ANISIMOV SPARKS POWERFUL PLAY 

  VERSUS  

The Hartford Wolf Pack took the New York Rangers jet out to Manitoba, British Columbia for the first time in nearly six years for an equally rare Tuesday night tilt for the first of a two game series against the Moose, the AHL affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.  and emerged with a 6-2 win in front of 5,789 at the MTS Centre.

Behind a tremendous performance by goaltender Miika Wiikman (25 saves) and a rejuvenated power play that went three for six on the night that produced two goals for Artem Anisimov, the Pack’s leading scorer (16g, 21a 37 points in 37 games). The Pack also got goals from Greg Moore, Corey Potter, Patrick Rissmiller and Mike Ouellette.

The Pack have alternated wins and losses over the last eight games. “We’re fighting for consistency.” Head Coach Ken Gernander told Bob Crawford before the game. In keeping with their current trend, they were due for a big game and they got one.

It also didn’t hurt that Manitoba, second in the Western Conference’s North Division, was primed and ready for the Wolf Pack. The Moose had only won once in their last seven games (1-4-0-2). After starting off slowly, getting outshot 5-1 and 7-2, a fight soundly won by Brandon Sugden over Guillaume Desbiens at 7:18 seemed to ignite the team and their play rapidly improved.

Entering the game, the Pack (18-15-1-3) were three-for-sixteen on the power play (18.75%) over the last four games and facing the second best penalty killing unit in the AHL with an 87.6% success rate didn’t bode well for the boys from Connecticut’s state capitol. The only problem was that someone forgot to tell that to the Gernander’s troops. In the first period the Pack ignited for two goals in three tries with the man-advantage.

After a totally disconnected first try with the man advantage, Jannick Hansen gave the Pack a second chance as he sat in the sin bin on a holding call. This time the Pack executed one of their nicest power plays of the season. It seemed like they took the page right out of the Power Play training manual as the first unit was solid controlling the puck. Each player made terrific passes to one another along the perimeter forcing the Moose (22-12-0-2) to scramble in their own end. Bobby Sanguinetti made a sweet cross ice pass from the right point to the left circle to P.A. Parenteau who in turn unloaded a hard shot on net. The puck bounced off the pads of starting goaltender Karl Goehring (8 saves) over to Artem Anisimov perched on the right doorstep who slammed it home easily into the empty net.

Just over four minutes later, the Pack struck again. Desbiens again found himself in the box for a hooking call at 14:37. With local boy Brodie Dupont playing his first game in his home province as a professional in front of Goehring distracting the journeyman netminder. Anisimov looked like he was centering a pass from the right corner somehow got underneath the the pads of the Apple Valley, Minnesota native for his second goal of the game and team-leading sixteenth of the season.

The Pack struck for the third time in the second period when the team’s other Manitoba native got on the board when his outlet pass to Justin Soryal started a three-on-one odd man rush with Moore and David Urquhart. Soryal carried the puck into the zone on right wing. Urquhart filled the middle and Moore charged up left wing against defenseman Maxime Fortunus. Soryal made a stick to stick pass to Moore who fired on net from the left circle. His shot deflected off of the down and out Fortunus’s stick altering it’s path and snuck just inside the left post.

Less than a minute later Daniel Rahimi took a hooking call sending the Pack to their fourth power play, 37 seconds later it was 4-0. Potter pinched in from the left point and took a great cross ice pass from Parenteau and promptly unloaded a shot that beat Goehring under his stick side arm. It was Parenteau’s third assist of the night. The three assists by Parenteau in a single game is the most by any Pack player this season. Sanguinetti also managed to pick up his second helper on the play. With that, Manitoba Head Coach Scott Arniel had seen enough of Goehring and brought in Cory Schneider (7 saves) in relief at 7:07. Schneider was just returned to the Moose from Vancouver.

While Wiikman did not face an exorbitant number of shots, Manitoba did have tremendous scoring opportunities. Wiikman’s best stop of the night came at 14:40 when a terrific outlet past sent Michael Ouellet all alone on Wiikman. The Finn with the Swedish name came up huge shutting the door on the former NHL’er staying square and waiting Ouellet out and made a nice pad save. 

It didn’t take long for the Pack to strike for a fifth time. Defenseman Mark Fistric fumbled the puck by the Moose blueline. Rissmiller took it away from him high in the slot and as the play moved closer to Schneider, the former San Jose Shark used Fortunus as a screen and put a hard wrister into the net to the stick side.

The Moose then spoiled Wiikman’s shut out bid as the Pack let down and it cost them two goals. At 6:34, veteran Nolan Baumgartner got free when Sanguinetti got caught on his heels and could not make a play. Baumgartner but a backhander just between Wiikman’s foot and the pipe. Exactly sixty seconds later, Desbiens got his first of two goals with a nice forehand-to-backhand move and beat Wiikman high off a fantastic feed from Jason Krog from the right corner. Ouellet assisted on the goal as well.  It was 5-2.

1:16 later, Soryal and Zack Fitzgerald had an epic battle near center ice. Both participants threw and landed HUGE shots to the other’s noggin, but neither buckled. The fight lasted longer than most WBC pay-per-views and if you’re a fan of fighting in hockey games this would be a fight you would turn to to make your case for keeping it in the game.

The Pack got a bigger jolt from the scrap as just 25 seconds later they added their final tally. Tommy Pyatt dug a puck out of the corner and fed Owens in the left circle. Owens ripped a shot on Schneider that hit the netminder and bounced into the air. As it came down off his back, Ouellette was there for the Pack to knock it into the net giving “The Triplets” line a goal in the game.

Desbiens second goal and the final of the game came with just 49 seconds remaining when his shot from the left face-off circle beat a screened Wiikman under the left pad. The goal visibly angered Wiikman who slammed his stick in disgust. The Moose’s Jordan Fox assisted on the goal.

If the Pack are going to capture the consistency of effort, Wednesday night’s game would be the time to do it. The trend of the past nine games has been that after a tremendous performance, like the one they got all over the ice from the entire team Tuesday night, the team has significantly dropped off. If that continues for the Baby Rangers against this Moose team and their ability to
score, this could get ugly in a hurray.

Coverage of this one, because it’s in Canada, was higher than usual. Bob Crawford has the recap at Hartfordwolfpack.com while TSN.ca has the Canadian Press account of the action. Ken Wiebe has a report in The Winnipeg Sun  while Tim Campbell has the tale in the Winnipeg Free Press. Gee, is it any wonder why the Moose are the second highest drawing team in terms of attendance when there are TWO beat reporters to cover them when the Wolf Pack can’t even get their local capital paper don’t even have one?

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORER’S SHEET

NOTES:

* Jason Krog, who was a member of last season’s AHL Champion Chicago Wolves, played against his teammate from the Wolves, Brian Fahey. Krog told Bob Crawford in between periods that Fahey’s nickname last year with the Wolves was “Mister Intensity.”

* A nice profile of Bobby Sanguinetti appears at Hartfordwolfpack.com from Lindsay Kramer. Each Monday during the season Kramer, the AHL correspondent for NHL.com, profiles an up-and-coming player. His AHL notebook appears each Thursday on NHL.com.

* The Checkers scored seven goals to help solidify the victory on the road against the South Carolina Stingrays winning 7-4

* With the win, the Pack jumped over the idle Worcester Sharks to retake third place in the Atlantic division.

* Just to continue to contrast the two cities, Manitoba has reported drawing 161,170  (7,326 on average) good for second overall in the AHL. Hartford has reported 74,567 (3,728 on average). Here’s a question for those still yearning to see the NHL return to Connecticut’s capitol, given that both cities are former NHL hosts (remember the Winnipeg Jets?) given their drawing ability and media coverage etc, which one do you think would be more likely to get serious consideration  by a potential owner and the NHL governing body?

* With his two goals against Manitoba, Artem Anisimov, who is a lock to be the Pack’s representative in Worcester when it is announced Wednesday, now has points in seven straight games. he has 11 points (5g, 6a) over that span. He also raised himself to a point a game with his 37 points in 37 games. It’s time that the Rangers gave serious consideration to bringing the young Russian up to the big club and to see what he can do there. With his 37 points, Anisimov is tied with Kurtis McLean of Bridgeport for 10th overall in the AHL scoring race. He’s eleven behind Keith Aucoin of Hershey, but just four behind second place Chris Minard, former Pack Jeff Taffe, both from Wilkes-Barre / Scranton and Milwaukee’s Mike Santorelli. Another ex-Pack, Alexandre Giroux, a starter for Team Canada in the All-Star game, is fifth with 39 points.

* Speaking of former Hartford players, Francis Lessard is tops in the league in PIM with 163 and Trevor Gillies us fifth with 125.

* Bobby Sanguinetti is now fifth among defensemen in scoring with 23 points (3g, 20a)

* So much for the Pack power play not being effective. With their three-for-six performance the Pack raised their efficiency to 18.6% now good for 11th overall. On the other side of the ledger their five for five performance on the kill moved them up to 81.9% good now for 18th overall. Kudos to all concerned…Keep it up…

* Anisimov (16g, 21a) and Parenteau (15g, 22a) are tied for the team lead in points with 37 each. Parenteau has points in 6 of his last 8 tallying 4g, 7a for 11 points over the span.

* Some numbers for you. The Pack are now 8-4-0-1 when leading after one, 13-1-0-1 when leading after two and 9-6-1-2 when being outshot as they were in this one 28-21. They upped their record in games decided by 3-goals to 3-4-0-0.

* This was the fourth game this season where the two teams have combined for nine goals in a game and only the first where they were on the winning side of the ledger. Those games were November 23 in a a 6-3 loss to Providence, another 6-3 on December 5 against Philadelphia, and a 5-4 loss on December 28 against Lowell.

* The Pack tied the most effective nights on the power play with three matching efforts against Philadelphia on December 5 and December 12th against Worcester in a 4-1 win.

* Rissmiller has now scored in two straight. Sanguinetti has 4 assists in his last 4 games.

* Dane Byers, out for the season with a knee injury, was Bob Crawford’s color analyst for Tuesday night’s game and did an admirable job.

* Potter’s goal was his first since November 22nd covering a span of 11 games. Michael Sauer is without a point in 13 games.

LINES:

Dupont – Anisimov – Parenteau

Rissmiller – MOORE – Weise

Owens – Ouellette – Pyatt

Soryal/DiDiomete – (Rotated) – Sugden

Sanguinetti – POTTER

Nightingale – FAHEY

Urquhart – Sauer

Wiikman

(Assistant Captains in BOLD CAPS)

SCRATCHES:

Denisov – Flu – Day-to-Day

Stefanishion – Healthy

Byers – Knee – Season

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 42 Artem Anisimov
2. HFD – 17 Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
3. HFD – 3 Corey Potter

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

David Banfield (44), Referee
Clint Joyes (88), Linesman
Jason Lang (54), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

Wednesday night in the second of the back-to-back against Manitoba. Puck drops at 8:35 eastern time.

(David Urquhart photo courtesy of PHIL HOSSACK PHOTOS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)