YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

      VERSUS       

A little of the ole’ luck of the Irish arrived a day late in Hartford as a shot off the stick of Wolf Pack forward Tommy Pyatt hit teammate Brodie Dupont just inside the left circle and redirected into the corner pocket of the cage with just 58 seconds remaining in the first period. Pack goaltender Miika Wiikman made that hold up the rest of the way highlighted by a tremendous save in the final thirty seconds of the game as the Wolf Pack held on for a 1-0 win in front of 2,281 at the XL Center.

With the win, the Pack (38-25-3-3) regain a portion of first place at 82 points.  The Providence Bruins, who share first place with the Pack, were idle Wednesday and now hold a game in hand on their Connecticut neighbors.

But with the win came a cost.

At 4:24 of the second period, Pack captain Greg Moore, who has improved his play immensely of late, was once again hustling after a loose puck along the right wing boards as the Pack just after the Pack killed off their first of six Lowell power plays on the evening. Moore retrieved the puck and advanced it into the Devils zone. When the Maine native got the puck deep, defenseman Mark Fraser slammed Moore into the boards. The hit itself was deemed legal by referee Ian Croft.  “He went into the boards pretty awkwardly, but I guess he’s fine,” Wolf Pack coach Ken Gernander said after the game. When he did, Moore immediately slumped to the ice and appeared to lose consciousness as he laid there on the ice, not moving.

Pyatt was on the ice with Moore and told reporters, ““That was scary, but it was good when I saw him moving his fingers (while down on the ice),” He said.

It appeared as if the Pack captain would be carried off on a stretcher, but he recovered enough to skate off on his own power. He was taken to the hospital for precautionary tests to determine the exact nature of the injury. The initial speculation is that Moore has sustained some sort of concussion.

“I guess he’s fine,” Gernander said. “We’ll see how he reacts in the next 24 hours, but he actually skated off on his own power, so that’s a good sign. But he just didn’t remember the play afterwards.”

When he views the tapes, perhaps he’ll recall his part in the only goal of the game. “Moorsie gave me a nice pass, and I was just trying to get the puck on the net,” Pyatt said to reporters. Pyatt confirmed what the replays showed which was that the puck had hit Dupont in the midsection and changed direction and fooled All Star goaltender, Jeff Frazee (28 saves) and wound up in the top of the net.

However, even into the last minute of the contest, the outcome was still in doubt. The Devils (29-30-2-6), in desperate need of a win to make a run at fourth place Manchester, were buzzing the Pack net. In the last minute, former second round draft pick Barry Tallackson put on the afterburners on a rush up left wing and charged hard at Wiikman.

“I just read the play,” Wiikman said afterwards. “He had pretty good speed, so I figured he’d probably take it wide, and he did.” The Finnish netminder slid to his left and stayed with Tallackson. At the last possible second, Wiikman threw out his left leg and stopped Tallackson with the pad. Wiikman’s brilliant save was the 18th of the night and preserved the shutout, his second of the year.

Gernander summed up the evening best telling reporters that, “We took a few too many penalties, but we kept the puck out of the net,” He said. Gernander then sounded much like Rangers head coach John Tortorella when he said,  “If we’re imposing our style and really hopping, we probably take fewer penalties. I can’t complain about our penalty killing or defensive play, and the goaltending was there, but I’d just like to see a little more desperation and us impose our forechecking style. It wasn’t ‘river hockey,’ but we were content to try to get our opportunities on the rush or wait for a special-team situation.”

Gernander finished his thought saying, “But the defense played a whale of a game and Miika made the big save at the end, so all in all, it was a good win.”

Bruce Berlet once again does his great work telling the story at Hartfordwolfpack.com and the Lowell story appears at lowelldevilshockey.com.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET for stat lovers everywhere.

NOTES:

* One of those rare occasions in life where getting hurt helps…Matt Zaba is nursing a finger injury and hasn’t played and other netminders slipped in their play and now Zaba sits sixth overall with a 2.35GAA and a.921%

* Greg Moore now has points in four straight (3g, 3a) and five of six (4g, 3a).

* By blanking the Devils on the power play six times, the Pack moved up to 15th overall from 17th entering the contest on the penalty kill

* On the other hand, the power play was again all over the place and could not muster anything significant including two opportunities to put the game away in the third. They threw up a big goose egg in five chances and dropped out of the top ten overall in the AHL to eleventh with a putrid 17.5% conversion rate. Think about this for a moment. The Rangers are consistently bashed for being awful and they’re at 15.2% good for 28th out of thirty in the NHL. If the Pack were putting their number in their, 17.5% conversion rate would rank them tied with Dallas at 25th. In the AHL though it’s good for eleventh.

* Inside the Numbers: The Pack raise their home record to 22-12-0-2, are now plus-eight on goals scored (197-189) are 19-5-0-1 when leading after one period of play, 23-1-1-1 when leading after two, 18-12-1-1 when outshooting their opponents and 18-7-3-3 in one goal decided games.

* Wiikman has won three and lost two in his last five starts with a .869% and a 3.00GAA. For the season, Wiikman is now 18-18-3 with two shutouts a.900% and a 2.87GAA.

* The Pack play their next four straight on the road and then on the final weekend play two of their last three away from the XL Center. If the team is going to capture their first division crown in five years they’re going to have to earn it as they are going to face Providence three times before it’s all over and two of them are on the road.

LINES:

Bell – Rissmiller – Parenteau @

Pyatt – Moore © – Owens

Dupont – Anisimov – Weise

DiDiomete – Ouellette – Sugden

Denisov – Fahey

Sanguinetti – Potter @

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 – 47 Tommy Pyatt
2. HFD – 62 Miika Wiikman
3. LOW – 12 Rod Pelley

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Ian Croft (87), Referee
Luke Galvin (2), Linesman
Kevin Redding (16), Linesman

SCOREBOARD WATCHING:

There was only one other game in the Atlantic Division as Portland wiped out Manchester at the Verizon Wireless Center in Manchester 5-2.

Friday is a huge hockey night for everyone as we approach only ten games remaining for just about everyone. Worcester travels to Bridgeport for a meeting with the second place Sound Tigers while the Pack will root for sixth place Albany to attempt to upset Providence at the Dunkin Donuts Center.  Manchester will look to overcome their Wednesday drubbing in Portland and get back to their winning ways up in Springfield against the last place Falcons.

Saturday the Pack will be rooting for instate rival Bridgeport to do them a solid by knocking off Providence, first place in the East Division Hershey visits Portland, while Worcester travels to Lowell to face the fading Devils.

Next Sunday, Portland is in Bridgeport, Hershey is up in Manchester, and the Worcester Sharks will look to feed on bird meat as they challenge the Falcons in Springfield.

STANDINGS:

Rank          Team                        GP    W      L     OTL   SOL   PTS

NEXT GAME:

The Pack will start their weekend of travel with a trip to Maine to take on the Pirates at the Cumberland County Civic Center in a key game for the Pack. The Bruins have a game in hand and play a far weaker team in the Albany River Rats.