CANTLON: (SAT) PACK EXTEND UNBEATEN STREAK TO TEN
VERSUS 
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HERSHEY, PA – Wolves are not supposed to be able to maul bears, but they did on Saturday night.
The Hartford Wolf Pack burst out with four goals in the first 8:03 of the game, and they did it on just seven shots and beat the Hershey Bears 5-2. The win extends their season-high unbeaten streak to ten games (9-0-1-0). The team is now four games above .500 with a record of 24-20-1-3 for 55 points.
The Hershey Bears, usually at or near the top of the AHL standings race, are in last place in the Atlantic Division with a record of 18-25-3-4 for 43 points.
The Pack silenced the 10,574 at the Giant Center, a building that has swallowed some Wolf Pack teams whole over the years.
The Wolf Pack scored on their first powerplay.
Vince Pedrie took Steven Fogarty’s pass and from dead center, 50 feet out, dropped a big slap shot. Cole Schneider, the UCONN product, was in front of the net set a wide screen in front of Bears’ goalie Pheonix Copley and got his stick on the puck for a perfect tip-in for his tenth of the campaign at 1:30.
At 3:15, the Pack made it 2-0.
Dan Catenacci came off the right-wing and sent a backhand attempt at the net. Copley was looking to trap the puck with his glove hand but instead saw it sail past him. Eric Selleck was on the left side, and quickly grabbed the puck and stuffed it in on the short-side for his third goal of the season.
The Pack made it a 3-0 score on a four-on-four situation.
The scoring sequence started with a big defensive play by Ryan Sproul, who was able to force the Bears’ Wayne Simpson on a break down on the right wing and forced him wide with no shot and then crunched him into the backboards.
The puck found rookie Filip Chytil who, with a nice short chip off the boards, sprung Boo Nieves for a free rush down the left wing. Nieves hit Sproul coming up as the trailer and he rifled his sixth goal in six games and his tenth of the season at 7:02. The Bears defenseman, Colby Williams, assisted by backing in and knocking Copley down.
Bears’ head coach, Troy Mann, responded by pulling Copley in favor Vitek Vanacek hoping to stop the bleeding.
The Pack completed their highly-unlikely offensive outburst 61 seconds later on the power-play.
Fogarty made a short pass that split the Bears defense and allowed he and Ryan Gropp to break in on a two-on-one. Gropp waited and then slipped the puck back to Fogarty who put his eighth into the back of the net converting on a tripping penalty by ex-Wolf Pack captain Joe Whitney, traded to the Bears just over 24 hours ago.
At the end of the period, The Pack got another power play as a former Quinnipiac University Bobcat, Jamie Langlois, high-sticked Gropp earning himself a double minor.
The Pack made it 5-0 at 1:08 of the second period as Chytil picked up his second assist when he found and sent a pass toward Scott Kosmachuk, who had inside position on Colby Williams and redirected his 12th past Vanacek.
The Bears tallied their first as Dustin Gazely was right on the doorstep and took a pass from Tyler Grabovac who had retrieved an Aaron Ness pass. He swept around to make the pass and Gazely buried his seventh of the season at 12:14.
The Bears had eleven shots-on-goal in the third and were able to get only one more past Halverson.
Jonas Siegenthaler retrieved Garnett Mitchell’s wide shot and then found Liam O’Brien. He got the puck and stuffed it into the open right side for his ninth goal at 3:18, but that as far as it got for Hershey. Halverson (31 saves) kept the door closed the rest of the way.
NOTES:
The Pack will bus to Philadelphia tomorrow and fly to Charlotte for a pair of mid-week games.
Sproul (1st star)
Fogarty (2nd star)
Chytil (3rd star)
Pedrie and Gropp, and the Three Stars all had two-point games each.
Adam Tambellini’s seven-point game scoring streak came to an end.
It was Halverson’s first game for the Wolf Pack since he played April 14 of last year in the next to the last game of the season against Utica. That game was a 5-4 loss.
The last game action Halverson had was with the Pack’s ECHL affiliates, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, on January 10th. That was a 4-2 road loss to Jacksonville.
The newest Wolf Pack, John Albert, wore #23 and was at center ice for the opening game faceoff. Hubert Labrie wore #32 and had a big hit on former Pack Adam Chapie in the third.
Chapie wore #22 for Hershey and Joe Whitney, #21. Whitney had two shots and Chapie none.
Veteran d-man, Brendan Smith, made his Wolf Pack debut. He wore #42 and goaltender Chris Nell arrived from Kansas City (ECHL) to be Halverson’s backup.
Defenseman Desmond Bergin was released by the Pack after one game and was returned to Adirondack (ECHL).
Charlotte blitzed Springfield 7-0 tonight with Andrew Poturlarski with the hat-trick. Former Ranger, Josh Jooris, was reassigned by Carolina and played wearing #37 and picked up an assist.
Former Salisbury Prep goalie Callum Booth is with Charlotte called up from Florida (ECHL).
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