PACK TAKE NIGHT OFF… 

   VERSUS   

Poor Matt Zaba. The Pack netminder had to feel like Denis Lemieux as his teammates essentially took the night off. With just a couple of exceptions, the Pack’s Ellsworth Kelly-esque performance wasted their game in-hand on the idle first place Providence Bruins dropping a 6-3 decision to the visiting Manchester Monarchs ries before 1,771 at the XL Center in Hartford. The loss dropped the Pack into third place as the Worcester Sharks came back from a three goal first period deficit on the road to defeat the Portland Pirates 5-3.

All game long you could see Pack head coach Ken Gernander simmering on the bench. He confirmed that with reporters after the game. “I didn’t like our game at all,” he said. “They won every loose puck battle, they were more physical, they were more hungry, they put shots on net, they had more traffic. Pick any way you want to measure the game, and we didn’t stack up …but it won’t happen again. I’m really disappointed. Actually I’m beyond that. I’m angry.”

The game started out fine for the Pack as Artem Anisimov, back from his nine minute audition with the Rangers, almost scored in the first minute of the game. His rebound attempt was stuffed by Manchester (20-23-0-5) netminder Daniel Taylor.

The Pack (25-19-2-3) did get on the board first at 6:24. Manchester’s Andrew Campbell took a Slashing call at 6:05 putting the Pack on the man advantage. Corey Potter took a hard shot from the right point which Taylor (23 saves) was unable to corral. P.A. Parenteau put his team leading 21st into the net knocking home the resulting rebound.

The Pack’s only lead of the game lasted less than two minutes. At 7:34, Jordan Owens put a puck into the stands form the defensive zone causing veteran referee Terry Koharski to whistle the Pack forward for a Delay of the Game penalty. At 8:20 Matt Moulson was left more alone than Chuck Noland and easily put Marty Murray’s pass from behind the net past Zaba (28 saves).

Much like the first period, the Pack came out hard and fast to start the second. Taylor stopped both of the Pack’s AHL All-Star representatives on consecutive chances. First he dealt with a Bobby Sanguinetti shot from inside the left circle and then made a terrific stop on an Anisimov blast with a highlight reel glove save. But after that the Pack were scrambling virtually and almost disinterested in competing. With shoots flying at Zaba and nobody engaged enough in the game to help out their netminder, eventually something was going to get past Zaba and at 4:13 it did.

Zaba made a great stop on Teddy Purcell’s backhanded bid on a partial breakaway. However, with just one second remaining on a Pack penalty kill of a Jared Nightingale hooking call, Justin Azevedo gave the Monarchs the lead for good when he picked up the rebound of a Vitacheslav Voynov point shot and walked in alone and stuffed it under the Pack netminder for the 2-1 lead.

The Pack were still reeling from that blunder when just 25 seconds later a Vladimir Dravecky pass from behind the net found Voynov streaking up the slot completely untouched and one-timed the pass right by a defenseless Zaba with what would prove to be the game-winner. 

It stayed 3-1 for eight minutes until at 12:37 Murray matched his assist with a goal as he jammed in a Joe Piskula shot’s rebound under Zaba for  a 4-1 lead.

Parenteau, who continues to sparkle offensively and who should have also received an All-Star honor, added an assist to his goal with a cross ice pass to Owens. Owens did the rest putting on a move that faked right wing David Meckler right out of the play and left him wide open in the slot and buried his shot past Taylor.

The Pack managed to add a meaningless goal in terms of the score, but a good one for forward Dale Weise with just 1.1 seconds left, as the forward, who recently endured a 29-game scoring drought, made a nice play to put a rebound past Taylor for his second goal in as many games.

Every team is going to have a bad game on occasion, but after getting only their second three-game winning streak of the season and with a chance to regain a first place tie, the disappearing act by the Pack was not a good sign. It didn’t go unnoticed by Gernander. “When you’re mentally engaged, you’re physically engaged and you make good decisions and win races to loose pucks,” He said. “When you’re not mentally engaged, you’re whole game is off.”

Given Gernander’s own competitiveness and the magnificent job he and his staff have done to prepare his team and get them competing at the level they had been, a performance like this one is not likely to happen again in the team’s next game Saturday night against Springfield.

Bruce Berlet has the views from the press box at Hartfordwolfpack.com and for the Manchester perspective read  Manchestermonarchs.com with quotes from inside the Monarch dressing room.

For stat hounds there is the GAME SUMMARY and the OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET.

NOTES:

* Parenteau has had points now in seventeen of his last twenty. The Canadian forward has notched ten goals and nineteen assists for twenty-nine points over that span. Over the same period, Anisimov has ten goals and fifteen assists for twenty-five points.  These two players have carried the Pack on their collective backs and are the main reason this team is where it is.

HOT:

Parenteau and Anisimov as mentioned, but also Weise has goals in two straight, Jordan Owens has a three game points streak (two goals, two assists), Corey Potter (three assists) has points in his last two and Brian Fahey has points in three of his last four (four assists).

COLD:

Brandon Sugden hasn’t had a point since Nov. 23rd, Devin DiDiomete has been off the scorer’s sheet, apart from PIM, since Dec. 13 a span of 21 straight, Jared Nightingale is without a point in his last eight.

LINES:

Owens – Rissmiller – Weise

Dupont – Anisimov – Parenteau

Pyatt – Ouellette – Ford

DiDiomete – MOORE – Sugden

Nightingale – Fahey

Sanguinetti – Potter

Urquhart – Sauer

Zaba

SCRATCHES:

Stefanishion – Healthy

Denisov – Healthy

Soryal – Broken Hand – Six weeks

Byers – Knee – Season

THREE STARS:

1. MCH – 76 Viatcheslav Voynov
2. MCH – 12 Marty Murray
3. MCH – 52 Matt Moulson

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Terry Koharski (10), Referee
Kevin Redding (16), Linesman
Derek Wahl (46), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

Saturday night on the road against Springfield. Sunday’s road game against Lowell will be carried live on WTIC-AM and can be heard on line at either  www.hartfordwolfpack.com or www.wtic.com.

SCOREBOARD WATCHING:

Friday night: Providence hosts Manitoba, Lowell visits Springfield, Worcester on the road against Manchester