GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Friday night’s 4-3 shootout loss in front of 9,535 to Providence at the Dunkin Donuts Center was a microcosm of all that has been good and bad about the Hartford Wolf Pack season.

This was a good news, bad news game if there ever was one. The fact that the Pack fought back to tie the game from three deficits, including giving up a goal just eight seconds into the game, was clearly a positive. The fact that the Pack controlled the better part of the game on the road against the team that has been the best in the AHL all season long was another. But the teams inability to do well in the “skills competition” that is the shootout, cost the team a vital point. The Pack are just 3-8 in shootouts this season. Nobody will be happier to see the shootout leave the game as it does in the playoffs more than the Pack. In the four games that the Pack (46-19-2-8) have played in that were decided in the extra period, the Pack are 2-2.

Nate Thompson, who killed the Pack in the face-off circle all night long, won the opening battle for the puck back to defensemen Matt Hunwick. Hunwick flipped the puck to his defensive partner Sean Curry. Curry saw Thompson break hard for the net. Curry then hit him with a tape-to-tape pass leaving the stunned defensive pairing of Andrew Hutchinson and Corey Potter wonder what that streak of yellow and black was that went past them. Thompson came in fast on David LeNeveu on the right side of the slot and beat the native of Fernie, British Columbia high to the glove side at just 8 seconds. Thompson’s goal was the fastest goal scored against the Pack to start any period in the team’s history. It easily eclipsed the previous mark of 12 seconds that happened twice over the last 11 years of the Pack’s history. Finnish Center Antti Aalto did it first on 2/4/01 as the Pack were on the road game facing the then Cincinnati Mighty Ducks in the first period and then Marc Brown tagged the Pack at the XL Center to start the third period for the then Worcester Ice Cats on 11/12/03.

Digging themselves an early hole has been a problem for the Pack over the past three games. On Sunday they surrendered two quick goals in the first minute of the game to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before fighting their way back to win 4-3 in a shootout and they gave up a goal just 54 seconds in the previous game to Springfield before going on to rout the Falcons 10-1.

The Pack took control of the contest and dictated play into the second period when they got on the board. Dwayne Zinger took a cross checking penalty at 4:43 sending the Pack’s second ranked power play unit onto the ice for what would turn out to be fourth and last opportunity of the game. As they did on the first three man-advantages, they came up empty, but they had momentum and control of the puck in the offensive zone. Hutchinson found Dane Byers aloe along the low left boards and fed him the puck just as the penalty was ending. Byers knew what “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky once said, “100 percent of the shots you don’t take, don’t go in” and he fired it from the low bad angle on netminder Jordan Sigalet. Artem Anisimov was screening Sigalet (35 saves) and he deflected the puck in past the Bruin goaltender knotting the score.

The game stayed tied with the two teams going at each other in what absolutely was played like a play-off game. Hard hitting, puck control and careful ply protecting their respective nets.

In the third period the game opened up. At 2:05, right-wing Byron Bitz capitalized on a rebound and beat LeNeveu (25 saves) regaining the lead at 2-1 for the home team.

The Pack got even when Hutchinson out hustled the defense on a Potter dump in attempt, gained control of the puck and swung around the net and banked one in off of Sigalet’s leg at 4:55.

But the Bruins (51-16-3-4) kept pressing and at 12:38 Matt Lashoff simply undressed rookie defenseman Michael Sauer on a great inside-out move that spun the St. Cloud, Minnesota native around leaving him one-on-one with LeNeveu. Lashoff fired a backhanded shot that rang off the far post and went in past LeNeveu for the 3-2 lead. The Bruins could taste victory and the building erupted.

Someone forgot to tell the line of Mike Ouellette, Hugh Jessiman and Byers that the game was over. On the ensuing shift, Byers and Jessiman battled behind the Providence net and got control of the puck. Byers found Ouellette alone in the slot and fed him the puck. The Dartmouth graduate rifled a laser of a shot that Sigalet could not possibly of caught up up to as the puck flew into the upper corner of the net and just 21 seconds later the game was tied at three.

The overtime period was all Wolf Pack as they put four shots on Sigalet but could not break through. In one sequence with almost two minutes left in the extra frame, Ouellette was knocked down from behind right in front of referee Chris Cozzan who let the play go in what clearly should have been a penalty call which would have given the Pack a fifth power play opportunity.

So off to the shootout. Providence elected to go first and LeNeveu stopped Matt Hendricks with a skate save and then Sigalet stopped Lauri Korpikoski’s shot with his stick. Jeff Hoggan beat LeNeveu high past his glove hand and then Greg Moore scored on a nifty fake scoring on a forehand shot. Zach Hamill, playing in his first career AHL game then scored what proved to be the game winner beating LeNeveu through the five-hole.

Jordan Owens, P.A. Parenteau and Byers all were stopped cold on their attempts.

With Providence’s shoot out win, their magic number to capture the division is reduced to five points with six games left to play.

For stats on the game here is the Game Summary and the Official Scorer’s Sheet.

Bruce Berlet takes you into the locker room with his game vision in the Hartford Courant. If you can call it a story, the Providence Journal, which doesn’t even bother to send a reporter to cover it’s own hometown team, has this lame excuse for coverage at Projo.com.

The AHL covers the Pack and the rest of the Eastern Conference in their Notebook.

*****NOTES*****
* The Wolf Pack have the most losses in the AHL in shootouts with eight. Miika Wiikman has a record of 2-3. Before going to Charlotte for the season, Chris Holt was 1-0 while Al Montoya was 0-3. (since the trade, he’s 1-0 in the only shootout he’s taken part in) while David LeNeveu is 0-2 for the Pack. LeNeveu posted a 2-3 record with his previous team, San Antonio, which makes him 2-5 on the season.

* Prior to the win in the shootout in Bridgeport on March 30, the Pack had lost six straight dating back to one of their three wins on October 26th, the seventh game of the season, against Springfield when they beat Jeff Deslauiers for a 2-1 final score.

* With his goal and assist in Friday’s game, Hutchinson now has 66 points (18g, 48A) in 62 games. Hutchinson is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

* Greg Moore had a 7 games points streak broken. He had 5g and 6 assists for 11 points over the span.

* In the plus/minus race, the top 5 consists of solely 3 Wolf Pack (Potter #2 at plus-31, Hutchinson #3 at plus-29 and Greg Moore at plus-26 and two Providence bruins. Jeff Hoggan leads the mall at plus-39 good for plus-one and Sean Curry at plus-28.

* Alex Bourret was scheduled to play in this game after missing the last 11 with a concussion but some sort of stomach virus kept him out of the contest and left Mike Taylor in the game.

* With the Pack now having clinched the second seed and the likelihood of catching Providence extremely remote, it will be interesting to see who Head Coach Ken Gernander plays in the five remaining contests. With Brodie Dupont chomping at the bit to get back in the action, Bourret apparently close to ready, Tomas Zaborsky ready to start his AHL career, Mike Taylor playing well and Tommy Pyatt tearing up the ECHL in Charlotte, plus the possibility of forward Ryan Hillier coming when his team is out of the junior playoffs and Bobby Sanguinetti getting playing time, who rests and who plays will be some tough decisions to make.

*****LINES*****
Parenteau – Moore – Korpikoski
Byers – Anisimov – Owens
Fritz – Ouellette – Jessiman
M. Taylor – Gratton

Hutchinson – Potter
Sanguinetti – J. Taylor
Pock – Sauer

LeNeveu

*****SCRATCHES*****
Alex Bourret – Stomach Virus – Day-to-Day
Brodie Dupont – Mild Concussion – Day-to-Day
Tomas Zaborsky – Healthy
Brad Brown – Healhty
Ivan Baranaka – Undisclosed – Indefinite
David Liffiton – Concussion – Season
Francis Lessard – Knee – Season

*****THREE STARS*****
1. PRO – 7 Zach Hamill
2. HFD – 5 Andrew Hutchinson
3. PRO – 21 Matt Lashoff

*****OFFICIALS*****
Chris Cozzan (68), Referee
Scott Cherrey (50), Linesman
Todd Whittemore (19), Linesman

(Andrew Hutchinson photo courtesy of Rich Zacher via hartfordwolfpack.com)