IT’S NOT HOW YOU START THAT MATTERS, BUT HOW YOU FINISH… 

    VERSUS    

After watching how the 2008-2009 version of the Hartford were playing, if you asked anyone if they thought that the Pack would be in first place with just 16 games left to play they would have told you that you were insane. Well, apparently nobody ever told that to Head Coach Ken Gernander, his staff and certainly not the players because they never lost faith in the direction they were heading in and with 16 left to play, the Pack wake up Sunday morning in first place in the Atlantic Division after holding on for a 4-2 victory in Springfield against the Falcons while the Providence Bruins were shutout 2-0 in Manitoba to the Moose.

For the Pack, this game was still in doubt with the Falcons pressing throughout the entire third period until a Mark Bell empty netter in the last minute put the game away.

The Pack took the early first period lead when Dale Weise’s less-than-mighty shot from the right circle at 4:32 beat goaltender Devan Dubnyk through the five-hole. The goal was very soft and would most certainly be one that Dubnyk (26 saves) would want back.

After giving up the weak goal, Dubnyk settled down and kept his teammates in a position to at least have a chance to win as the Pack completely dominated play all over the ice. Springfield was clearly on their heels. Their play seemed to indicate a fall back position and just look to capitalize on Pack mistakes. By the time the buzzer sounded to end the period, the Pack had a 1-0 lead and a 12-5 shots advantage.

The power play continues to trouble the Pack of late. After rising as high as eighth in the league, the unit, which was working when there was movement and lots of shots, has slipped into a more passive mode of over-passing and looking for the perfect shot. In the first period, they had three man advantage situations against a reeling Springfield team, yet they couldn’t even get set up let alone make anything close to a real scoring chance.

On the other hand, the penalty kill units for Hartford have improved. They have only allowed four goals over their last 46 shorthanded chances over the prior eight contests. What has been exceptionally good is the number of shorthanded chances the team has been getting. At exactly one minute of the second period, Mark Bell took a blatant tripping penalty. After taking away a loose puck, Patrick Rissmiller let a two on one back the other way with his linemate, Greg Moore. As the got in tight, Rissmiller held the puck right on the right doorstop for a LONG time as the forward waited out Dubnyk and Theo Peckham’s attempt to cover the two. When Rissmiller saw Peckham bite and go down, Rissmiller made a perfect pass to his partner, Moore in the right circle put the puck perfectly in front of him and watched as #15 buried in into the twine.

Three and a half minutes later, Geoff Paukovich’s wraparound attempt found the back of the net. Zaba appeared to have the entire net covered, but the shot found a path over the line and Springfield was back in the contest trailing 2 to 1.

The two netminders kept the contest close. Dubnyk in particular was outstanding first stopping All-Star defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti pinching in the slot and then slammed the door on a Rissmiller bid.

With just under six minutes remaining in the period, Artem Anisimov regained the Pack team goal scoring lead when he followed up a Michael Sauer shot from the right point. Dubnyk handled the initial Sauer shot, but the puck hit him and landed in front. Anisimov kept pounding on the puck by Dubnyk’s pads, but his persistence paid off as the last one got through the pads an over the line for Anisimov’s 27th of the season and the Pack doubled their lead to a 3-1 margin.

The third period saw two different teams emerge from their respective locker-rooms. The Pack came out content to sit on their lead and played too cautiously. The Falcons meanwhile came out relentless and aggressive, something they had not been in the two previous periods. The Falcons simply took the game to the Pack and at 3:48 it paid dividends.

Taylor Chortney’s blast of a shot from the right point hit pay dirt. Left wing, Charles Linglet, who was solid throughout the contest, hit Robbie Schremp with a pass along the right half-boards. Schremp saw Chortney with room at the point and fed the defenseman.  Chortney saw Ryan Potulny screening Zaba who had both defenseman in front of him as well. The three made a formidable wall and Chortney’s shot went right through them all and beat Zaba over his right shoulder to bring the game back to within one at 3-2.

Both teams then had major odd man rushes thwarted by their respective netminders. First a 3-on-1 developed for the Pack, but Dubnyk was able to handle Wiese’s attempt for a second goal. The rebounded puck then led to a 2-on-1 odd man rush up ice for Springfield with Zaba denying Gilbert Brule’s shot.

With time slipping away for Springfield their attack of the puck intensified leading to multiple solid scoring chances including a tremendous pair of chances on breakaway’s. First, Cody Wild took a Viacheslav Truckhno pass for a mini breakaway that Zaba gloved and then on the next rush back up ice, Linglet had speed and split the Pack defense and cruised in on Zaba only to be rejected by the rookie netminder.

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With just two minutes remaining, Potulny had another mini breakaway and like the others was gobbled up by Zaba preserving the lead. The Pack were clearly on their heels and hoping to hold on. They got careless with the puck and were having difficulty getting it out of the zone. The team looked tires, especially after the second goal, and were getting little to no offensive pressure. It seemed to be one and done for them the rest of the way.

That was until Sanguinetti fed Bell along the left side boards and Bell fired it on the empty net. Truckhno did all he could including diving through the air to get something on the puck but was not successful and the empty net goal with 59 seconds remaining insured the Pack victory.

Despite being badly outplayed in the third period, the team did what good teams do and that was finding a way to win. The Pack have now lost once (in OT 8-0-1-0) in their last nine games.

Bob Crawford has the recap at Hartfordwolfpack.com and for the Springfield perspective, there’s Garry Brown at Masslive.com.

 GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET.

NOTES:

* The Pack are undefeated this year in Springfield. 

* Moore’s shorthanded goal was his fifth shortie of the season. He leads the entire AHL in that department.

* After Friday night’s game we mentioned the Pack’s need to win on the road. The team responded well with a hard earned victory.

* Anisimov has three game winners, two in OT
, this season against Springfield and leads the Pack with seven game winning goals.

* Zaba is now sixth overall amongst goaltenders with a 19-9-0 record. He’s improved his overall numbers to a 2.35GAA and a .925%. He is also fourth overall in saves in a shootout stopping nine of ten.

* Sanguinetti is now seventh among all defenseman with 5g, 30a for 35 points. Sanguinetti is a good candidate and will receive some consideration for AHL Rookie of the Year.

* The Pack power play ranks tenth (17.6%) and the penalty kill (83.1%) is fourteenth.

* Miika Wiikman should be back in net for the Pack as this will be the team’s fourth game in five nights and the netminder has not played since Valentine’s Day nearly a month ago. Wiikman has lost two of his last three starts.

*Inside the Numbers: the Pack are now 15-11-3-1 on the road while 20-12-0-2 at the XL Center. They’ve moved to fourth overall in the east. The Pack are 18-5-0-1 when leading after one, 20-1-1-1 when leading after two and 16-12-1-1 when outshooting their opponents. The team is 10-7-0-0 in two goal victory margin games.

LINES:

Dupont – Anisimov – Parenteau @

Bell – Rissmiller – Weise

Owens – Ouellette – Pyatt

DiDiomete – Moore © – Sugden

Sanguinetti – Denisov

Urquhart – Sauer

Nightingale – Fahey

Zaba

SCRATCHES:

Potter – Upper Body injury – Day-to-Day

Ford – Healthy

Zaborsky – Healthy

Soryal – Hand – 2-3 weeks

Byers – Knee – Season

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 42 Artem Anisimov
2. SPR – 20 Geoff Paukovich
3. HFD – 4 Michael Sauer

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Chris Brown (86), Referee
Jim Briggs (83), Linesman
Paul Simeon (66), Linesman

SCOREBOARD WATCHING:

Manchester playing at the Verizon Wireless did the Pack a favor knocking off third place Portland 2-1 with a third period goal by Marty Murray. Worcester trounces Albany 4-1, Providence lost their season long grip on first place by losing in Manitoba 2-0.

On the Atlantic Division schedule for Sunday, Worcester has a two-game winning streak and hosts Manchester. Meanwhile, the Providence Bruins can’t be feeling particularly good about themselves after getting shutout by the Manitoba Moose then having to fly some three hours to get from Winnipeg to Rochester to face the Americans. They have the time change, jet lag and lack of sleep to deal with; not to mention the loss of some key players at the trade deadline. This can only help the Wolf Pack’s chances of winning the division.

STANDINGS:

Rank          Team                        GP     W      L       OTL    SOL    PTS

NEXT GAME:

A Sunday 4pm start awaits the first place Wolf Pack as they travel down state to partake of the GEICO CUP series with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Should be a sparkling contest as the Pack are on a 8-1-1-0 record overt heir last ten while Bridgeport is 7-1-0-2 . The Pack are 4-4-0-0 this season against the Sound Tigers and 12-7-0-0 in the last five years playing at the Arena at Harbor Yard.