WOLF PACK LOOK LOST AND LOST 

      VERSUS      

When a team loses and shows little to no effort, at home no less, it’s a safe bet that nobody in the locker room is going to be in a particularly good mood. Such was the case Wednesday night as the Hartford Wolf Pack got trounced by the visiting Norfolk Admirals 5-1 in front of 2,317 at the XL Center.

“It seemed the more the game went on, the more we kind of fell apart,” Chad Johnson (2-2-1, 31 saves) said after the game.

The game started out well for the home team, much as it did when the Wolf Pack jumped out to a 3-0 lead Sunday in Providence.

Hartford came out with some intensity and pinned Norfolk in their own end. They doubled up their guests shot output 8-4 and were in control. Just 27 seconds into the contest Kris Newbury got a solid scoring chance on Cedrick Desjardins (2-0-0, 24 saves) from in the slot and the Pack built on that. The team drew a Radko Gudas tripping penalty at 8:50 and went to work on the power play.

After moving the puck effectively around the perimeter, an Admiral finally got a stick on the puck and went to clear it. Wade Redden who was on the left point made a good play with his glove and bounced the puck off his chest to keep it in the zone. he then advanced the puck to Dane Byers. The team captain then passed on to Newbury down low on the left side. Newbury handed off to Tim Kennedy and the young centerman went from left to right behind the net and came out just off Desjardin’ left and fired it into the net over the Admiral netminder at 10:05.

Apparently, like up in Providence Sunday, the team thought they were done after that because they just stopped competing only this time they didn’t have a goaltender standing on his head like Cam Talbot did in a 41 shot shut-out.

“We had a couple of good moments in the first period, but I don’t think we played nearly the way we have to play to be successful,” a visibly angered Wolf Pack coach Ken Gernander said in his post game comments. “I think it probably started against Providence. We got up 3-0 and didn’t force the issue, didn’t attack. Talbot played a good game for us to preserve our lead. We got up again tonight and didn’t want to pursue, didn’t want to attack, didn’t want to finish hits. It wasn’t very pretty.

Gernander, not one to mince words, especially when he’s disappointed in his team’s performance, felt that there was plenty of blame to go around. “It wasn’t necessarily the young kids,” he said. “I think we had some pretty quality players that decided there was other ways of doing things. If we had won all our one-on-one battles, if we had won all our races for loose pucks and somehow we lost on a bad bounce, you could probably take that. But the fact is we didn’t win those battles, we didn’t force them to turn over pucks, we didn’t separate them from the puck and I’d think Chad would like to have some of the goals back, so consequently you saw the score.”

Norfolk tied the score at one a side at the 1:52 of the second period. After Johnson made a nice save on a Tim Marks shot at 1:29, an Evgeny Grachev defensive zone giveaway in the middle of the ice put the puck on the stick of Johan Harju. The Admiral left wing let loose a ferocious shot from in the right circle. Johnson left a huge rebound out to the center of the ice when Chris Durno was waiting all alone. Durno then wristed a shot that Johnson didn’t close his legs fast enough on and the score was tied.

That lasted less than 5:30 minutes.

With Jyri Niemi in the penalty box for his first of two penalties in the period, Mathieu Roy made a spectacular pass behind his back from along the right wall by the blue line to find Blair Jones. The Admirals center iceman came in off the right wing completely untouched and from the right circle whipped a shot that hit defenseman Tomas Kundratek’s foot and beat Johnson low on the stick side for what proved to be the game winner at 7:19.

The Admirals third tally came after some horrible puck handling by Wade Redden, Johnson and Nigel Williams. Then a bad pass sent the stick off to Gudas who found Chris Durno. The Admirals’ Assistant Captain and left winger threw the puck in front of the net where Mike Angelidis had set up camp. Redden was in the area but essentially left Angelidis alone and the Unionville, Ontario native jammed the puck under Johnson for the third of the period for the visitors.

Hartford surrendered two more in the third. The first to Troy Milam off a shot that hit Pavel Valentenko’s stick and the last at 15:10 came off a Harju pass that found Scott Jackson for his first of the season.

The Pack only had three real sound scoring chances. Two came off the stick of “The Norwegian Hobbit,” Mat Zuccarello. His first came with just 18.6 seconds in the first period but his 20 footer was erased by Desjardins glove. His second chance came off a breakaway but he lost control of the puck and wasn’t able to effectively put it on net. The Pack’s other opportunity came late in the game when Jeremy Williams missed the net off a 3-on-1 odd man rush.

Johnson summed it up best, “I think everyone has got to be better, myself included.”

 Bruce Berlet once again writes to teach those of us who are still learning the best way to do it at Hartfordwolfpack.com.  The Norfolk story comes from the TV Media no less. You can read about it at WVEC.com

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

SOUNDS OF THE GAME

Head Coach Ken Gernander’s Press Conference:

NOTES:

* After seeing specialists in Hartford on Monday and New York on Tuesday, Wolf Pack right wing Dale Weise has decided to have surgery on his broken left hand on Friday.

“The doctor said I needed the surgery because there was a potential the bone could attach to the tendon,” Weise said. “It’s similar to what (Justin) Soryal and (Artem) Anisimov had, though the doc said it’s worse than Artie, which didn’t make me happy. But it looks like it’ll be 4-to-6 weeks (to recover), compared to 6-to-8 if I didn’t have the surgery and just tried to rehab it. But there was no guarantee that it would heal on its own, so I told the doctor, ‘Let’s get it done.’ ”

Weise traveled to New York on Thursday, will have the surgery Friday morning and hopes to return to the lineup by early December. It’s especially frustrating for Weise to be injured now because the Rangers have only 12 healthy forwards with leading scorer Marian Gaborik (separated left shoulder), Vinny Prospal (knee) and captain/Trumbull native Chris Drury (broken left index finger) out from three weeks to six weeks.

Weise has one goal and one assist in three games this season after recording career highs in goals (28), assists (22) and points (50) in 2009-10.

* Newbury leads the Wolf Pack in assists with eight and points, also with eight.

*  Fans can vote at CTWhale.com and at various retailers courtesy of Hartford Distributors and Bud Light for the All-Time Wolf Pack Team. Voting ends November 7th.

* WWE fans can meet MVP before the game Friday night in the XL Center atrium starting at 6 pm.

* Wade Redden point streak ended at 5 games when he failed to register a point in this game.

* Former fan favorite Mitch Fritz was in the house and greeted a lot of the fans in the concourse. Fritz is on the Admirals roster but is presently injured.

* In the XL Center last night was former Wolf Pack head coach John Paddock, who led the team to the Calder Cup in 2000, and former Whalers Mark and Marty Howe, who of course are the sons of Hall of Famer Gordie Howe

LINES:

Byers © – Newbury – J. Williams
Grachev – Kennedy – Zuccarello
Soryal – Garlock – McKelvie
Dupont – Wong – Tessier

Redden – Niemi
McDonagh – Kundratek 
Valentenko – N. Williams

Johnson 
Grumet-Morris

(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized) 

SCRATCHES:

Devin DiDiomete – Hip – Day-to-Day
Jared Nightingale – Foot Infection – Day-to-Day
Dale Weise – Broken Wrist – Four to Six weeks
Lee Baldwin – Undisclosed Injury

THREE STARS:

1. NOR – C. Durno
2. NOR – M. Angelidis
3. NOR – J. Harju

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Referee:
Terry Koharski (10)

Linesmen:
David Spannaus (8)
Glen Cooke (6)

NEXT GAME:

The five-game homestand goes on to game two with a visit from ex-Pack Corey Locke, and Frankie Lessard and the Binghamton Senators Friday night at 7pm. Pregame with Bob Crawford is on the air at 6:30pm.

To watch the game live, you can purchased it for $6.99 at AHL-live.

For Ticket information call (860) 548-2000.

Too far away or can’t make it? Listen live at WTIC.com or from your cell phone or computer visit www.twitter.com/howlingstoday for complete live in-game coverage. 

SCORE-SHEET:

Norfolk Admirals 5 at Hartford Wolf Pack 1 – Status: Final
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 – XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Norfolk 0 3 2 – 5
Hartford 1 0 0 – 1

1st Period-1, Hartford, Kennedy 2 (Newbury, Byers), 10:05 (PP). Penalties-Jackson Nor (tripping), 8:50; Grachev Hfd (interference), 16:03; Angelidis Nor (boarding, fighting), 18:49; McKelvie Hfd (fighting), 18:49.

2nd Period-2, Norfolk, Durno 3 (Harju), 1:52. 3, Norfolk, Jones 3 (Roy, Desjardins), 7:19 (PP). 4, Norfolk, Angelidis 2 (Durno, Gudas), 15:33. Penalties-Niemi Hfd (interference), 5:46; Niemi Hfd (tripping), 12:49; Mihalik Nor (interference), 15:47; Angelidis Nor (cross-checking), 19:49.

3rd Period-5, Norfolk, Milam 3 (Quick, Wright), 14:25. 6, Norfolk, Jackson 1 (Harju, Mihalik), 15:10. Penalties-Kennedy Hfd (hooking), 8:35; Newbury Hfd (tripping), 8:52.

Shots on Goal-Norfolk 11-14-11-36. Hartford 11-7-7-25.
Power Play Opportunities-Norfolk 1 / 5; Hartford 1 / 4.
Goalies-Norfolk, Desjardins 2-0-0 (25 shots-24 saves). Hartford, Johnson 2-2-1 (36 shots-31 saves).
A-2,317
Referees-Terry Koharski (10).
Linesmen-David Spannaus (8), Glen Cooke (6).