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Westmoreland Club purchases church; will buy JCC land

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Firefighters save dogs from sinkhole in Forty Fort

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Joseph Blandisi will be returning to familiar territory when the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins travel to Binghamton on Saturday to face the Devils.</p><p>Blandisi spent the first two months of the 2017-18 season with Binghamton, appearing in 19 games before he was traded to the Anaheim organization.</p><p>Even though Blandisi said there are still a lot of familiar faces in Binghamton, he doesn&#8217;t consider Saturday&#8217;s game to be a homecoming.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll be starting on the other side of the ice and getting dressed in a different spot. Once you get out there, it&#8217;s just another hockey game,&#8221; Blandisi said.</p><p>Still, it&#8217;s a game of critical importance for the Penguins.</p><p>Despite winning their last two contests, the Penguins remain out of a playoff spot, sitting at sixth place in the Atlantic Division. The Springfield Thunderbirds hold the fourth and final playoff spot, and the Penguins trail them by three points.</p><p>&#8220;We let too many slip away earlier in the season. We want to build off these last couple of games,&#8221; head coach Clark Donatelli said. &#8220;These wins are crucial. The division is extremely tight and it&#8217;s going to continue that way.&#8221;</p><p>While wins are certainly nice, so to is a break for a Penguins team that has played four games in the last six days. After Saturday, the AHL will take a four-day break for the all-star game, and the Penguins will welcome the rest.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been playing a lot of games and our guys deserve a good break to get ready for the push going forward,&#8221; Donatelli said. &#8220;We&#8217;ll have our hands full going down the stretch.&#8221;</p><p>But first, the Penguins are focused not on the break, but gaining another valuable win in Binghamton.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s crucial to get a win before a break,&#8221; Blandisi said. &#8220;Especially now that we strung together a couple of wins in a row, to be able to finish it off with one more will hopefully allow us to carry it over after the break.&#8221;</p><p><strong>NOTES</strong></p><p>&#8226; One player who will not be on the trip is veteran defenseman Will O&#8217;Neill.</p><p>The Penguins announced Friday evening that they mutually agreed with O&#8217;Neill to release him from his AHL contract, making him a free agent.</p><p class="x_MsoNormal">&#8220;Will has been a loyal player to the organization and an upstanding member of the community during his time with the Penguins,&#8221; Wilkes-Barre/Scranton general manager Bill Guerin said in a team release. &#8220;We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.&#8221;</p><p>O&#8217;Neill, 30, appeared in 28 games this season in his second stint with the Penguins, recording eight points, all assists.</p><p>He had a career year with the squad back in 2015-16 with 50 points (eight goals, 42 assists). This season, All-Star selection Ethan Prow has taken that role on the blue line, recording the third-most goals among AHL defensemen this season (12) and fifth-most points (31).</p><p>&#8226; Both overtime game-winners scored by the Pens this season have come from defensemen (Kevin Czuczman, Prow).</p><p>&#8226; Teddy Blueger has nine goals and six assists for 15 points in his last 10 games.</p><p>&#8226; In his first game with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Wednesday, Blandisi scored a goal on two shots while skating on a line with Blueger and Anthony Angello. Blueger had two goals, as did Ryan Haggerty, to lead the Penguins to a 5-2 win in Bridgeport over the Sound Tigers.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

WBS Penguins look to go into all-star break on winning note; O’Neill released