CANTLON: (3/28) LAST MID-WEEK GAME HAS SPRINGFIELD IN TOWN
CANTLON: (3/28) LAST MID-WEEK GAME HAS SPRINGFIELD IN TOWN
VERSUS 
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack needed extra time and finally, beat the Springfield Thunderbirds.
The only player to score in the shootout was Scott Kosmachuk who zipped it five-hole on Harri Sateri.
Kosmachuk didn’t think of going glove side despite his having been beaten there twice during regulation. “This season in the shootout, I usually come down the right side, so I decided to switch things up and give a different look. I saw that five-hole so I decided to put the puck there.”
In the shootout, Alex Georgiev (33 saves) was in net for the Pack and made two great poke checks on the two final chances by Springfield where he foiled Francois Beauchemin and Curtis Valk to earn the win.
“I was committed to going down. They were pretty close in tight, so I was able to poke check them so the couldn’t get their shots away,” Georgiev said.
Georgiev showed the same poise in the postgame interview while receiving pressure from Kosmachuk who was taking photos of him trying to throw him off his interview game.
The Pack’s loose defensive play nearly ruined what was another strong game by Georgiev.
As the Wolf Pack are want to do, they create opportunities for the opposition by not checking enough in their own zone.
Dryden Hunt was in the right wing circle and took a shot. Georgiev made the save, but everyone was standing around while rookie Joel Lowry got his stick on the loose puck and slipped it by Georgiev at 9:08.
The official scorers gave the goal to Hunt which was his 19th of the season.
But Lowry finally got his first pro goal when he was again, left unchecked in front of the net. Hunt had a shot sail past Georgiev off the post and come right to him and he easily put in at 12:17.
The Wolf Pack quickly established themselves in Springfield territory and scored their second goal early in the third to gain momentum.
“It was like the first period. We came out of the locker room with a lot of jump, and established some momentum that carried for a portion of the third period. We let it slip from us, but we got it back at the end,” Kosmachuk said.
Battling in the T-Birds zone, the Pack moved the puck well. John Albert gained the puck and was able to get it Matt Beleskey who found Brandon Crawley open. Crawley moved in and fired a shot from 35 feet out that went over Samuel Montembeault’s glove to give the Pack a 2-1 lead.
“Crawls had a good chance in the second period. That was nice to see, a hard-working player like Crawls get rewarded like that,” remarked head coach Keith McCambridge.
The Pack made it a 3-1 lead at 6:25 on a beautiful play. Kosmachuk crossed the Springfield blue line, stopped, curled and found Adam Tambellini, who was filling the lane. Tambellini took the pass from Koscmachuk and whistled a 35-footer over the glove hand of Sateri for the 3-1 lead.
“A beautiful NHL shot by Adam and good delayed speed by Kos down the middle. Those are pretty goals to watch,” McCambridge said of Tambellini’s 16th of the season.
Springfield had the edge in quality chances in the first half of the second period.
Georgiev stopped Robb Farnham on a breakaway at 8:40. Rookie Jake Horton, who was playing his first pro game since leaving Harvard, had a semi-breakaway at 4:18. Lowry was on the right side of the net and denied by a sliding Georgiev.
Hunt thought he had had him beat at 1:59 into the period, but rang it off the left post.
“There was when, at times, there was a breakdown or a flurry of shots in tight on out net he stood tall in the game coming back from New York,” McCambridge said of his netminder.
The Pack scored first as Lettieri took a pass from Schneider. Despite being too deep to the goal line, Lettieri took the shot that beat the 6’4 Samuel to the short-side for his 21st of the season.
Springfield tied the game at one when veteran rearguard Maxime Fortunas was at the right point boards and launched a 50-footer. Georgiev made the save on the shot, but could not control the rebound to a safe place. Labrie and rookie Ryan Lindgren couldn’t cover Chase Bailey, who pounced on the loose puck and chipped his 13th past the Bulgarian born goalkeeper who had just been sent back from the Rangers the day before. The goal came at 12:02.
NOTES:
By surpassing the 20 goal mark, Lettieri keeps the Wolf Pack streak going back all 21 years that they’ve had at least one 20 goal scorer. In Year One they had six!!
SCRATCHES:
- Brendan Kotyk (healthy)
- Ryan Gropp (lower body foot)
- Brendan Smith (broken hand listed week to week)
LINES:
Leedahl-Albert-DeSalvo
Nieves-Tambellini-Kosmachuk
Catenacci-Fogarty-Beleskey
Fontaine-Lettieri-Schneider
Labrie-Lindgren
Bigras-Crawley
Pedrie-Denis
With the return of Georgiev, goalie Chris Nell was reassigned to Greenville.
Georgiev’s father was in Montreal from Moscow for his first NHL game, but they watched on TV his first win against Edmonton.
Former Yale goalie Alex Lyon was reassigned from Philadelphia to Lehigh Valley.
He will see a new defenseman there this weekend in former UCONN defenseman David Drake.
Lowry is the younger brother of Winnipeg’s Adam Lowry and both are sons of former NHL’er Dave Lowry.
One of the referees for tonight’s game, Oliver Gouin, was recently named to be one of the referees at the IIHF World Championships to be held in Denmark from May 4-May 10.
Former Springfield Falcon goalie Jonathan Boutin who played with Augsburger (Germany-DEL) this season has signed with EC Bad Nauheim (Germany-DEL-2) next season.
Another Kris Beech goes from MEC Halle to Hannover Indians next season Germany Division-3.
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