Howlings was unable to attend tonight’s exhibition game where the Wolf Pack were supposed to be challenged by the Bridgeport Sound Tigers…unfortunatley the Sound Tigers forgot to challenge them.
The voice of the Hartford Wolf Pack, Bob Crawford, was there and filed this report:
Artem Anisimov struck for a hat trick, and Martin Houle made 24 saves for a shutout in his first Hartford Wolf Pack appearance, as the Wolf Pack downed the Bridgeport Sound Tigers by a score of 7-0 Friday in American Hockey League preseason action at the Northford Ice Pavilion.
Mike Taylor added a goal and a pair of assists for Hartford, and Bobby Sanguinetti contributed three assists. Dale Weise and Tom Pyatt had a goal and an assist each, and P.A. Parenteau and defensemen Ethan Graham and Jared Nightingale each chipped in a pair of helpouts. Justin Soryal also scored for the Wolf Pack.
Pyatt opened the scoring at 5:50 of the first period, when Bridgeport starting goaltender A.J. Bucchino sprawled to stop Pyatt’s shot and had the puck trickle into the net off of his pad. The tally was Pyatt’s second in two preseason games, and Nightingale and Taylor assisted.
Pyatt then set Taylor up with an open net for a 2-0 Hartford lead at 11:50, with a pass to the right side of the goalmouth. Weise also picked up an assist on the play. The Wolf Pack made it a 3-0 advantage in a four-on-four situation at 13:01, as Artem Anisimov beat Bucchino over the catching glove, one-timing a pass from 2007-08 Wolf Pack point-scoring leader Parenteau. Defenseman Tysen Dowzak was credited with the other assist.
The Hartford power play notched its first goal in 12 preseason attempts just 44 seconds into the second period, Anisimov netting his second of the game by deflecting in a Sanguinetti pass. Graham got credit for the second assist, and the same threesome hooked up at the 15:16 mark, with Anisimov getting his hat trick goal when his feed out of the right-wing corner hit a Sound Tiger defender in front of the goal and deflected past Bucchino.
Weise then made it 6-0 for the Wolf Pack at 2:41 of the third frame, off of a Taylor set-up. Soryal completed the scoring with Hartford’s second power-play marker of the game at 11:18, on a rebound of a shot by Nightingale.
The Wolf Pack were 2/8 on the man-advantage for the game and successfully killed eight Bridgeport power plays, making the Hartford penalty-kill a perfect 17 for 17 in the two preseason games thus far.
In the Bridgeport net, Bucchino allowed five goals on 20 shots in the first two periods. Michael Mole took over for the third period and surrendered two goals on 12 shots.
The Wolf Pack are now 2-0 on the preseason, while Bridgeport fell to 0-2.
