60 MINUTES 

 Tonight on Sixty Minutes…

“Instead of trying to make too many passes and high risk plays, a lot of times you’re served with a little bit of grease and simple plays.”

“We’ve addressed (it) as a team,that we have to play a full 60 minutes.”

I'm Katie Couric. I'm Steve Kroft. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Morley Safer. I'm Bob Simon. I'm Lesley Stahl. I'm Harry Smith. I'm Mitch Beck. That story and Andy Rooney tonight on "60 Minutes."

 VERSUS 

The Hartford Wolf Pack are a team that has known success in their 11+ year history. They've been to the mountain top winning the championship in 1999-2000. This the 2008-2009 season has been at it's best, a challenge. They're a much younger and inexperienced team, who've struggled to find their own identity and compete against some of the better teams in the American Hockey League. Often they've been competitive for long periods of time but ultimately falling short as errors, lack of discipline and a variety of other errors have interfered with their ability to sustain the level of excellence needed to win for a full 60 minutes.

Saturday night, following a hard home loss in a shootout to an inferior Lowell Devils team, the Pack took to the road to face the top team in their division, the Portland Pirates, a team that had only suffered one loss in regulation through 16 games this season. With the Wolf Pack's number one goaltender, Miika Wiikman sidelined with an injury, the burden fell to Matt Zaba (27 saves), a confident young netminder still trying to find his place at the AHL level.

With 5,028 fans filling the Cumberland County Civic Center Arena in Portland, Maine, the young Pack took to the ice. It didn't take long before the visitors from Connecticut's capitol city fell behind. At 3:36 Pirate enforcer Jimmy Bonneau raced along right wing into the Pack defensive zone after getting a pass from defenseman Mike Kostka. Bonneau stepped into the puck and launched a hard low shot that Zaba got in front of with his pads. However the resulting rebound careened right up the slot where Pirate center Felix Schutz was waiting and he rifled the puck right past Zaba. Just like that the Pack trailed 1-0.

However, something was different on this night. Instead of getting down on themselves, this Pack team actually lifted their game.

"They did score the first goal, but with stuck with the plan," Pack leading scorer P.A. Parenteau told reporters afterwards. “We’ve addressed (it) as a team,that we have to play a full 60 minutes.”

Second year Head Coach Ken Gernander, “We didn’t change design after the first goal, we just stuck to the game plan."

One of the primary problems for this year's addition of the Wolf Pack is taking too many penalties, and with a penalty killing unit that entered the game 23rd in the AHL in efficiency rate, this has, more often than not, spelled trouble. It looked like this could be the start of the young Pack unraveling as they took two consecutive penalties, one to Tommy Pyatt for hooking, and then a bad call to Vladimir Denisov by referee, Chris Brown, for interference. Instead of wilting however, this night the team rose to the occasion and didn't give Portland's 8th rated power play anything that approached a solid opportunity to score.

A huge stop shortly after the two kills ended by Zaba injected energy into the team and they pressed the attack. Portland defenseman Marc Andre Gragnani wilted under the offensive onslaught by the Pack's next shift and took a holding call at 12:33 sending the Pack's struggling 23rd ranked power play unit onto the ice.

It wouldn't be a struggle much longer.

At 13:18 Pack defenseman Michael Sauer, just back after a long recovery process from a torn ACL suffered in the playoffs last season, took a feed from his defensive partner Cory Potter in the right face-off circle and unloaded a bomb of a shot that found its way through traffic and into the net behind goaltender Adam Dennis (22 saves). The Pack would never look back.

With the second assist on the Sauer goal, Parenteau now has points in eight of the last nine games.

2:14 later, rookie Devin DiDiomete would get onto the score sheet. Assistant Captain Brian Fahey blasted a shot from the right point out near the blue line. DiDiomete, not afraid to go into the rough spots on the ice, was in position to deflect the shot past Dennis for his first professional goal and first point as a professional. DiDiomete told reporters afterward, “I’m young and I need to be patient. (But) it’s nice to get the first one under my belt. Hopefully I can get a few more.” Fahey and Patrick Rissmiller, who has been very effective on his conditioning stint with six assists in the five games he's played in since being sent to Hartford by the parent New York Rangers.

“Brian had a great shot from the point,” The rookie forward told the press in the locker room. “Coach (Gernander) has been telling me to go to the net. Luckily enough for me I got a stick on it this time and it went it.”

Portland entered the second period pressing the young visitors and hit a post on an early shot. At 5:58 they drew a penalty on Brodie Dupont. It was their fourth power play opportunity. Trouble loomed on the horizon…for Portland.

Denisov took a Fahey pass in the neutral zone and rushed the puck up ice. Artem Anisimov, who has been on fire of late, followed his Russian countryman into the offensive zone shorthanded. Denisov saw Anisimov separate from the defender and put the puck in front of the net. Anisimov reached out and deflected it past the glove of Denis. It was the first shorthanded goal of the season for the Wolf Pack and good for a 3-1 lead.

Zaba continued to play brilliantly and erased a number of Pack errors. None shone more brightly then his stop of 7:45 of the second period on Shutz's breakaway that was snuffed by Zaba.

Justin Soryal got onto the scorer's sheet himself with his third of the season when his shot from the right circle at 17:09 found the back of the net. The goal was a direct result of phenomenal fore-checking by the Pack forwards; none more so than Rissmiller who stole the puck and fed Soryal in the right circle for the goal.

The score was 4-1 as the two teams headed for the locker room at the end of two periods. The only question remained was whether the Pack would continue to play as they had to that point or would they revert to the play that had gotten them in such trouble in the past, by letting up in the third period.

The first place Pirates led by former NHL great, Kevin Dineen, were not going to mail the third period in. Dineen's teams just don't do that. They pressed the young Pack early and a tremendous save by Zaba on Derek Whitmore established that this Wolf PAck team, on this night anyway, was not going to go away quietly.

The Wolf Pack got only their second man-advantage opportunity of the game at 8:01 when Marek Zagrapan took a holding call. The Pack made him pay for the indiscretion.

Just 1:02 into their power play, Potter made an outrageous fake along the left half boards leaving Shutz lying on the ice watching as the Michigan native skated to the slot and fired a laser beam that the screened Dennis could do no more than wave at as it past his glove. Greg Moore, who played a solid game especially in the face-off circle, and Parenteau got the assists. It was 5-1 and the Pack had scored on their first two power plays, a feat they had not accomplished all season.

The Pirates kept on coming though.

The penalty killers erased a Anisimov holding call, the sixth Portland man-advantage, without incident. The Pirates would still get their chances.

Zaba came up strong again just after the penalty to Anisimov expired. Potter was stripped by Zagrapan in the neutral zone. The Slovakian center came in alone on the Pack net guardian, who made a sprawling save to stop the puck. It wouldn't be enough though as just moments later a "funky" goal was scored off his back from behind the net off the stick of defenseman Michael Funk at 12:29 bringing the home team a little closer at 5-2.

Any thoughts of a comeback were eliminated when Matt Ford, who has been playing very hard after being recalled from Charlotte last month, got his first goal and professional point on a rebound of a Jordan Owens shot off a Pyatt feed at 17:32.

Gernander was pleased with the effort of his young team. “A lot of times less is more. Instead of trying to make too many passes and high risk plays, a lot of times you’re served with a little bit of grease and simple plays.

(TICK…TICK…TICK…TICK…TICK)

For more on the story, there is the GAME SUMMARY and the SCORERS SHEET.

There is also Dan Hickling's perspective at HartfordWolfPack.com and the Portland point of view from Paul Betit at the Press Herald. Betit gives no credit to the Wolf Pack for their outstanding effort instead seeing the loss purely as Portland's own fault.

NOTES

* The six goal output was the most by the Pack this season. In fact the Pack have not scored that many goals since a ten goal output on March 29th against Springfield at the XL Center last season.

* Parenteau played for Portland from 2005-2006 to 2006 -2007 prior to joining the Hartford Wolf Pack as a free agent.

* Greg Moore is a native of Lisbon, Maine and played his college hockey at the University of Maine.

* Maxime Daigneault was recalled from Charlotte to back up Zaba and he too played for Portland when the Pirates were the Washington Capitals affiliate in 2004-2005.

* There was a fight in the game, if you can call it that, between Jimmy Bonneau and Hartford's Brandon Sugden. It was dull and much more of a wrestling match. Bonneau did get the decision with the takedown.

* Portland's top offensive threat, Mark Mancari, who was called up by the parent Buffalo Sabres did not play. Mancari entered the game with 13 points (7g, 6a) in his last six games.

* Portland center Nathan Gerbe continued his own hot streak with an assist giving him 13 points (5g, 8a) over the last 8 games.

* The Pack are now 7-0-0-0 when leading after two periods

LINES

Owens – Rissmiller – Parenteau

Soryal – MOORE – Ford

Dupont – Anisimov – Weise

DiDiomete – Pyatt – Sugden

POTTER – Sanguinetti

FAHEY – Denisov

Urquhart – Sauer

Zaba

SCRATCHES

Wiikman – Injury undisclosed – Day-to-Day

Byers – Knee – Season

Graham – Healthy

Ouellette – Healthy

THREE STARS

1. HFD – 30 Matt Zaba
2. HFD – 5 Brian Fahey
3. HFD – 18 Patrick Rissmiller

ON-ICE OFFICIALS

Chris Brown (86), Referee
Landon Bathe (80), Linesman
Jeremy Lovett (78), Linesman

NEXT GAME

Sunday afternoon at 4pm versus the Providence Bruins (Boston Bruins AHL Affiliate) in Providence

(Parenteau and Gernander photos courtesy of HartfordWolfPack.com and Sixty Minutes photos courtesy of CBS.com)