WOULD YOU BELIEVE THREE STRAIGHT? 

    VERSUS   

If Head Coach Ken Gernander knew his Wolf Pack would be playing as well as they have since Greg Moore was voted as team captain Thursday, he might have had them vote it to him right out of training camp. The Wolf Pack, led by leading scorer P.A. Parenteau and great goaltending from Matt Zaba, played another tight to the vest game before breaking the game open in the third taking a 4-3 win on the road against the Manchester Monarchs in front of 8,314 at the Verizon Wireless Arena. The win gave the Pack their third victory in a row tying their season high winning streak and are winners of four of their last five.

The “G-A-G” Line of Brodie Dupont, Artem Anisimov and Parenteau remained smoking hot with six points between them (1g, 5a). The line gave the Pack (25-18-2-3) the boost they needed in order to get this game in the win column and kept them tied for first in points with Providence (26-19-2-1) at 55 points. Worcester is right on the Pack’s heals with 54 points. The Sharks also hold a game in hand over both Providence and Hartford. Worcester has a huge game with the Bruins in Providence Sunday afternoon at 2:05pm. The Pack will wind third regardless of the outcome via either points or number of wins to either team.

The game did not start off well for the visitors. Corey Potter took a tripping penalty at 1:21 and exactly 30 seconds later last season’s AHL Rookie of the Year, Teddy Purcell’s hard cross ice pass to the left side circle set up Scott Parse perfectly. Parse’s shot ripped the black out of the vulcanized rubber and was deflected just in front of Zaba (33 saves) by Monarch captain Marty Murray. Zaba had no chance and Manchester had an early lead.

Manchester (19-23-0-5) was dictating play and controlling the puck throughout the first period despite the Pack hold a 10-7 advantage in shots on goal. However, the Pack did not back down from their New Hampshire hosts and in the second period that persistence paid dividends from one of the least likely sources.

At 5:36, Jordan Owens, who played another strong game on wing, made a solid breakout pass to Patrick Rissmiller who advanced the puck quickly up left wing. As Rissmiller cut towards the net, he spotted Dale Weise crashing in on net and fed him the puck. Weise stuck out his stick and deflected the pass perfectly and flipped it over Jonathan Bernier (19 saves) to knot the score. With the tally, Weise broke a 29 game streak without a goal.

Later in the second period, the Monarchs were flying around in the offensive zone. The Pack tried on a number of occasions to clear the puck but just could not get it out of the zone. At 10:39 Purcell got his second assist of the game when his hard shot from the slot hit Zaba in the chest and fell into the crease. Matt Moulson was all over Zaba and he could not get to the loose biscuit. Murray was there to sweep it under Zaba for his second tally of the game and regained the lead for the home team.

David Urquhart was guilty of hooking Davis Drewiske as he blew right by him to put the Pack shorthanded at 14:17. But the Manchester advantage only lasted 19 seconds as Andrew Campbell got called for hooking in the offensive zone creating a four-on-four for 1:38.

On the ensuing four-on-four, Justin Azevedo, Manchester’s leading scorer, blew right past Potter and then inside-outted Bobby Sanguinetti and was stoned by Zaba to keep the score even momentarily. Just moments later, the Pack had the puck in the offensive zone on Parenteau’s stick. The young Canadian looked up the slot and saw Sanguinetti all by himself and put the puck right on the stick blade. Sanguinetti uncorked a screaming hard shot into the net over Bernier’s stick side shoulder and the score was tied for the second time.

There was some controversy as the second period came to a close. Artem Anisimov took a breakout pass and had a breakaway all alone on Bernier. Joe Piskula essentially tackled Anisimov and the two of them steamrolled Bernier. Referee Ian Croft looked unsure of himself as to what to do and not only did not call for a penalty shot, but called nothing on the play with just 41.3 left in the period. Captain Greg Moore discussed it with Croft but got nowhere with the referee. It was a badly blown call that fortunately did not affect the outcome.

Rookie goaltender Zaba absolutely shone his brightest in the third period. With Jared Nightingale in the penalty box for hooking at 5:27 Zaba proved the old adage that states that “a team’s best penalty killer has to be it’s goaltender.” After a shot and scramble in front of the net, Trevor Lewis found the puck and had a point blank wide open shot. Zaba, who had fallen and was on his back, had the presence of mind to throw his glove up and grabbed the puck out of the air. A highlight reel save if there ever was one. Seconds later after a Sanguinetti giveaway in the Pack defensive zone, Zaba stopped consecutive blasts from in close by Moulson keeping the score tied. It was perhaps the finest moment of the season by any Pack netminder this season.

With Manchester absolutely in complete control of the puck and pressuring from every angle, the Pack were barely able to get the puck to the neutral zone let alone put in any sort of offensive thrust. That was until 8:52 when the Pack gained the offensive zone. Dupont worked hard down low on the left side behind the net. He eventually worked the puck free and passed over to Anisimov behind the net on the right. Anisimov saw Parenteau alone in the slot and fed him the puck. Parenteau smashed his twentieth of the season past Bernier giving the Pack their first lead of the game 3-2. It was the Pack’s first shot of the period.

The Pack endured yet another pressure heavy attack by the Monarchs and didn’t get their second shot of the period until just 3:25 was left in the period, and it would prove to be the game winner. Anisimov stole the puck in the neutral zone and made a quick pass to Parenteau. Tommy Pyatt and Parenteau broke in two-on-one against Drew Bagnall. Parenteau held the puck as long as he could until Bagnall committed to defending him, freeing Pyatt on the right wing. Parenteau put the puck perfectly on Pyatt’s stick and the he didn’t hesitate for a second beating Bernier high to the glove side.

With the score 4-2, Bernier was pulled with 1:33 remaining for an extra attacker. 17 seconds later Scott Parse went top shelf on Zaba from the slot off a feed from Azevedo off the right half boards. It would be the last gasp of air for the Monarchs as they just ran out of time.

Bob Crawford has his summary at Hartfordwolfpack.com meanwhile for the Manchester perspective Kevin Provencher has the tale in the Union Leader.

GAME SUMMARY and the OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

NOTES:

*  With his goal and two assists on the night, Parenteau has scored in eleven of his last twelve and contributed eight goals and eigh
teen assists. Parenteau is third in the league in scoring with 53 points. He’s four behind former Pack forward Alexandre Giroux and seven behind the AHL’s leading scorer, Keith Aucoin.

* Anisimov had two assists on the night and has points in nine of the last ten putting up five goals and eight assists good for fourth in the AHL at 50 points.

* The Pack have gained standings points in nine of their last twelve games going 8-3-1 over the span.

* The Pack are 9-10-2-1 on the road

* Without a point in the contest, Ouellette four game point streak ended.

* With the goal scoring improving almost as quickly as the goaltending, the team is finally even between goals for and goals against at 136.

* The power play was kept off the score sheet again and are scoreless in their last ten opportunities spanning the last two games. They’ve dropped from a season high eighth overall back down to twelfth. The PK meanwhile surrendered one goal in four chances and remained tenth with an 83.7% efficiency rate.

* Zaba is making a strong case to challenge Miika Wiikman for the top slot in the Pack nets. Zaba is now 21st overall in the AHL with a 2.57GAA and a .909%. He has a 9-6-0 record and has stopped 442 of 486 shots over 1,028 minutes and a single shut out. Wiikman, 33rd overall, has a 2.74GAA and a .904%. He’s seen 893 shots and stopped all but 86 of them and has posted a 16-14-3 record also with one shut out over 1880 minutes between the Pack’s pipes.

* The numbers, 6-8-1-1 when trailing after one, 7-4-0-0 when tied after two periods, 12-7-1-2 when outshot and 12-6-2-3 in one goal games. The Pack are averaging 21.4 PIM per game.

* Manchester has lost seven of their last nine .

* This was only the first time this season that Manchester has scored more than one goal against the Pack

* The Checkers squandered a third period lead and dropped a 5-4 decision to the South Carolina Stingrays. Charlotte entered the game a point behind South Carolina for second place in the South Division of the American Conference. Ryan Hillier scored in the game. For the season, Hillier’s line reads 9g, 10a 19pts in 40 games and is even on the plus/minus as well as 21 PIM. 2 of his goals came on the PP and he’s taken 113 shots for a .080 shooting percentage. Howlings has also been asked about Joe Barnes. Barnes is not on the active roster and only played in 12 games. Michael Busto has 1g, 4a in 32 games and is a minus-2. Tomas Zaborsky has 4g, 8a for 12 points in 28 games and a plus-1.

LINES:

Owens – Rissmiller – Weise

Dupont – Anisimov – PARENTEAU

DiDiomete – MOORE – Stefanishion

Ford – Ouellette – Pyatt

Nightingale – Fahey

Sanguinetti – POTTER

Urquhart – Sauer

Zaba

SCRATCHES:

Sugden – Hand – Day-to-Day

Denisov – Healthy

Byers – Knee – Season

Soryal – Hand – Indefinite

Wiikman – Flu – Day-to-Day

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 17 Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
2. HFD – 30 Matt Zaba
3. MCH – 12 Marty Murray

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Ian Croft (87), Referee
Landon Bathe (80), Linesman
Jeremy Lovett (78), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

Wednesday night at the XL Center, the Pack complete the home and home series against the Monarchs. Game time is 7pm.