Fancy footwork, photo finishes and fun were the name of the game, as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins held their third annual Skills Competition, sponsored by Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep, on Sunday at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.
Team Bylsma posted a 19-14 victory in the overall competition. But the games within a game were highlighted by the likes of Jonathan Filewich, Deryk Engelland and Chris Minard.
Filewich won the fastest skater event at the 2007 CCM AHL All-Star Skills Competition with a time of 14.553 seconds, but fell in last year’s Penguins’ competition to Connor James. The speedy James entered Sunday’s festivities as the players’ favorite to repeat, but a stumble in the third turn left him with a time of 14.296. The impressive time was just .031 off of last year’s winning mark, but wasn’t even good enough for second place this time.
Filewich, the fifth skater in the six-man competition, posted a mark of 14.193,
then had to sweat out the performance of final participant, Chris Minard, who clocked in just one one-thousandth of a second behind Filewich.
It wasn’t the only time Minard would come close to carrying an event on the night.
Minard anchored the hardest shot event, missing the net on his first attempt but blasting a 96.6 miles per hour slapper with his second try. That was just 0.3 miles per hour behind Deryk Engelland’s winning attempt.
The only other skater to crack the 95 mile an hour mark was Tim Wallace at 95.2.
Two players knocked down all four targets in the shooting accuracy portion of the program, with both Joe Jensen and Jeff Taffe needing the full complement of eight shots each to accomplish the feat.
The day was successful off the ice as well as on, as all of the money raised from ticket sales for the event will go back to the community through the Penguins/United Way Charity Fund, local youth hockey organizations and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
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