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Girl Scouts clean Hanover Township park to celebrate Earth Day

<p>PROVIDENCE. R.I. &#8212; Maybe it was preordained that the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Providence Bruins only would play overtime games in their best-of-five Atlantic Division semifinal series.</p><p>And Saturday turned out to be the longest of them all.</p><p>Rookie Jake Guentzel ended the marathon with his second goal of the night, burying one after an exhausting 93 minutes, 52 seconds of hockey. The 5-4 victory over the Bruins completed a 3-0 sweep of the division semifinal series.</p><p>Captain Tom Kostopoulos picked up the assist on the series-clincher. Casey DeSmith finished the game with 59 saves for the Penguins, who will take on the winner of the Hershey-Portland series, which is tied 1-1.</p><p>The Penguins entered the third period with a seemingly comfortable 4-1 lead only to implode as the Bruins recorded a 20-6 advantage in shots.</p><p>Providence seized control in the first 5 &#189; minutes.</p><p>First, Chris Breen deflected in Seth Griffith&#8217;s slap shot at 2:22.</p><p>Then, when Providence was on a power play, a Tommy Cross slap shot beat a screened DeSmith at 5:30 and sliced the Bruins deficit to 4-3.</p><p>Prior to that score, the Penguins had killed all nine Providence power-play opportunities during the series.</p><p>Austin Czarnik forced overtime when his slapper from the high slot clanged in off the bottom of the crossbar with 3:59 left in regulation.</p><p>After the first overtime, Providence had outshot the Penguins 58-30 with DeSmith having made 54 saves.</p><p>DeSmith played a major role in forcing a second overtime when he made two highlight show saves in the first extra session.</p><p>DeSmith made a superb skate save on a wrist shot by Max Talbot just past the midway point and then he robbed Frank Vatrano in the final 90 seconds.</p><p>The Penguins only needed 35 seconds to score the game&#8217;s first goal when Steve Olesky&#8217;s shot was blocked by Zane McIntrye (nine saves before he was replaced by Jeremy Smith at the start of the third period) only to have the rebound slide to Guentzel, who ripped home a slap shot from the left point.</p><p>Smith played the remainder of the game and made 17 saves over the course of the third period and overtime.</p><p>After DeSmith blocked Talbot&#8217;s bid for a short-handed goal the Penguins upped their lead to 2-0 on a power-play goal by Dominik Simon.</p><p>Tim Erixon unloaded a shot from the right point and Simon deflected it by McIntyre at 10:42.</p><p>The Penguins again worked their power play to perfection early in the second period when Daniel Sprong beat McIntyre top shelf at 5:36.</p><p>But Providence countered at 13:39 when Czarnik&#8217;s slap shot from the top of the left circle beat DeSmith.</p><p>Wilkes-Barre/Scranton regained a three-goal lead with 1:32 remaining in the period when Sprong passed to Erixon who blasted a slap shot by McIntyre.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mike Scandura</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Times Leader sports at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @TLsports</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Jake Guentzel scores in double overtime to complete Penguins’ sweep of Providence