Minor league report: Ville Koivunen ties goal record as Penguins rout Bears
Four goals by forward Ville Koivunen led the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to a 9-0 rout of the rival Hershey Bears at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday.
Koivunen tied Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s single-game record for goals. His predecessors:
• Erik Christensen — Oct. 5, 2005 (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 8, Bridgeport Sound Tigers 1)
• J.F. Jacques — Feb. 16, 2007 (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 7, Binghamton Senators 0)
• Oskar Sundvist — Dec. 10, 2016 (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 6, Hershey Bears 2)
• Boris Katchouk - Dec. 11, 2024 (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 6, Charlotte Checkers 4)
Forward Vasily Ponomarev recorded a hat trick in Wednesday’s game as well while defenseman Filip Kral led all scorers with five points (one goal, four assists) for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (23-10-4-0), which has won three consecutive games.
Goaltender Sergei Murashov made 27 saves to record his first career shutout at the American Hockey League level and boosted his record to 4-0-0.
The result allowed the Penguins to set a franchise record for greatest margin of victory and set a single-season high for hat tricks with seven. Additionally, it marked the first time in franchise history the team had a pair of hat tricks in the same game.
Highlights:
The Penguins’ next game is a road contest against the Checkers on Friday, 7 p.m.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.