Penguins meet Bears tonight

Wednesday night's 4-3 win over the Louisville Panthers wrapped up a six-game stretch against AHL Southern Division opponents. The Penguins dropped four of the six games to watch their lead in the Mid-Atlantic Division shrink from xx points to three.

Now comes the opportunity for the Penguins to rebuild their advantage.

Beginning with tonight's sold-out game at First Union Arena at Casey Plaza against the Hershey Bears, the Penguins will play seven straight against division rivals.

The Bears and Penguins will meet again Tuesday at First Union Arena and Wednesday at Hersheypark Arena. Following an away-and-home set Dec. 29-30 with the Rochester Americans, the Penguins will travel to Albany Jan. 3 and Philadelphia Jan. 5.

Versus the Mid-Atlantic Division this season, the Penguins have a 12-2-1 record. Both losses have come at the hands of the Philadelphia Phantoms.

"I look at our divisional record and, I don't know what it is, maybe we're a little more focused," forward Greg Crozier said. "I want to play games against teams in our division. I don't want to play the Norfolk Admirals, who I really don't know anything about." "We're going on the road the next two months, so there's no question these games are important," team captain John Slaney said. "You look at the next three games against Hershey. It either puts us together or separates us from those guys (in the standings). If we can win all three games, we could move 12 points ahead of them, something like that." Coach Glenn Patrick would be happy with two of the three games against Hershey, which is mired in a five-game tailspin.

"We want to win three out of three, but we'll be satisfied with two out of three," Patrick said. "It's hard to beat a team three times in a row, so our goal would be to win that first one and split the other two." Crozier expects playing the Bears three times in five days to be like a mini-playoff series.

"It's going to get nasty," Crozier said. "Whenever you play a team back-to-back, tempers flare up and stuff carries over from what happened in the previous game. That's fine. That's the kind of game I want to play in, where everyone is fired up.

"It's going to be like a playoff situation. They're trying to catch us in the points, so these are probably the three biggest games coming up." Should the Penguins fare well during this pending seven-game stretch, they could seize control of the divisional race.

"We look at the (points) race just to see what other teams are doing," Crozier said. "But I think this team is good enough where we don't have to hope other teams lose. I think we control our own destiny. If we're on top of our game, I don't think anybody in this league can beat us."

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