Murashov, Zonnon lift Penguins past Springfield, take 2-1 series lead

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton took the swing game of the Atlantic Division finals and walked out of the MassMutual Center with control of the series. Sergei Murashov turned aside 27 shots and Bill Zonnon scored again in a 2-1 victory over Springfield on Tuesday, giving the Penguins a 2-1 lead and putting the pressure squarely on the Thunderbirds heading into Game 4 on Thursday night in Springfield.

That is how playoff series get decided: not by style points, but by the details that hold up when the game tightens. Zonnon’s goal made it three in three professional games, a run that started with his score in Game 1 and kept rolling in a series that has already swung from shutout to collapse to a one-goal grind. Murashov, meanwhile, looked steady in the most important way possible. Springfield did not need a track meet to threaten; it needed one clean push to change the game. Murashov kept that from happening.

The Penguins also had the kind of road profile that made this result less surprising than it may look from the outside. They finished the regular season with the AHL’s third-best road record at 25-7-3-1, and they had already won twice in Springfield before the playoffs began, 3-2 on Jan. 19 and 7-2 on Feb. 18. That history matters now because Game 3 was not just another win. It was proof that Wilkes-Barre/Scranton can play the same composed, direct game away from home when the series starts to tighten and the margin for error shrinks.

Springfield had earned its reputation as a tough out long before this round, becoming the first AHL team to win two playoff series after finishing the regular season at .500 or lower since the 2001 Hershey Bears. Steve Ott’s club was already riding one of the league’s most unlikely postseason runs, and Georgii Romanov entered the division finals with a 5-1 record, a 1.42 goals-against average and a .954 save percentage. But Game 2 showed how quickly that momentum can flip. The Thunderbirds came back from 3-0 down to win 4-3 in overtime, with Hugh McGing scoring shorthanded, Dillon Dube scoring twice in the final 3:24 of regulation and Akil Thomas finishing it in overtime.

That made Game 3 the pivot point. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton answered the collapse with a tighter, more mature effort, and now Springfield has to solve the same problem every playoff team eventually faces: how to create enough offense against a goalie settling in and a Penguins group that looks increasingly comfortable in one-goal games. If the Thunderbirds cannot find a way through Murashov early in Game 4, the series could shift from evenly matched to under Penguin control in a hurry.