SHAKEN, BUT NOT STIRRED… 

     VERSUS     

P.A. Parenteau’s game winning highlight reel goal in the third period lifted the Hartford Wolf Pack to a 4-2 victory in front of 3,332 at the DCU Center over the fifth place Worcester Sharks. In the victory, the Pack got multiple point nights from four players, Greg Moore, Michael Sauer, Parenteau, and Patrick Rissmiller. The team also got a huge lift on a stellar performance between the pipes from Miika Wiikman (32 saves) making only his second start in the last twelve games.

With the win, the Pack kept pace with Providence, 4-3 winners against fourth place Portland, in their battle for first place. The teams are tied with 78 points each.

The game winner was off a magnificent odd man rush with just 5:14 left in what was then a tied contest. Rissmiller advanced the puck on the left wing while Parenteau came up the right against defenseman Brendan Buckley. Defenseman are taught to let the goaltender deal with the shooter and to cut off the pass. Buckley ignored that directive and decided at the last moment that he would join Greiss on the left wing side and play Rissmiller. This left Parenteau and the right side of the net all alone. Rissmiller waited till the perfect moment and then flipped a pass to his teammate. However the puck hit Parenteau on his trailing skate and flipped into the air. Parenteau demonstrated his amazing skating skill and hands by whirling around, finding the puck in mid air, waiting for it to come low enough and without raising a high stick and just before over-skating the puck knocked it right out of the air with the end of his stick blade and into the net. It was by far the most athletic goal scored by any member of the Wolf Pack all season long.

After a lifeless first period in which the home team fired thirteen shots that were all stopped by Wiikman, including a mad scramble as the period closed, the Pack “broke the ice” on their first of two goals to be scored at exactly 4:31. Working with 45 seconds of five-on-three power play time after Worcester’s Ryan Vesce and Lukas Kaspar took penalties for interference and holding respectively 1:15 apart, Rissmiller took a Parenteau feed and one-timed it from the high slot. Artem Anisimov, screening netminder Thomas Greiss (23 saves) who took a high position in the crease, deflected the shot over the glove and into the back of the net for the 1-0 lead.

Greiss was hung out to dry by his teammates on multiple occasions throughout the contest and kept Worcester in the contest stopping numerous odd man rushes. While the Pack were killing off a Dale Weiss roughing penalty, Greiss was called upon twice in the two minute power play for the Sharks to stop Hartford two-on-one breakaways, The first denied Mark Bell and the second on a Mike Ouellette shot. Greiss also stood tall on an Anisimov bid for a second tally.

4:31 was the lucky number in the third period as the Pack lit the lamp for the games second goal. Weise took Worcester’s Mike Moore, no relation to the Pack’s Greg Moore, to school as he faked the Shark Defenseman out of his skates in the left corner and came in on Greiss. The Shark netminder got his stick on Weise’s attempt but the puck bounced out into the slot where Greg Moore was undefended and blasted it into the vacated net, like the first goal, over the glove.

Worcester got back into the game on a goal by Patrick Traverse at 5:26 as the trailer following up an odd man rush that saw Tom Cavanaugh and Vesce challenge Corey Potter. As the three closed in on Wiikman and Potter committed, Cavanaugh dropped a pass to Traverse who rifled a hard shot past Wiikman.

Exactly 5:26 after that, yet another odd coincidence after the Pack’s two goals at exactly 4:31, Worcester would tie the score. Riley Armstrong took a Jason Demers pass behind the net to Wiikman’s right. After hesitating a moment just out of Wiikman’s sight, the right winger came around the right side and tried a wraparound. Wiikman got a piece of it, but as David Urquhart battled T.J. Fox in the crease the puck hit the Pack defenseman’s skate and trickled in over the line knotting the score at two.

With 17.4 left in the contest and Greiss on the bench, Greg Moore took a Sauer feed along the left wing boards and advanced into the Shark zone and fired a clincher into the open net.

Bob Crawford has the recap at Hartfordwolfpack.com and for the Sharks there’s the always caffeinated Bill Ballou in Telegram and Gazette who always writes how the Sharks gave it away and make no notice of the fact that the home team was outplayed all night by the visiting franchise… 

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

NOTES:

* If you’re a superstitious person, try heading out to play the lottery and try playing 4-3-1. Both Pack goals were scored at the exact same time in two consecutive periods which has not been done all season long. On the other hand, the Sharks scored their first at 5:26 and then scored the second time the exact amount of time later at 10:52 so add 5:26 to your Lotto combinations as well.

* The Wolf Pack announced that they raised $41,000 at their “Tip-A-Player” event to benefit Gaylord Hospital. Congratulations to Danielle Nardi who led the entire team staff in the arduous task of assembling this first class, first rate, major league quality event. In six years the team has raised $286,000 for this very worthy cause.

* The power play went two for five and moved back into tenth overall with an 18% success rate passing the Wilkes-Barre Penguins (who somehow aren't’ tied when both teams are currently sitting with a credible 18%) while the penalty kill remained fifteenth with an 82.9% proficiency rating.

* Of the top six scorers in the AHL, four of them are or have been the property of the NY Rangers. Alexandre Giroux (46g, 30a, 76pts) is second and played for the Wolf Pack from 2003-2006 and got in one game with the Rangers. P.A. Parenteau, (27g, 44a, 71pts) is third overall and has been with the Pack the past two seasons. Jason Krog, (22g, 44a 66pts) is fifth and played nine games for the Rangers (2g, 0a, 2pts) in ‘06-‘07 and of course Artem Anisimov (27g, 39a 66pts) played in one game earlier this season in NY and was kept off the score sheet, but has been a key component of the team’s success this season sits in sixth place.

* Matt Zaba is seventh overall amongst goaltenders with a 19-9-0 record, .921% and a 2.35GAA. He’s also tied with Yann Danis, currently in NY with the Islanders, for tops in shootouts having stopped nine of the ten he’s faced. Miika Wiikman is 37th at 17-17-5 a .901% and 2.83GAA. Ex-Pack David LeNeveu has posted an 17-16-5 record for the Iowa Chops with a .891% and a 2.99GAA good for 40th and Al Montoya, the Pack’s second all-time winningest goalie in team history behind Jason LaBarbera, has had a year he’d like to forget wi
th a 4-16-2 mark with a .872% and a 3.59GAA putting him second to last in the AHL.

* Bobby Sanguinetti is 21st amongst rookies with 5g, 29a for 34pts. Among defenseman the New Jersey native is 14th overall.

* Inside the numbers: The Pack are 8-1-1-0 in their last ten games. On the road the team improves to 16-2-3-1. When tied after one, the team is 11-8-2-1, when leading after two periods they are now 21-1-1-1 when out shot by opponents they improve to 19-12-2-2 and in games decided by two goals they are 11-7-0-0.

* Rissmiller has now scored in three straight (1g, 4a)

* Zaba told Howlings that he is being held out of this weekend’s games are primarily as a precaution and that the injury is not serious. Howlings had an exclusive interview with the Pack’s new number one netminder to be published here early next week.

LINES:

Bell – Rissmiller – (Moore started the first shift) / Weise

Dupont – Anisimov – Parenteau @

Owens – Ouellette – Pyatt

DiDiomete – Moore © – Sugden

Sanguinetti – Potter

Denisov – Fahey

Urquhart – Sauer

Wiikman

SCRATCHES:

Zaba – Finger – One to Two weeks

Zaborsky – Shoulder – Season

Soryal – Hand – 2 weeks

Byers – Knee – Season

Nightingale – Healthy

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 17 Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
2. WOR – 20 Riley Armstrong
3. HFD – 18 Patrick Rissmiller

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Shaun Davis (31), Referee
Hans Baker (67), Linesman
Chris Libett (19), Linesman

SCOREBOARD WATCHING:

Friday night Providence got a third period goal by Mikko Lehtonen to nullify a Portland come back and take a 4-3 home victory keeping pace with the Wolf Pack. The Lowell Devils, ended a five game losing streak, with a 3-1 road win over Manchester. Springfield continued to evaporate despite two goals from Charles Linglet dropped a shootout to the East’s first place team, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

On the schedule for Saturday, a busy night for the Atlantic Division. Third place Manchester puts third place on the line in a four point contest with fifth place Worcester who trail the Monarchs by just five points. While that contest is going, Portland, hanging on to fourth place by just two points over Worcester, takes a three game losing streak home against the equally struggling Lowell Devils still in the hunt just three points out of a playoff spot. Meanwhile co-first place Providence heads off to the MassMutual Center to “challenge” the last place and fading Springfield Falcons.

STANDINGS:

Rank          Team                        GP      W      L       OTL    SOL    PTS

NEXT GAME:

Next game is the last in the  GEICO Cup series against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Sound Tigers lead the Series 5 games to 4. Since the Cup was initiated five years ago, the Pack have never lost it to the Islanders top development team and anything other than a regulation win would do just that. Wiikman looks to build on a strong performance in Worcester and avenge the teams no-show performance this past Sunday where they had their rear ends handed to them in a 6-3 whopping that wasn’t that close. With Providence on the road to play doormat Springfield, a win here is going to be tough and necessary to stay in a tie for first place.