoulos hopes this postseason will lead to his third Calder Cup Finals appearance as a Penguin. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_TK.jpg</photo1><caption1>Tom Kostopoulos hopes this postseason will lead to his third Calder Cup Finals appearance as a Penguin. </caption1><photoCredit1>Fred Adams|Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Vets Jeffrey, O&#8217;Neill and Mouillierat are invaluable during playoffs</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins aren’t short on championship experience