OVERTHROWING THE MONARCHY 

   VERSUS  

It literally took 65 minutes to determine a winner in what was, for the Hartford Wolf Pack, the most important victory of the early 2009 – 2010 season. Corey Locke’s stuff in past Manchester Monarch netminder Jonathan Bernier as the clock expired in overtime gave the Pack the win over a first place team who came into the game winners of six in a row, and nine of their first eleven. But more important than that, it established to the Pack players that they could follow up a bad blow out with a big win and keep their momentum moving forward.

I was pretty lucky,” Locke said to reporters afterwards. “Fortunately the shot (by defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti) got through to me. I held on to (the puck), the goalie made a good save, then it came loose and I poked it in. Very lucky."

The old saying goes,"It's better to be lucky than good." That may be one thing, but when a player like Locke puts two goals and five assists over two games into the scorer's sheet, it's more than just a little luck.

“Corey is a very opportunistic player," Gernander said. "He gets his opportunities and has a nose for the net.”

In overtime, where the two teams are playing four aside, there is lots of open ice and both team’s had good chances throughout. Third Star of the Game Viatcheslav Voynov had a solid scoring chance that was turned aside by Pack starter Chad Johnson. P.A. Parenteau came right the other way but hit the stone wall that Bernier (27 saves, 6-2-0, 1.49 GAA, .956 save percentage) has been to this point in the season.

But as time wound down, the Pack rushed the puck up ice and just got the puck on net. Locke found the puck in front of him and put it on net. Justin Azevedo inadvertently kicked the puck back towards his netminder who could not handle it cleanly and it slid back to Locke. Last season’s Canadian AHL All-Star saw the puck and just put it in the net just as the buzzer sounded in overtime giving the home team the win.

After a 7-0 thrashing of the Providence Bruins Saturday night, Hartford Wolf Pack head coach Ken Gernander, in his post game news conference with reporters spoke about his team’s need to find consistency. “It was a good rebound (after losing to the Hershey Bears 6-0 Friday night) and rather encouraging, but one of the bigger things in pro sports is consistency,” He said. “(Last night was) all well and good, but we have to put our focus on Manchester.” And they did just that Sunday.

Gernander felt his team is learning the lessons they're being instructed on. “Not to be cliché, but you play right to the end,” Gernander said in the post game news conference. “We’ve been asking all the guys for two weeks to finish all their plays in practice and in games, battle for loose pucks until the play is dead. They stuck with and got a big goal."

With the recent additions of Ryan Garlock, Chris Chappell and Derek Couture from Charlotte and Parenteau back from a call-up in New York, the Wolf Pack came out and attacked Manchester from the opening drop of the puck.

Gabe Gauthier took a bad penalty hooking Corey Potter in the offensive zone and set up an interesting scenario. The Pack possess the best power play unit coming into the contest with a 29.8% (17/57) conversion rate. Conversely, Manchester has the top Penalty Killing unit with a 96.2% (51/53). There’s an old adage that states that a good defense will beat a good offense, but apparently nobody had told the Pack.

55 seconds after Gauthier took his seat in solitary confinement, Corey Locke in the right circle found Parenteau down low to starter Jonathan Bernier’s left. Parenteau attempted to stuff it in past Bernier. Bernier stuck his pad out and the puck came right back to Parenteau who slid the puck up the slot where defenseman Illka Heikkinen snuck in from his left point position and beat defenseman Joe Piskula to the puck and fired it past Bernier.

Sometimes the bounces go your way and some times they don’t. In the first period, things for the Pack certainly did. Just 2:58 after the first tally, the Pack struck again on a pinball like shot. Parenteau fed Locke behind the Manchester net. Locke brought the puck out to Bernier’s right and turned and fired a shot on net. Bobby Sanguinetti this time broke in from his right point position and had Locke’s shot hit him on the way to the net. The puck deflected off Sanguinetti and hit Piskula skates and redirected and surprised Bernier as it went in the net past him for an early 2-0 lead at 7:08.

Seven seconds later Andres Ambuhl could have left his teammates in a world of trouble taking a double minor for tripping putting the Pack on the penalty kill for four minutes. Fresh off his first career shutout, Johnson (33 saves, 4-3-0, 2.86 GAA, .895 save percentage), the Calgary, Alberta Canada native stood tall particularly on a great stop of a David Kolomatis try from the slot.

The Pack started the second period with the same intensity that had built them a two nothing lead, but as P.A. Parenteau said between periods, “We lost our focus for about ten minutes and they capitalized.”"

After Corey Potter took a slashing call at 11:26, Voynov had a puck in the slot on the power play. However the Chelyabinsk, Russia native fanned on his shot while being guarded by Jordan Owens. Unfortunately, Owens though the Pack had possession of the puck and started to vacate the zone. But Voynov regained the puck and moved by Sanguinetti and fired a high shot that beat Johnson putting the Monarchs on the board.

Just 1:41 later the Monarchs would tie the score. Johnson made an initial save off a blast from Kolomatis from the right side, but he could not control the puck and it fell into the right side of the crease where Richard Clue was standing by his lonesome and smacked it into the twine knotting the score at two.

The Pack would see Owens sent into exile in the box for an inadvertent tripping call and on the ensuing penalty kill had their best chance at regaining the lead when Brodie Dupont’s forecheck steal and wraparound try was amazing stopped by the leg of Bernier.

The Pack were outshot 11-8 in the first and 13-7 in the second.

In the third period, both teams killed off Tripping penalties and played the game close to the vest almost sensing that whoever flinched and made a mistake would lose the contest. At 11:21, Johnson shined as he stopped Gauthier’s stuff in attempt after the Monarch center from Torrance, California came out of the right corner with speed and tried to ram it in under the Pack netminder.

Johnson came up big again moments later when at 14:10 Brandon Segal had a huge scoring chance that Johnson ended with great glove work.

The great play coming from their net inspired the Pack who stepped up their own offensive pressure only to see Bernier rise to the occasion.

But in this see-saw period, Manchester was not going to quit. Trevor Lewis had two more great scoring opportunities the best one coming with Johnson down and an open net in front of him. But with just 25 ticks of the clock remaining to be played, Lewis for some unexplained reason, fired the puck wide and missed the open net which set up the game to head into overtime and give Locke his moment of glory.

Johnson, speaking after the game to the press said it all. "The defense played awesome in front of me,” The rookie netminder said. “You can’t give enough credit to them. They were doing a good job of standing up at the blue line, let me see all the shots and cleared all the rebounds. (The Monarchs) had some chances because they have some skilled players, but there are times in the game when a goalie has to stand up.”

Bruce Berlet regularly brings to the printed word the same magic as Locke’s goal brought to the XL Center on this Sunday afternoon. Read the recap at Hartfordwolfpack.com. For the Manchester perspective, if they sent a reporter, you’ll find it at UnionLeader.com.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

NOTES:

* Johnson’s keep the puck out of the Pack net for exactly 110 minutes prior to Voynov’s goal. He last surrendered a goal to Alexandre Giroux at 2:39 of the third period Friday night against Hershey.

* This was Locke’s second Game Winner of the season tying him with Dale Weise for the team lead.

* The game winning tally was Locke’s 8th of the season tying him with P.A. Parenteau for the team lead.

* 4-0-0-0 is now the Pack record when leading after one period. This was their first venture being tied after two periods and are 1-0-0-0.

* The Pack were outshot in this contest 35-30 overall and increased their record to 3-1-0-0 in such situations and improved to 3-2-0-0 in one goal games.

* After playing six of their first seven on the road and going 2-5-0-0 overall, 1-5-0-0 on the road, the Pack have responded with a very successful home-stand winning four of five and got their record to .500 for the second time of the season at 6-6-0-0.

* The Pack owned the Monarchs last season posting an overall 6-1-1-0 record against their New Hampshire rivals.

* By stopping the Manchester power play five of their six tries, the Pack power play rate moved up to exactly 75% at 15 given up in 60 tries.

* The Power play will take a little hit going one for four to 29.5% 18 for 61.

MEANWHILE DOWN IN CHARLOTTE:

  Versus   

Gwinnett Gladiators at Charlotte Checkers

The Charlotte Checkers dropped their first home game of the season with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Gwinnett Gladiators on Sunday afternoon. Gwinnett took advantage often on the power play scoring four goals with the man-advantage.

Checkers goaltender Billy Sauer stopped 31 of 35 shots in a losing effort and former ECHL All-Star Tyler Doig picked up his 100th point as a professional in front a home opener crowd of over 6,000.

Charlotte opened the scoring five and a half minutes into the game on a goal by leading scorer Michel Leveille. Tyler Doig let a shot go from the blueline that went wide and bounced off the end boards onto the stick of Leveille who then tapped it in for his sixth of the early season.

The Checkers got into penalty trouble in the second period and Gwinnett would answer back twice on the power play.

On a 5-on-3 power play, Gladiators forward Scott Mifsud took a pass down low and dished the puck cross-crease to Pat Galivan who one-timed a shot past Checkers’ goaltender Billy Sauer. The goal came at the 9:01 mark of the period.

Charlotte captain Jared Nightingale then took a double-minor penalty for high-sticking that proved to be costly. Gwinnett’s Mifsud dished a pass back to rookie defenseman Drew Paris who beat Sauer with a wrist shot for his league-leading fifth goal of the season among blueliners.

Gwinnett held a 24-18 shot advantage through two periods of play.

Charlotte would tie the game just over eight minutes into the third period on a beautiful goal by Tyler Doig. Doig took a pass at the faceoff circle from Mike Taylor and fired a shot high over the glove of Gwinnett goaltender Danny Taylor for his second of the season. The goal came at the 8:11 mark of the third period and was Doig’s 100th point as a professional.

The Checkers took the lead with just over eight minutes to play on a goal by veteran tough-guy T.J. Reynolds. Reynolds let a shot go on Taylor that deflected into the air and dropped back down across the goal line. Matt Schepke and Mike Taylor picked up assists on the even-strength goal.

Gwinnett tied the game two minutes later with their third power-play goal of the afternoon. Forward Tom Zanoski took a pass from Sam Roberts and buried it blocker side for his fifth goal and team-leading 12th point of the season.

The game remained tied 3-3 at the end of regulation as the teams prepared for their second overtime of this two-game series.

In the extra frame, and on the power play once again, Gwinnett forward Scott Mifsud notched his fourth of season. The game-winning tally came with 42 seconds to play in overtime and sealed the victory for Gwinnett.

LINES:

Owens – Locke – Parenteau

Grachev – Dupont – Weise

Garlock – Arnason – Couture

Soryal – Crowder – Ambuhl

Sauer – Dandenault

Heikkinen – Sanguinetti

Potter – Henley

Johnson

(Assistant Captains Italicized)

SCRATCHES:

Dane Byers – Recall with NY Rangers

Devin DiDiomete – Broken Arm – Mid-November

Dave Urquhart – Healthy

Nigel Williams – Healthy

Chris Chappell – Healthy

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 84 Corey Locke
2. HFD – 29 Chad Johnson
3. MCH – 76 Viatcheslav Voynov

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Zac Wiebe (89), Referee
Derek Wahl (46), Linesman
Jim Briggs (83), Linesman

NEXT GAME:

The Pack start a three game road trip as they head to the Dunkin Donuts Center for a rematch with the Providence Bruins who will be looking to redeem themselves after getting slaughtered by the Pack 6-0 on Saturday night.

SCORE-SHEET:

Manchester 0 2 0 0 – 2

Hartford 2 0 0 1 – 3

1st Period-1, Hartford, Heikkinen 3 (Parenteau, Locke), 4:10 (pp). 2, Hartford, Sanguinetti 4 (Locke, Parenteau), 7:08. Penalties-Gauthier Mch (hooking), 3:15; Ambuhl Hfd (unsportsmanlike conduct, tripping), 7:15.

2nd Period-3, Manchester, Voynov 3 (Loktionov, Gauthier), 12:39 (pp). 4, Manchester, Clune 1 (Kolomatis, Moller), 14:20. Penalties-Couture Hfd (tripping), 2:23; Piskula Mch (tripping), 5:38; Gauthier Mch (slashing), 6:54; Potter Hfd (interference), 11:26; Owens Hfd (tripping), 16:08.

3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Segal Mch (tripping), 5:26; Couture Hfd (tripping), 8:14.

OT Period-5, Hartford, Locke 8 (Sanguinetti), 4:59. Penalties-No Penalties

Shots on Goal-Manchester 11-13-9-2-35. Hartford 8-7-10-5-30.

Power Play Opportunities-Manchester 1 of 6; Hartford 1 of 4.

Goalies-Manchester, Bernier 6-2-0 (30 shots-27 saves). Hartford, Johnson 4-3-0 (35 shots-33 saves).

A-2,801