Penguins Update: Growing Pains and Playoff Struggles

Uh…we might need to hold the phone a bit before we start anointing some of our kids as sure bets.To say things haven’t exactly gone as planned for our farm clubs in the minor-league playoffs to date would be an understatement of the highest magnitude.

Sans top guns Rutger McGroarty and Emil Bemström, the Baby Pens got trampled by arch-rival Lehigh Valley at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre last night by a score of 5-2 in their best-of-three Calder Cup series opener.

The visitors methodically rolled out to a 3-0 lead through two periods. Adding injury to insult, Baby Pens netminder Joel Blomqvist, who stopped 23 of the 26 shots that came his way, didn’t return for the third period due to…