THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY 

VERSUS

Mistakes proved costly against the best team in the AHL as the Hartford Wolf Pack dropped a 4-2 decision to the Hershey Bears in front of 8,704 at the Giant Center Saturday night. With the win, the Bears tied a franchise record winning their tenth straight.

The special teams have been an issue all season long. Much like the parent club, at times the team has been careless with the puck in man-advantage situations. In those cases, as it was Saturday night, it came back to bite them in the rear-end.

Early in the third period with Andrew Joudrey in the penalty box for Hershey on a high sticking call and the Pack trailing 2-1, a badly telegraphed pass from Michael Sauer on the left point was picked off by Andrew Gordon. The Hershey right wing found the stick of teammate Kyle Wilson who broke out with fellow penalty killer Patrick McNeill, two-on-one against Bobby Sanguinetti. The Wolf Pack rookie D-man supported his team with text book coverage as Wilson came down the left wing. A perfectly threaded pass from Wilson, just past the stick of Sanguinetti, found the open McNeill. The Bears defenseman nailed a hard shot from the right wing circle beating Pack netminder Matt Zaba (30 saves). McNeill's goal, his first of the season, would prove to be the game-winner. The shorthanded goal is the fourth the Pack have surrendered this season putting them unfortunately, among the top ten teams in this category.

The back breaker came later in the third period after the Pack once again fought hard to get back into the contest. Just 1:42 after the McNeill goal, Jordan Owens, who was simply incredible in the third period, took the puck away from Josh Godfrey on the forecheck. Owens took the puck in the left corner and headed to the right side behind the net with Godfrey following. Owes had the presence of mind to see the situation and his linemate, Tommy Pyatt also in deep on the forecheck. Owens then made a phenomenal backhanded pass behind him which found Pyatt completely by himself on the left doorstep. Pyatt tucked the puck in the net past a helpless Simeon Varlamov (26 saves) who had no chance. It was a 3-2 game.

The Pack came hard and were buzzing for more until another telegraphed pass, this time from Ethan Graham, was picked off in stride by ex-Pack forward Alexandre Giroux. The intended recipient, Brodie Dupont took off in vain to catch Giroux, but the leagues second leading scorer was too far ahead of Dupont and made a deke on Zaba and beat him with a laser beam shot high to the stick side.

The scoring started at 5:41 of the first when Maxime Lecroix, just up from the ECHL, through a puck from a sharp angle in the right corner on net and hit the skate of either Pack defenseman Brian Fahey defending the right side or Pyatt who was dealing with the charging the net Gordon.

At 13:25 of the first period Greg Amadio through a brutal and deliberate elbow to the head of Fahey as he was rushing the puck up ice along the boards. Fahey stayed down for quite a while and eventually had to be helped from the ice. For some reason referee Terry Koharski just called a major penalty without a game misconduct. This play will certainly be reviewed by the league office. Based upon the replay, the hit should warrant a suspension from the AHL.

Fahey, is a veteran defenseman that was brought in to Hartford this season to replace the departed Andrew Hutchinson. He had a strong training camp and almost made the Rangers squad before being sent back to Hartford. The native of Glenview, Illinois appeared wobbly and will most certainly be checked out for a possible concussion. This injury poses an extra concern for the 27 year old Fahey, as 6'1" 213 pounder has a history of concussions. If Fahey indeed does have a concussion, this will pose a major threat to the already thin Pack defensive corps.

In the second period the Bears struck again. A beautiful breakout pass by rookie Oskar Osala set up yet another off-man rush up ice. This one sent rookies Mathieu Perreault and linemate François Bouchard up ice against fellow rookie David Urquhart. The Pack's rookie D-man held strong, but was not in position to stop a terrific cross ice pass from Perreault to Bouchard who stuffed the puck in the net before Zaba had the chance to come across to defend it. It was 2-0.

The Pack fought back. Artem Anisimov, made a great toe-drag move along the far boards to extricate a puck from a pile of players to free the puck and start an odd man rush of their own up ice. Anisimov fed Dupont along the left wing and headed for the net. Dupont fed P.A. Parenteau who put a shot on net from the left side. The puck rebounded right to Anisimov who was alone on the right doorstep. Anisimov got his 11th goal and gave the Wolf Pack their first individual four-game goal scoring streak of the season.

Zaba was brilliant throughout the contest as he stopped multiple breakaways and odd man rushes.

The Pack were outshot 34-28 for the game and while the score would indicate a fairly close game, and for the most part it was, the Bears were clearly the better team and at times appeared to be skating in a different gear than the Pack.

For the stats fiends out there we give you the GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET.

For coverage from the Land of Milk Chocolate, the only story we could find was on the Bears own website at Hersheypa.com and a slight blurb at pennlive.com. Meanwhile, back in the insurance capitol of the world, Bob Crawford has the Pack story at Hartfordwolfpack.com.

NOTES:

* Even though he was not selected among the Three Stars of the Game, we felt that Zaba, despite giving up four, should have been third star. If he was not as sharp as he showed he was during the course of this game, the score could easily have been close to 10-2 given especially the intensity of the pressure and quality scoring chances Hershey had.

* Given his history with concussions, including missing time this season with the same issue, the blow to Fahey's head and his subsequent missing the rest of the game, is a MAJOR concern for the Wolf Pack who are going to be without Corey Potter for a while since he is in NY covering for the injured Wade Redden. Redden, according to Larry Brooks in the NY Post, appears to have a groin injury of some sort. If that's true those things can be very tricky and Potter may be staying in NY for a while. The Pack were thin defensively before Fahey got hurt and Potter's call-up. This could pose a humongous problem for a team already struggling on the blueline.

* With 30% of the season completed, Artem Anisimov has been the team's MVP. P.A. Parenteau is a close second. Artem started off the season slowly posting just three assists in his first six games. Since then, Artem has been quite impressive posting 11 goals and 9 assists for 20 points in 18 games and has a plus-1 rating. Parenteau has been good as well. In his first six games had just two goals including his first four games where he didn't have a point. Since then, Parenteau has potted 9 goals and 13 assists for 22 points in the same 18 games. Parenteau has had a minus-1 through 24 games. The difference is that Anisimov has played exceptionally strong defensively and taken nearly half as many penalty minutes, 23 to 51 as Parenteau has and his leve
l of combat has been much more consistent.

* The night's attendance of 8,704 will pull the Bears nightly attendance, first in the AHL over 100,000 in just 12 games. The Bears actually have drawn 101,974 in 12 home games for an average of 8498 per game. Conversely, the Pack have drawn 46,663 over the same number of games for an average of 3,889. If anyone was having any thoughts of even the remotest possibility that an NHL team would consider Hartford as a location for their franchise should consider a trip back to reality. We are NOT knocking the sales team or anyone in the back office. We know them all to be EXTREMELY hard working and all are doing the best possible job they can. The point is that Hartford is just not a strong hockey market. As Linda Richmond might say, "Discuss…"

* This Hershey team is solid all over the ice. They have speed, scoring, defensive ability, depth in the net, a good power play and a good mix of veterans and young players. Even without their recent ten game winning streak, they would have to be the consensus choice to be the favorite to win the Calder Cup.

* Former Pack forward Alex Giroux, is a certain candidate for league MVP. He's second in the league in scoring (30 points), first in gals scored (18), and first in shots attempted by a country mile with 121 and has three game winners for the Bears.

* By shutting down the seventh ranked power play on seven occasions in the contest, the Wolf Pack improved their penalty kill efficiency rating to 80.5% but still mired at 24th in the league. They managed to shut down Hershey on two five-on-three occasions. One for 1:32 and the other 56 seconds. Conversely, the power play, which was so strong against Philadelphia going 3/4 on the night looked terrible Saturday blanking on four opportunities including a 1:35 two-man advantage where they never threatened and then took a Too Many Men call wiping out the advantage.

* The Pack's longest-ever
winning streak is nine games, the first nine of the 2004-05 season (October
16th through November 7th).

* The most underrated player on the Pack is by far Jordan Owens. He is the teams best forechecker, is aggressive defensively, part of the team's best penalty killing tandem, with Mike Ouellette, and has demonstrated a nose for the goal. He is HOWLINGS' Player to Watch going forward the rest of the way.

* The Charlotte Checkers have lost their previous five games against the South Carolina Stingrays, but finally put a "W" in the books squeaking out a 3-2 victory over their southern neighbors on the road. David Rutherford provided the Checkers with the game winner off a feed from Mike Bayrack.

LINES:

RISSMILLER – MOORE – Stefanishion

Dupont – Anisimov – Parenteau

Owens – Pyatt – Soryal

DiDiomete – Ouellette – Weise

FAHEY – Denisov

Sanguinetti – Graham

Sauer – Urquhart

Zaba

SCRATCHES:

Sugden – Healthy

Byers – Knee – (Season)

THREE STARS:

1. HER – 10 Andrew Gordon
2. HER – 2 Patrick McNeill
3. HER – 28 Sasha Pokulok

ON-ICE OFFICIALS:

Terry Koharski (10), Referee
Tom George (61), Linesman
Rob Fay (59), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

7pm Wednesday night at the XL Center. The Pack take on the second place Providence Bruins who they lost to in OT on Sunday November 30th, 4-3.