By Bruce Berlet
Chad Kolarik was chilling out around 4 p.m. Thursday when he got a phone call from Columbus Blue Jackets assistant general manager Chris McFarland.
To his stunning surprise, the right wing on the Springfield Falcons’ No. 1 line learned he had been traded from to the New York Rangers for Hartford Wolf Pack left wing Dane Byers.
“It caught me completely off-guard,” Kolarik said Friday morning after his first practice with his new team at Champions Skating Center. “I definitely wasn’t expecting it, but whenever you get traded, some team wants you, so I’m happy to be here. It’s a great opportunity, for sure.”
It wasn’t a total surprise for Byers, who had asked to be traded.
“It was time for a change of scenery,” Byers told the Springfield Union-News. “I have only great things to say about the New York organization, but I’m happy to get this new opportunity, and I’m looking forward to playing with these guys. I’m hoping that I create some offense.”
As for playing his former mates in his Falcons debut Saturday night at 7 at the XL Center in Hartford, Byers said, “You might want a little bit of grace period there, but what the heck, might as well get right at it. It is going to somewhat weird playing against former teammates, but once that puck drops, there are no friends on the ice.”
Byers’ closest friends on the Wolf Pack were probably wings Brodie Dupont and Dale Weise, who has resumed skating on his own after having a broken hand surgically repaired three weeks ago. He is scheduled to return by early December, but Friday he said he was ahead of schedule.
Kolarik was the Falcons’ No. 3 scorer with four goals and six assists in 13 games, and the two guys ahead of him, Tom Sestito and Mike Blunden, had been on his line. But as Kolarik was headed 25 miles south to Hartford, Blunden was going several hundred miles west after being called up by the Blue Jackets, leaving Sestito to fend on his own.
“They retired the Red Line,” said a smiling Kolarik, referring to the color jerseys the trio wore in practice.
Sestito (six goals, eight assists) might get Byers as a new linemate, while Kolarik was on the “Orange Line” on Friday after coach Ken Gernander put him at right wing with veteran center Kris Newbury and second-year pro Evgeny Grachev, who returned Monday from his first six NHL games with the Rangers. Newbury has only one goal in 16 games, but a team-high eight assists has him tied for second in scoring with nine points, three behind leader Jeremy Williams (six goals, six assists). Grachev has only one goal and one assist in 10 games and didn’t get a point in his stay with the Rangers.
“We hope it’s a good fit,” Gernander said. “Chad said he’s most comfortable at right wing, so it’s best to get him acclimated there.”
Kolarik called Newbury and Grachev “great linemates,” and he’s familiar with Newbury’s feisty style from several games between the Wolf Pack and Falcons, as well as when Kolarik was with the San Antonio Rampage and Newbury with the Grand Rapids Griffins.
“I’m just going to play my role and try to shoot the puck,” Kolarik said. “I know Newbury is a great passer, so I’ll just try to get open and see what happens. I know they’ve been having trouble scoring, but don’t expect me to fill (Byers’) shoes (as a tough guy). I’m definitely looking to put up points and score goals and hopefully help this team win. We need to turn this ship around. I’m not a pure goal-scorer, just an opportunistic guy, throw the puck at the net and make smart plays. Obviously if your linemates are good, they’ll help you out, too, and I think I have that.”
Rangers assistant general manager/assistant coach and Wolf Pack GM Jim Schoenfeld said he had to trade something worthwhile to get something worthwhile, even if one of the moving parts was the Wolf Pack’s fourth captain.
“Dane has been a heart-and-soul member of the Wolf Pack, and we certainly appreciate his contributions,” Schoenfeld said while watching practice. “He’s a gritty player and a good team guy, but he had lost his edge by just that little bit mostly because he no longer saw himself as a possible New York Ranger.
“So it didn’t pan out quite the way we thought, so we feel with this deal that we’ve enhanced the overall skill level of our team by adding Chad. It’s pretty evident to anyone watching that you have to score goals if you’re going to win hockey games. Not only does Chad have a good scoring touch, but he has a good playmaker touch. If we start scoring some goals, it expands the margin for error because right now we have no margin for error. So in essence, you have to give up good to get good, and we hope it works out very well for both players.”
Kotalik was born in Abington, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, and stayed there until he was 14 when he went to play for Deerfield (Mass.) Academy. He played at Deerfield for one season and then played his junior and senior years of high school with the U.S. national program’s Under-18 team in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Kotalik, 24, was the seventh-round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2004, then went to the University of Michigan, where he had 78 goals and 96 assists in 163 games in four years. He began his pro career with the San Antonio Rampage and then played with the Crunch and Falcons (7-5-1-0) before joining the team that plays its final game as the Wolf Pack on Saturday night before being re-branded as the Connecticut Whale on Nov. 27. He also was scoreless in two games with the Blue Jackets last season.
Byers, 24, the Rangers’ second-round pick in 2004 and team’s fourth captain, has always been a standup guy and strong foot soldier in the corners and in front of the net for the Wolf Pack (4-9-2-1) and has three goals and six assists in 16 games this season.
Kolarik and Byers switched places as the Wolf Pack is on a 1-8-2-1 slide, which includes a franchise-record, nine-game winless streak (0-7-2-0), and has scored only 10 goals in 10 games beside a 7-1 romp over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Sunday night. But that was followed by their second shutout against this season, a 4-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Gernander said he and his staff would wait a while before deciding on a new captain. Newbury and veteran defenseman Wade Redden have been the alternate captains, and Gernander said he hadn’t decided if he would add another A to a jersey or stay with the two. Weise would be a good choice as captain, but he’s still sidelined and likely would be in New York if not injured.
All-Wolf Pack Team To Be Announced Saturday
The All-Time Wolf Pack Team, selected by a vote of the fans, will be announced Saturday night before a game against the Falcons, the last for the Wolf Pack at the XL Center. The first 3,000 fans will receive a free Wolf Pack commemorative poster, and there will be video highlights of the 13-plus years of the team, which will be re-branded as the Connecticut Whale on Nov. 27 against the Sound Tigers.
Fans voted for one goalie, two defensemen and three forwards. The candidates were goaltenders Jason LaBarbera, J.F. Labbe and Steve Valiquette, defensemen Dan Girardi, Mike Mottau, Thomas Pock, Corey Potter, Dale Purinton and Terry Virtue and forwards Gernander, Byers, Derek Armstrong, Nigel Dawes, Alex Giroux, Todd Hall, Greg Moore, P.A. Parenteau, Richard Scott, Brad Smyth, P.J. Stock and Craig Weller.
Wolf Pack Bowl-a-Thon on Sunday
The Wolf Pack will host their annual Bowl-a-Thon on Sunday at the AMF Silver Lanes, 748 Silver Lane, East Hartford. There will be sessions at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
All Wolf Pack players will be bowling with teams of four bowlers, who have collected pledges to benefit Special Olympics Connecticut Eastern Region. A minimum pledge of $200 is required for a team to enter, and the top fund-raising teams will win prizes, including the use of luxury suites at Wolf Pack home games.
Register online at www.soct.org. For more information, call 877-660-6667.
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