BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT- An early scoring blitz helped the Lehigh Valley Phantoms down the Hartford Wolf Pack, 7-3 on Wednesday night before announced crowd of 1,367 at the XL Center.
Halloween is less than a week away, but the XL Center was already seeming like a haunted house for a Pack roster that didn’t play like a third-place team.
The first 4:36 of the contest saw the Phantoms surgically build a 3-0 lead and giving Pack starting netminder a start resembling a Freddy Krueger movie. Tokarski had one of the shortest nights in Wolf Pack goaltending history, if not the shortest for a starter in a non-injury related scenario.
The first goal came as Greg Carey, the older brother of ex-Pack, Matt Carey, came down the slot, took a pass from Phil Varone, and then zipped his team-leading fifth goal high to the short-side past Tokarski at 1:05.
2:11 seconds later, Peter Holland was whistled for an interference call putting the Phantoms on the man-advantage. Lehigh Valley’s right winger, Chris Connor, was left all alone at the left side of the net behind Rob O’Gara. Connor easily redirected a pass from German Rubtsov for his second of the season at 3:40.
Colin McDonald found Rubtsov open, just 15 feet out on the left wing side, just 54 seconds after Connor’s goal, and the Wethersfield native backed up behind the net to the right side saw the Pack players chase MacDonald and then against the flow slipped a perfect short pass to Rubtsov charging to the net. Rubtsov one-timed it past Tokarski to the short-side for his fourth of the season.
The Pack took a timeout.
Following the timeout, Tokarski stayed on the bench ending his night abruptly. He was only able to stop just one of four shots he faced. Marek Mazanec was inserted to help stop the carnage.
“We’re pros. We got to be ready when the puck drops. We’re a young team who are making a lot of adjustments to the pro game, but still, we have to be ready at the start of the game,” veteran Shawn O’Donnell, one of the few bright spots on the night, said.
Head coach, Keith McCambridge, was in a long postgame meeting with GM, Chris Drury, and was unavailable for comment.
The Phantoms added another goal before the period ended. Varone came off the left wing side and zipped around a sliding O’Gara before snapping a shot over Mazanec’s glove.
Despite outshooting the Phantoms 13-10, the Pack had some quality chances, but the damage was already done.
Shortly after the timeout, Holland had a breakaway on Michal Neuvirth. The Philadelphia Flyer is in Lehigh Valley on a conditioning stint and playing for the first time with the Phantoms since the pre-season, stopped Holland.
Mikael Lindqvist, Ty Ronning, and Tim Gettinger all had quality scoring chances but in all three cases, there were no rebounds or second chances to be had.
However, four goals allowed on ten shots is just plain old not good. The plus/minus category wasn’t a pretty sight at the end of the game for Lias Andersson, Bobby Butler, O’Gara, Lindqvist, and Steven Fogarty. All of them were all a minus-3.
The second period started just off just as poorly for the Wolf Pack. Just 30-seconds in, Mike Vecchione buried his second of the season off a rebound from Dylan Palmquist’s left point shot. The puck went through a maze of sticks and legs right to Vecchione who made it a 5-0 Phantoms lead.
The Pack managed to avoid the shutout and put one on the board.
Just ten seconds into the man advantage, John Gilmour’s shot from the left point was stopped by Neuvirth, who kicked it to his right. Fogarty was right there to pounce on it and tally his fourth of the season at 1:26.
For the game, the Pack went just one-for-eight on the power play against the league’s worst PK unit that succeeds at an embarrassing rate of just 66.7%.
The Pack snagged their second goal of the game when Gabriel Fontaine was in close and stopped by Neuvirth, but the rebound went out front. Storming the front of the net was the trailer on the play, Shawn O’Donnell, who snagged his first of the season at 12:03 and made it 5-2.
“I just followed the play in,” O’Connell said. “Gabby did a lot of the work to make the chance for me.”
There were plenty of Pack defensive gaffes to go around.
Holland was stripped twice on the power play and both led to Lehigh Valley breakaway chances. Fortunately for the Pack, Mazanec stopped both including getting his five-hole closed on Tyrell Goulbourne’s attempt.
To their credit, the Pack didn’t quit. They tried to mount a comeback with some nice counter-attacks, but when they did Neuvirth gave them nothing. Andersson led a rush up the left-wing side with 2:58 remaining in the period but Neuvirth gobbled up the puck and surrendered no rebound on the play.
The Phantoms made it 6-2 after Cole Bardreau took a pass from Tyrell Goulbourne and went wide on O’Gara, took a shot that went off the inside of Mazanec’s left pad and trickled over the goal line at 8:04 of the third.
O’Donnell scored his second of the game to make it 6-3 at 9:13 of the third period. O’Donnell put a gorgeous tip-in from ten feet out of Libor Hajek’s left point drive.
“Libor does a good job moving the puck around and I was just able to get a piece of that shot,” O’Donnell said.
As part of the fourth line, O’Donnell and his linemates finished a plus-5 while the first line of Andersson, Lindqvist, and Ryan Gropp went a combined minus-8.
Philip Samuelsson flipped a center ice backhander from center ice into an empty net to complete the scoring for the night at 18:47.
NOTES:
Boo Nieves was in the house, but as of yet has not officially been reassigned. He could be in the lineup on Saturday against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers if he is medically cleared to do so after suffering a concussion in the preseason. Nieves in his last year of an entry-level deal and is not required to go through waivers.
Matt Beleskey was placed on and cleared waivers by the Rangers and is now a member of the Wolf Pack. As required under the CBA, Beleskey, as a veteran player, was only able to be sent down once becoming medically cleared which in his case comes following a separated shoulder injury suffered in training camp.
The Pack host Bridgeport in their first meeting of the season at 7:30 pm on Saturday night. The game is the back end of a hockey doubleheader at the XL Center with UCONN playing Maine in Hockey East showdown at 3:00 pm.
With Game 2 of the World Series being played at the same time and with the Boston Red Sox involved against the LA Dodgers, the announced attendance was just 17 fannies shy of the lowest game attendance in Wolf Pack history of 1,352 against Wilkes Barre/Scranton on December 14, 2016.
Pack scratches were Shawn St. Amant, and defenseman Vince Pedrie and Sean Day
WOLF PACK LINE COMBINATIONS
Andersson-Gropp-Lindqvist
Fontaine-O’Donnell-Meskanen
Holland-Schneider-Ronning
Butler-Gettinger-Fogarty
Bigras-Lindgren
Crawley-Hajak
Gilmour-O’Gara
O’Donnell’s ECHL rights were traded yesterday to the Maine Mariners for Mike Marnell, who was invited to the Wolf Pack training camp. This would allow the Rangers to reassign O’Donnell to Maine should the need arise.
Former UCONN defenseman David Drake was reassigned by Lehigh Valley to Reading (ECHL) Tuesday.
The Phantoms featured Philip Samuelsson, the eldest son of former Hartford Whaler great and NY Ranger player, who was also an assistant coach with the Rangers, Wolf Pack and Avon Old Farms, Ulf Samuelsson.
The team captain of the Phantoms is McDonald, whose father, Gerry McDonald, played with the Whalers and New Haven Nighthawks. In the early years of the Wolf Pack, McDonald, the elder, was their TV color commentator.
With Neuvirth on the roster, the Phantoms have four goalies. One of the other netminders is former Yale standout Alex Lyon who was a last cut in Flyers training camp. He was scratched.
