BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
SPRINGFIELD, MA – The Springfield Thunderbirds remain unbeaten (6-0-0-2) this season after trouncing the struggling Hartford Wolf Pack (4-6-1-0), 6-2. The Wolf Pack dropped their fourth straight, and fifth of their last six, on Sunday afternoon at the Mass Mutual Center. The game was the first of five straight road games.
Jace Hawryluk tallied five-points for Springfield while a rookie, Henrik Borgstrom, had a game-high seven shots and registered four points. Springfield sits in second place in the Atlantic Division just two points behind the idle Charlotte Checkers. The Pack slipped to fifth place with nine points and are tied with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, who were 6-1 losers in Providence to the Bruins.
While nobody is talking about hitting the panic button, the light is clearly flashing red for Hartford.
In the third period, the Wolf Pack put early pressure on the T-Birds trying to score and get back in the contest. Shawn O’Donnell had a scoring chance at 1:35 but was stopped with linemate Ryan Gropp in the crease.
A penalty to Rob O’Gara on a questionable high-sticking call allowed Springfield’s anemic at home powerplay this season (5.9%) to score for the third time in the game. With that, Springfield pulled away and the Pack was unable to catch up.
On the night, the Thunderbirds went 4-for-8 on the man-advantage and it was Hartford’s undoing.
“Far too many penalties. Anytime, we had any momentum, which wasn’t many (times), we killed it with taking a penalty. We get a couple sustained offensive zone forechecks, we take a penalty. That’s a very good Springfield team, but we never gave ourselves a chance to win (because of) spending that much time in the box,” a candid Pack head coach, Keith McCambridge, said.
Henrik Borgstrom, the prized Panthers prospect from the University of Denver, got the puck to Hawryluk at the left side of Dustin Tokarski. He wasted little time burying his first of the season at 2:32 making it 4-1 and vanquishing any thoughts of a comeback.
The Wolf Pack managed to get one back with Brenden Crawley at the left point after taking Gabriel Fontaine’s pass and ripped it short-side through a double screen in front by Tim Gettinger and Steven Fogarty at the top of the crease, ten feet out making it 4-2.
Shortly after, the Pack had to kill their third five-on-three shorthanded situation of the game. O’Gara was nailed again in a collision with Paul Thompson at center ice. Ryan Lindgren was then tagged for barking at the ref.
The Springfield power play went to work and registered its fourth goal of the game at 14:05. Hawryluk sent a backhand pass to Dryden Hunt at the right side of the net and jammed home his second of the game and third of the season.
Hawryluk’s five points were the third five-point effort by a Springfield player in nine games.
Henrik Borgstrom closed out the scoring with an empty net goal after picking off a cross-ice pass by Lias Andersson at 18:57 making it 6-2.
In the second period, the Pack had some good looks and quality scoring chances. John Gilmour had two of the better chances just 35 seconds apart. Both were both stopped.
Four times, the Pack missed the net by a considerable margin in one stretch. Peter Holland was alone on the right wing and rang one off the post at 10:41. After that, the Pack fortunes took an unfavorable turn and sealed their fate for the night.
“We had some Grade A opportunities where we look to pass instead of shoot early on and we missed the net. We shot ourselves in the foot. We got the lead in first on the road, which we wanted to do. We got good goaltending from Dustin, we just spent too much time in the box.”
The Thunderbirds used a powerplay chance to gain the lead they’d never lose.
The opportunity arose after Riley Stillman caught Lias Andersson on a high hit near his head. Holland, a non-fighter, immediately challenged him and was issued an instigator penalty.
The challenge by Holland made up for the lack of someone stepping up after T-Birds defenseman Ian McCoshen was whistled for kneeing on a dangerous play late in the first on a Chris Bigras offside play.
Springfield connected a mere 13 second later.
Hawryluk was at the left side of the net and put the puck in front as a sliding O’Gara tried to block the pass. The puck went off his stick to Dryden Hunt who buried his third goal at the 13:00 mark.
The second-period penalty parade began much like it did the previous night for the Pack with some of them earned, while some were not.
The call on Shawn St. Amant was ticky-tacky refereeing at best, as Jake Horton was losing his edge when he fell down. Thirteen seconds later, Ryan Lindgren was called for closing his hand on the puck creating a five-on-three shorthanded opportunity for the Pack.
59 seconds later, O’Gara was called for a crosscheck in front of the net on Thompson during the five-on-three that compounded their issues.
The Thunderbirds grabbed a 3-1 lead on a five-on-three power play. Over the last few years, Hawryluk has been a menace to the Wolf Pack. Hawryluk was on the left wing side of the net at the goal line and spotted Justin Melchiori at the right point. Melchiori had just missed a wide shot seconds earlier but didn’t miss the second time, wiring his second of the season top shelf on Tokarski at 18:18.
It was Hawryluk’s third assist of the period.
An extended delay followed when the officials couldn’t figure out who should remain in the penalty box for the Wolf Pack.
After spending the first five or six minutes of the game in their own end, the Pack finally got some offensive zone time and scored the game’s first goal.
Fogarty put a short pass back to Crawley at the left point. He launched a wrist shot at the net and Gettinger got inside position of Sebastien Repo and screened goalie Chris Driedger and deflected the shot into the net for his fourth goal at 8:45.
It was Gettinger’s first point in seven games.
The ensuing draw saw a fierce scrap by the Thunderbirds Bobby Farnham, a veteran in playing terms and fighting who was playing in his first game of the season after having a pre-season lower-body injury got the better of Crawley.
Springfield which has been strong on the offensive game with balanced scoring knotted the game at one.
Borgstrom, one of the top AHL rookies, was at the right side of the Pack net. He got inside position on Libor Hajak and banged in a loose puck that came via the stick of Joel Lowry off a Tokarski save on and jammed home his third goal on his own rebound at 12:25 on the Thunderbirds 13th shot of the period.
WOLF PACK LINES:
Andersson-Lindqvist-Beleskey
Holland-Schneider-Meskanen
Fogarty-Gettinger-St. Amant
Fontaine-O’Donnell-Gropp
Bigras-Hajak
Gilmour-Lindgren
Crawley-O’ Gara
NOTES:
The game started 35 minutes late due to a pre-game Zamboni issue. The ice had several divots in the slot between the hash marks and to the right side of the blue area near the goal. The Zamboni conked out near the exit area.
Both were repaired by the MMC staff and had two Zamboni’s in operation and got the divots repaired.
Pack scratches were; Ty Ronning, Bobby Butler, Vince Pedrie, and Sean Day. The Pack, like the New York Rangers, have eight defensemen so two need to be scratched every game. Pedrie has sat seven of the team’s first eleven games and Day has sat five of the first eleven and now four in a row.
Ronning sat out his fifth game after playing four straight and Butler sat for the first time this season.
McCambridge made some line changes. He promoted Ville Meskanen to the second line after being scratched the previous night. St. Amant was back on the line. Gropp, also scratched the previous night, was on the fourth line.
“I was trying to get some spark to the lineup and change things to try to get some chemistry. When you’re not generating much (offense), you gotta change things up,” McCambridge said.
Springfield has the 10th best AHL PP at 22.9% and a scorching 38.9% on the road. The Wolf Pack are 20th at 15.9%, but on the road, they are running at 20.0% and on the PK Springfield is 8th at 85.3% and Hartford is 13th at 83.3%.
Springfield won last year’s season series 8-3-0-1. In the last five years, the Thunderbirds have owned the Wolf Pack with a record of 15-5-1-2. In Springfield, it’s is even more lopsided at 10-2-0-0.
The Wolf Pack don’t play at home until November 10th against Wilkes Barre/Scranton.
The Thunderbirds’ Riley Stillman is the grandson of former Springfield Indian, and New Haven Nighthawk, Bud Stefanski, who is currently an assistant coach with Sudbury (OHL). Riley’s father is former NHL’er, Corey Stillman.
Former UCONN Husky, Maxim Letunov, (San Jose) is in a three-way tie for the lead among AHL rookie goal scorers with five in nine games played.
Mathieu Olivier, the son of former Springfield Falcon, and New Haven Knights (UHL), Simon Olivier, is tops in rookie PIM with 22. Olivier is with the Milwaukee Admirals. His numbers aren’t approaching Peter Vandermeer numbers just yet.
Ex-CT Whale, and New York Ranger, Wojtech Wolski, whose contract was brought out by Metallurg Magnitogorsk (Russia-KHL) earlier in the week, has signed back with Beijing based Kunlun Red Star (China-KHL) yesterday.
