VERSUS
57:43 is not 60:00 minutes.
The Wolf Pack clutched defeat from the jaws of victory by blowing a three-goal lead in 2:27 Saturday night and going on to drop a heartbreaking 4-3 shootout decision to the visiting Springfield Falcons at the XL Center.
4,409 as well as the players on the ice and most certainly the coaching staff had their jaws agape as the Pack were cruising on their way to only their second three game winning streak of the season. But a laissez-faire defensive attitude from players who should know better, combined with a lack of sniper-like scorers finally did in the locals.
The shootout winner came off the stick of Carl Corazzini on a backhander. It was the only shot in the shootout that beat the Pack's Miika Wiikman. Meanwhile across the ice, the Falcons Devan Dubnyk stood tall against all five Wolf Pack shooters.
After out-working, out-hitting, out-hustling their I-91 rivals to the North for the better part of 2 1/2 periods on their way to building up a 3-0 lead on goals by Jordan Owens, Tommy Pyatt and Devin DiDiomete, the team decided to take the second half of the third period off, a blunder that explains why this team is still struggling to remain over .500.
At 9:50, the group of defensemen Corey Potter, who is fighting for a spot on the Rangers roster, Bobby Sanguinetti, who has been very solid of late on both sides of the puck, DiDiomete, Matt Stefanishion, who is on a PTO for goodness sakes, and Greg Moore, who just the night before was instrumental in the Pack's 4-1 win against Worcester, all appeared completely disinterested in moving the puck out of the defensive zone and turned the puck over to the Falcons deep in their own end. Left Wing Derek Bekar put the puck in front of Wiikman (25 saves) and nobody picked up Tyler Spurgeon and the 5' 11" center poked it in. For some odd reason you could see the dejection on the faces of the Pack players as they made their way back to the bench.
However, instead of rising to the occasion and coming out with a strong next shift, the next group up, led by NHL veteran Patrick Rissmiller, aspiring NHL'er P.A. Parenteau, second year players Brodie Dupont and Michael Sauer and rookie David Urquhart, did little more than act as traffic cones as they allowed Guillaume Lefebvre, Ryan Potulny and finally Bryan Lerg to execute a textbook give-and-go passing play before Lerg's shot beat Wiikman just 11 seconds after Spurgeon's tally. You could feel the momentum and the game slipping away from the home team and it was only a matter of moments later before it did.
Wolf Pack head coach Ken Gernander was none to pleased with the play of his troops. “(The second goal) was particularly frustrating,” He said after the game. “We try to stress the importance of a shift after a goal. You hope you can win the draw or at the very least contain things and keep them to the outside. But we let them go right up the gut of the ice and build on their momentum.”
Things didn't get any better as the momentum had totally swung to the visitors. Just 2:16 seconds later, Visacheslav Trukhno, chasing a puck behind the Pack net, made a great move freeing himself with the puck and kept the play alive in the offensive zone. When Lerg wound up with the puck on his stick, he found Potulny with a blind back pass who somehow managed to flip into the air and watch as it seemed to hang there for an eternity before finally dribbling in over Wiikman's shoulder. Just like that, 49:10 of good, solid hard work was gone.
“We lost coverages down low,” Gernander told reporters. “Until that point, we continued to attack, attack, attack, and then for whatever reason, we let them come at us. Then you start playing in the defensive zone, and there’s less time to recover if you make a mistake.”
Alternate Captain Moore had no explanation either. “I have no idea what just happened,” he said after the game. “We have to do a better job after goals playing with the same intensity.”
Unlike their NHL counterparts who seem to relish in the skills competition to determine the outcomes of games, the Wolf Pack are just not built that way. The Pack entered the game with an unremarkable 1-2 record in the AHL equivalent of the skills competition. Dubnyk, (24 saves) the AHL's leading goaltender in minutes, saves and for that matter losses, outlasted Wiikman, who stopped three of the four Falcon shooters he faced. Wiikman got Potulny with a flash of the glove. Trukhno beat the Pack netminder, but the Swede was helped by a friendly post, and Lerg lost the puck off his stick. Corazzini's nifty backhander decided the outcome. Meanwhile, Dubnyk stood tall against the Pack attackers. Dubnyk made a nice pad save on Moore then followed with a kick save on Pyatt, got a pad on Sanguinetti's bid, used the stick to turn away Artem Anisimov and finally stopped Dupont with another pad save to clinch the game for the Falcons.
The Pack came out of the gates flying putting tremendous forechecking pressure on the Falcons' defensemen. At 16:45 of the first, Pyatt's sharp angle shot deflected past Dubnyk off of Owens. 1:12 later it was the Ouellette, Pyatt and Owens line again who hit pay dirt. Pyatt followed up on a rebound of a Jared Nightingale shot and buried it into the net. Dubnyk was helpless to get across in time.
Owens, who was magnificent throughout the contest got his second assist after some outstanding pressure on the forecheck. Owens took the puck away from defenseman Sebastien Bisaillon behind the Falcon net. He drove to the front and saw DiDiomete streaking down the middle. Wens put a perfect pass right in the lane and DiDiomete crushed it as Dubnyk could do little more than wave as the puck blew past his glove into the twine.
Gernander summed it up perfectly telling reporters that, “It’s a long season, and while we played a couple of good games, it doesn’t mean that everybody has all the lessons learned,” Gernander said. “If we’re ever going to be rid of mistakes, we have to continue to work and teach, and if you make mistakes, you have to learn from them and move on.”
That lesson had best be learned by 4pm Sunday when the Pack travel to Worcester to take on the Sharks who will be out to avenge their 4-1 loss to the Pack Friday night.
Bruce Berlet has his expert summary at HartfordWolfPack.com while for the Springfield perspective there is always Garry Brown's thoughts at Masslive.com.
GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET
NOTES:
* Gernander must have been particularly upset with Rissmiller as the NHL veteran was benched for much of the the second half of the third period. Rissmiller did not see ice time in overtime or in the shootout.
* This was quite a chippy, physical game. Nightingale dropped the gloves with Ryan O'Mara and pummeled him into the ice. Later Michael Sauer squared off with veteran Mathieu Roy and won a decision.
* Once again the Pack took a lot of penalties, but this time the penalty killers stood tall with a perfect 6-0 shorthanded. They are up to 82.1% good for 20th overall. Conversely the power play unit was unable to take advantage of any of their 4 opportunities dropping to 18.1% with the man advantage. If they are going to have ANY chance of so much as making the playoffs, let alone doing anything in them, these numbers MUST change or their consecutive playoff appearance streak will most certainly end.
* The Pack's record when leading after tw
o periods falls now to 9-1-0-1 and 6-3-0-1 when leading after the first, 6-6-0-2 when outshooting their opponents and 6-3-1-3 in one-goal games.
* Parenteau is now without a goal in five games…his longest drought of the season. Dale Weise is without a point in nine games, Justin Soryal as well. With his goal, DiDiomete and Owens both broke six game scoreless streaks. Anisimov, after scoring in four straight has been kept out of the net for three straight.
LINES:
DiDiomete – MOORE – Stefanishion
Dupont – RISSMILLER – PARENTEAU
Soryal – Anisimov – Weise
Pyatt – Ouellette – Owens
Denisov – Nightingale
Potter – Sanguinetti
Sauer – Urquhart
Wiikman
(Alternate Captains in BOLD CAPS)
SCRATCHES:
Graham – Healthy
Sugden – Healthy
Fahey – Concussion – Indefinite
Byers – Knee – Season
THREE STARS:
1. SPR – 17 Ryan Potulny
2. HFD – 46 Jordan Owens
3. HFD – 47 Tommy Pyatt
ON ICE OFFICIALS:
Ryan Fraser (14), Referee
Chris Low (88), Linesman
Jim Briggs (83), Linesman
NEXT GAME:
On the road Sunday afternoon against the Worcester Sharks who will look to avenge a 4-1 drubbing by the Pack on Friday night.
