THE ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY STARTS AT HOME 

  VERSUS 

The Wolf Pack faced a team they have only faced one other time in their history and logged perhaps their finest 60 minute performance of the season defeating the visiting Grand Rapids Griffins 3-1 in front of a jubilant crowd of 5,963 at the XL Center in Hartford.

Goaltender Miika Wiikman was nothing short of spectacular in stopping 31 of the 32 he faced. The Griffins, the AHL affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings, are a team rich in talent and depth and it showed. Currently in first place in the North Division, and third overall in the entire AHL, The Griffins came out fast and had two things in mind; puck possession and attack, attack, attack. Wiikman’s extra work the past several days with the Rangers’ goaltenders coach, Benoit Allaire was certainly evident as wave after wave of offensive pressure was put on the young Pack and their European netminder.

“It was nice to start the new year like that,” Wiikman said to reporters afterwards. “They have as good a four lines as any team in the league, so you have to be ready all the time, and we were. We were disciplined and played good defense. It was a pretty good game for us all over.”

The home team got on the board first against one of the AHL’s hottest teams at 7-0-1-0 including four shutouts in their last six. The fact that this is not a high scoring team and got on top first was in and of itself an accomplishment. After a listless first period where the Pack had a whole lot of skating backwards practice, they came out fired up in the second.  The Pack found themselves with a slew of two-on-one odd man rushes, but there’s a reason the Griffins have the record that they do and they shut them all down.

At 10:01 that all changed as Howling’s choice for first half MVP, Artem Anisimov took a P.A. Parenteau feed and rushed the puck up ice. After putting opposing center Justin Abdelkader and defensemen Jakub Kindl in the rear view mirror, Anisimov crossed the crease and from the left side fired in on net. Netminder Daniel Larsson (30 saves) got a pad on the shot, but the puck rebounded in the crease and there waiting on it was left winger Brodie Dupont who conveniently deposited the loose change into the bank. for the 1-0 lead.

Wiikman made a terrific stop on left wing Mattias Ritola’s shot from the slot repelling one of Grand Rapids’ ten shots in the period at 11:28. But 2:12 later Brandon Sugden, who got a rare start and an even more rare shift on the ice, took a hooking call sending the 22nd ranked Pack penalty killers out to face their third challenge by the league’s sixth most effective power play unit. 

Evan McGrath brought the puck up ice on the left wing. He fed Francois Lemieux who completed the three-way-give-and-go with a tape-to-tape pass to Francis Pare  who beat Wiikman high to the glove side and just under the crossbar to know the score at one apiece.

The Pack had yet another odd man rush as Larsson kept his teammates close with a blocker save on Mike Ouellette that he made seem easy.

Standing up so tall against so many odd-man rushes against is the reason that the Griffins and Larsson i particular have been so solid of late. Larsson has been smoking hot of late with five consecutive wins in a row. During the span he’s also managed to string back-to-back shutouts along the way. Larsson was on a 10-0-1-1 streak since taking a 5-3 loss to Peoria in early November.

In the third period, Wiikman was at his best. At 1:35 Grand Rapids, pressed hard on their younger Connecticut foes and to some degree it worked. Wiikman was sharp denying a Jamie Tardiff bid from the left circle but came up even larger just moments later.

At 5:13 Pack defenseman Corey Potter, playing against his home state AHL team,  lost the puck to the Griffins’ Darren Haydar. Haydar rocketed up ice for a chance on Wiikman. Wiikman stoned him completely repelling the would be threat.

But the Pack kept pressing, working together and winning battles. They totally brought their “A” game against their guests from Michigan.

Ultimately though it was the “Triplets Line” of Ouellette centering Tommy Pyatt and Jordan Owens that would lead the charge. The “Triplets,” by a country mile, have been the Pack’s most effective line since being put together about 6 weeks ago. 

“That line has shown consistent effort and tried to execute the game plan as best they can every game,” Said Wolf Pack coach Ken Gernander to reporters. “Their attention to detail has been great, and you like to see guys who are paying the price and are responsible get rewarded, which isn’t always the case.

It was here.

Ouellette fought for the puck on the left wing corner. He slid the Puck over to Owens who won his battle for the puck midway between the net and the corner. Owens then got the puck to Pyatt along the right post. Pyatt then sent a pass with his back to the slot across the crease to the left post  where Ouellette was waiting and he slammed it home for what would prove to be the game winner.

Gernander liked what he saw from his energy line on the play. “It was nice passing (on the winning goal), and you have to find a way to get to the hard areas like the net front. (Ouellette) made his way there, got the puck and was open. It was a good play all around.”

Parenteau would add an empty netter from just outside the right point blueline with 28.2 left for the games final tally.

“We just didn’t have quite the same emotion and pop in the first two periods, but maybe it was because we had a good healthy respect for Grand Rapids the way they’ve been playing lately and the strong, deep lineup that they have,” Gernander said in summary to reporters. “But after the first period we really limited the number of odd-man chances, and Miika stepped up. He was real solid and poised, not scrambling around.”

Bruce Berlet has the Wolf Pack perspective at Hartfordwolfpack.com while the Grand Rapids story is told in the Grand Rapids Press.

As always, here are the stats for the stat addicts. First the GAME SUMMARY and then the OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET.

NOTES:

* Not only was this a good character win, but three characters returned to the lineup for the game. Defensemen Corey Potter was back in Hartford from a second trip stint with the Rangers, Michael Sauer had a facial laceration while Fahey is back from his second concussion of the season. This one sidelined him for 10 games.

* With the 3-1 win over the Western Conference’s best, the Grand Rapids Griffins, it turned out to be the 500^th win in franchise history. The Pack’s all-time record now stands at 500(W)-289(L)-66(T)-39(OTL)-21(SOL) in 915 games in their 12-year existence.

LINES:

(Combinations changed frequently with Sugd
en in the lineup. Here’s the initial four line roll out.)

RISSMILLER – MOORE – Soryal

Dupont – Anisimov – PARENTEAU

Pyatt – Ouellette – Weise

DiDiomete – Owens – Sugden

Potter – Nightingale

Sanguinetti – Fahey

Sauer – Urquhart

Wiikman

(Alternate Captains in BOLD CAPS)

SCRATCHES:

Denisov – Healthy

Stefanishion – Healthy

Byers – Knee – Season

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 62 Miika Wiikman
2. GR – 31 Daniel Larsson
3. HFD – 44 Mike Ouellette

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Chris Cozzan (68), Referee
David Spannaus (8), Linesman
Luke Galvin (2), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

It doesn’t get any easier for the Wolf Pack, who play their next four on the road, as they face off against the high-flying Hershey Bears at the XL Center at 7pm.