HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HUGH 

On the ABC television show Lost one character constantly sees the same numbers coming back to haunt him again and again. On the show it’s the numbers “4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.” For the Worcester Sharks, the numbers that haunted them last night were “3, 15, 27, 28, 62 and 71” as they were instrumental in closing out the Hartford Wolf Pack’s season sweep 3-2 at the XL Center Friday night.

There are of course other numbers to consider as well. For example 338:51 and 480 representing the number of minutes that the Pack (45-19-2-7) have held the lead this season over Worcester (27-32-5-6). The rest of those minutes were played deadlocked as the Sharks did not have a lead for a single second all season long.

Friday night was all about number 27. The 27 in question, Hugh Jessiman celebrated his 24th birthday with a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” (a goal, an assist and a fight) that earned him the First Star of the Game” honors.

Jessiman highlighted a lackluster first period by knocking heads with Worcester tough guy, Brennan Evans. Jessiman took strong exception to Evans hard running check of Pack center Artem Anisimov into the half boards and challenged the Camrose Alberta native to a battle of heavyweights. The 6’6″ 231 pound Jessiman stood toe-to-toe with Worcester’s 6’3″ 220 pound enforcer and won the fight landing the much harder blows. The fight got the 5,082 in attendance loud and excited and it inspired the Pack for the rest of the period.

Shark netminder Thomas Greiss (25 saves) put his team in the hole early. Greiss took a foolish penalty playing the puck outside the legal trapezoid area at 1:26 which brought Hartford’s second ranked power play unit onto the ice to face Worcester’s 27th ranked penalty killing unit. The power play looked completely out of sink with both teams chasing after the puck, but Greg Moore took a feed from Thomas Pock and saw Jessiman all alone on the far side of the high slot. A quick pass and a laser beam of a shot by Jessiman hitting the upper left corner over Greiss’ stick side blocker and the Pack were once again back on top 1-0.

Greiss, who fought the puck most of the night, fumbled a puck that hit him square in the chest off a Corey Potter shot from the right point that was deflected on it’s way in by Jessiman. Dane Byers astutely found the puck in front and slammed it past Greiss. With the assist on the Byers goal, Jessiman completed his “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” just 6:37 into the second period.

Pack goaltender David LeNeveu was having a solid night of his own making big stops on veteran forward Graham Mink to start the second period and on Oren Eizenman in the first. Eizenman, playing in his fifth game for Worcester and sixth overall in the AHL, was stopped after he came in alone on LeNeveu on a defensive zone giveaway by Potter. Evans, who scores about as frequently as sightings of Haley’s Comet, got credit for a goal when his very wide shot hit the end boards and ricocheted back towards the net. The puck hit LeNeveu in the back of the right leg and his own momentum carried the puck into the net. The goal was Evan’s first of this season and first since the last six games of the 2006-07 season.

The Pack would get what would be the game winner with just 22.3 seconds remaining in the second period Moore, who got his second assist of the game, won a draw to Ivan Baranka. The Slovakian D-Man skated to the high slot and fired a shot on goal through traffic. The puck bounced around to Lauri Korpikoski who put the puck on goal from his knees beating Greiss low to the stick side for his 20th goal of the season.

As had occurred in the first minute of the previous two periods a big save came in the first minute of the third. Potter’s bid for a tally was stopped by Greiss off a great feed from Parenteau.

That was about all the action that came until 14:50 when after taking a foolish slashing penalty, Parenteau barked at referee Kyle Rehman more than he was willing to tolerate and slapped the talented forward with an extra unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Lukas Kasper evened things up at 16:28 when he was called for a hooking penalty. The Sharks pulled Greiss with 2:48 remaining in the contest to give themselves a short 5-on-4 advantage and when Kasper emerged from the sin-bin it created a 6-on-4 advantage for 22 seconds. There was a wild scramble and when Jessiman failed to clear the puck when he had the chance and then got back late to his position and couldn’t pick up Center, Tom Cavanagh in the slot. Dan Spang saw Kasper and hit him with a pass that he quickly sent on to Cavanagh who fired high to LeNeveu’s stick side and scored with 41 seconds left.

A wild 41 ticks as both teams scrambled for the puck; a broken time clock finally repaired and it was off to center ice for a well earned stick salute to the fans.

Bruce Berlet’s story centers around Hugh Jessiman in his posting in the Hartford Courant while Bill Ballou in the Telegram & Gazette describes the Worcester struggles and what lies ahead for the Sharks.

For game stats visit the Game Summary or the Official Scorer’s Sheet if you prefer.

There’s a fun little quiz about the Calder Cup on the AHL website at TheAHL.com.

*****NOTES*****
* In case you didn’t get the reference of the “3, 15, 27, 28, 62 and 71” it refers to Corey Potter, Greg Moore, Lauri Korpikoski, David LeNeveu and Thomas Pock

* P.A. Parenteau had his hot points streak end with has 6 goals and 4 assists over the last 6 games and 6-6-12 over his past 8.

* With two assists on the night, Greg Moore now has seven points over his last five games (3-4-7)

* It was a busy week for birthdays in Hartford. On Monday the 24th Andrew Hutchinson turned 28, while Greg Moore is two days older than Hugh Jessiman and also turned 24 but on Wednesday.

* Speaking of birthdays, the month that has the most birthdays in it for this team is May. No less than six players will grow a year older that month. Jordan Owens will turn 22, Ivan Baranka turns 23 on the 19th, David LeNeveu turns 25 on the 23rd while P.A. Parenteau turns 25 and Artem Anisimov turns 20 on the 24th.

* The Pack out shot the Sharks 28-22 for the game and raised their record when out shooting their opponents to 26-15-1-4 and 18-11-2-7 in one-goal contests and here’s the most amazing stat, when leading after two periods, the Pack are 36-0-1-3… not to diminish that stat any, but the team has an astonishingly high 44-0-0-0 record when leading after three periods.

*****LINES*****
Korpikoski – Moore – Parenteau
Byers – Ouellette – Gratton
Pock – Anisimov – M. Taylor

Potter – Hutchinson
Taylor – Sauer
Baranka – Brown

LeNeveu

*****SCRATCHES*****
David Liffiton – Concussion – Season
Francis Lessard – Knee – Season
Alex Bourret – Concussion – Indefinite
Brodie Dupont – Facial Injuries – Indefinite
Jordan Owens – Healthy
Mark Lee – Healthy

*****THREE STARS*****
1. HFD – 27 Hugh Jessiman
2. HFD – 15 Greg Moore
3. HFD – 32 David LeNeveu

*****OFFICIALS*****
Kyle Rehman (37), Referee
Tom George (61), Linesman
Marty Demers (79), Linesman

(“Lost” photo courtesy of ABCTV.com. Hugh Jessiman photo courtesy of Chris Rutsch via hartfordwolfpack.com, birthday cake photo courtesy of onfrozenblog.com)