BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD 

 
VERSUS

After playing in their 15th game of the season Wednesday night, there are two primary indicators of where the 2008 – 2009 edition of the Hartford Wolf Pack are at this point in their development. The team lacks a secondary scoring threat and they are taking too many penalties that are leading to too many power play goals against. Both were on display and both cost them the game at the XL Center as 2,286 watched the Pack waste two leads and drop a 4-2 decision to the first place Portland Pirates.

At this point, someone besides P.A. Parenteau is going to have to step up and start putting the puck in the net on a consistent basis. While Parenteau has been carrying this team offensively on his back right now, there doesn’t appear to be anyone on the roster that is a scoring threat. In last night’s contest, after a period of end-to-end action in the first period that was just about as evenly played as a game can get, Parenteau broke through with a fabulous defection goal past Pirate netminder, Adam Dennis (34 saves).

Brian Fahey, absolutely put everything he had into his shot from the right point at 53 seconds of the second period. Parenteau, cutting across the crease, got just enough of the puck to redirect its flight path giving the Pack their first lead of the contest. Parenteau’s goal was his sixth in the past seven games. He’s also logged six assists over the same span. Parenteau has truly demonstrated how effective a threat the young Hull, Quebec native, can be. Based upon his solid play in training camp as well as his ice performance to this point in the season, the right wing has certainly demonstrated that he’s worth the Rangers giving him an opportunity, when one is available, at the next level.

However, there is no other player on the Pack roster giving any indication that they are enough of a threat for their opponents to key on. Eventually, the opposition is going to shift their defensive schemes around and blanket Parenteau and when they do the Pack will be in big trouble if someone else does not step up.

The drop off in scoring after Parenteau is significant. Parenteau is currently ranked 19th in the AHL in scoring with his 17 points, (9g, 8a). The Pack’s second leading scorer is Artem Anisimov. His 14 points sits him 52nd in the AHL. However, Anisimov is not a goal scoring threat. He has only two goals. With 12 assists, the young Russian center has absolutely demonstrated the ability to make plays in the offensive end. Combined with his solid work in the faceoff circle along with being a hard worker in the defensive zone he will get a call from the Rangers sooner rather than later. However, the fact is that his talents seem to indicate that his future is more as a third or fourth line center at the NHL level.

If anyone is going to step up, it’s going to be the player currently third on the Pack’s scoring list, Greg Moore. Based upon the abilities he showcased last season, Moore is one of the few proven offensive threats the Pack have on their roster. Moore’s contribution of 26 goals and 40 assists made him a constant threat on the ice. It was for that reason he received so many call ups to New York by the Rangers. But this season, with the exception of a few games where he seemed to be getting his touch back, Moore has been nearly invisible offensively. The 6’1” 210 pounder is currently ranked 104th overall in the AHL with four goals and six assists. If they are going to improve on their current fourth place standing, ten points behind first place Portland, then Moore is going to be looked to for more of the heavy lifting of putting pucks in the net than he’s made to this point.

Second lesson learned as the team approaches the quarter-pole, is that this team is just going to have to get more discipline on the ice. This is a young team learning how to play at this level. They are also not exactly blessed with being fleet of foot, so positioning and on-ice intelligence are going to be a must for the team to be successful. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is an excellent Pack coaching staff who will drill this into their defensive corps. Wednesday night however, this simply was not the case. The Pack wound up shorthanded four times which the Pirates used to their full advantage lighting the lamp on three of them.

Their first goal came less than seven minutes after the Pack broke through for the first goal. Portland defenseman, Chris Butler scored after Michael Sauer was unable to clear the puck from his end. Left Wing Mathieu Darche took possession of the puck, swung it around to center Marek Zarapan who fed Butler at the high slot. Butler unloaded a laser beam shot past goaltender Miika Wiikman (25 saves) and knotted the score at 7:71.

But the levy broke soon after that as the Pirates broke through when Jordan Owens and Sauer took penalties 14 seconds apart which led to the games first star, Portland left winger, Tim Kennedy’s 5-on-3 tally from the top of the left circle.

Darche, the games second star, scored just 1:27 later after Pack defenseman Cory Potter put a puck into the stands for a delay of game penalty creating a second consecutive 5-on-3 shorthanded situation. Kennedy saw Darche completely alone in front of Wiikman. Kennedy fed Darche and the veteran left winger finished for his seventh of the season.

“We took five straight penalties in the second, so that was the story,” Wolf Pack coach Ken Gernander told reporters after the game. “I’m not crazy about giving up power-play goals every game, and I’m not crazy about the penalties we take. But it’s not news to us. We continue to address it and work on it.”

Fahey sees a silver lining in the penalty taking cloud. “It’s part of the learning curve that’s coming a little slower than we want it to,” The Pack’s veteran d-man said. “But it’s better to have this happen now so in the second half of the season we can shut teams down.”

For the Pack to make any sort of a run at the playoffs, the penalty killers must improve on their dismal 79.2% success rate. The team currently ranks 26th out of the 29 AHL franchises. The team is also fifth in the league in total penalty minutes taken at 408 and find tied for 11th in shorthanded chances with 96.

Their failure to keep pucks out of the net when shorthanded is compounded by their failure to score when they have their own man-advantage opportunities. The Pack is only converting on a hideous 13.3% of their power play chances placing them 23rd in the league. This problem is magnified by their lack of power play opportunities. Because they are shorthanded so often they tend not to be on the attack as much as the teams they’re facing, but being ranked 24th with just 75 chances after 15 games played is not helping the cause either.

The Pack did manage to convert one of their four power play opportunities Wednesday night. Tommy Pyatt scored the Pack’s second goal from the right circle at 10:43 with a weak backhanded shot that seemed to confuse Dennis and slid between his pads for Pyatt’s second of the season.

Matt Ellis ended the night with a pool cue shot from his own end that scored into the empty Pack net with just 55 ticks left.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

Bruce Berlet has his summary at HartfordWolfPack.com while for the Portland perspective there’s an AP report at Mainetoday.com.

NOTES

* The Pack outshot Portland 32-29 for the game.

*Patrick Rissmiller, on a conditioning stint from the Rangers, played his first home game after tallying three assists in two road games.

* Dennis was especially impressive breaking up a Rissmiller &am
p; Mike Ouellette 2-on-1 shorthanded breakaway in the second period.

* Portland is incredibly hot right now. They entered the game on a 9-0-1-0 run. The Pirates lone hiccup was a 3-2 overtime loss to the Pack at the XL Center on October 29.

* The Pack’s record in the last ten is 6-4-0-0. (6-4-0-0 at home and a bleak 1-3-0-1 on the road)

* Wiikman is third in the AHL in minutes played at 793 and fourth in saves with 358

* Interesting observation worth mentioning Rangers beat writer, Sam Weinman in his Rangers Report blog for the Journal news:

“Meanwhile, either the decision is out of Tom Renney’s hands or he hasn’t given it much thought, but when I asked the coach about calling up a player from Hartford so that he could occasionally sit down a struggling defenseman — pick one of several — the coach said he didn’t have the latitude right now to do so.”

The question comes in that is the latitude for cap reasons, or more likely the case is that none of the defense is playing well enough to warrant the call up from the parent club. Most likely it’s a combination of the two.

LINES

Dupont – Anisimov – Ford
RISSMILLER – MOORE – Parenteau
Owens – Ouellette – DiDiomete
Soryal – Pyatt – Weise

FAHEY – Denisov
Potter – Sauer
Sanguinetti – Graham

Wiikman

(Assistant Captains in BOLD CAPS)

SCRATCHES

Sugden – Healthy
Urquhart – Healthy
Byers – Knee (season)

THREE STARS

1. POR – 10 Tim Kennedy
2. POR – 21 Mathieu Darche
3. HFD – 5 Brian Fahey

ON-ICE OFFICIALS

Terry Koharski (10), Referee
Rich Patry (52), Linesman
Kevin Redding (16), Linesman

NEXT GAME

Home Friday night November 21st versus the Lowell Devils at 7pm