CANTLON: BEARS CLAW THEIR WAY PAST THE WOLF PACK 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – After a solid 53 minutes of hockey, the Hartford Wolf Pack effort fell apart over the final seven minutes and it resulted in their dropping a 4-1 decision to the red-hot Hershey Bears before the seventh-lowest crowd in team history, 1,563, on Wednesday night at the XL Center.

The Bears ran their current winning streak over their last 11 games to 9-1-0-1. They are 17-1-0-1 over their last 19 and have surged to third place in the Atlantic with a 32-2-0-3 record (69 points) just behind second place Bridgeport. The Pack record drops to 23-24-6-3 (55 points). They are nine points behind the Providence Bruins with 18 games left. The Bruins also have two games in hand putting the Pack on the verge of being eliminated from contention for a playoff spot.

The Pack’s unraveling began with a very poor hooking call assessed to Shawn St. Amant. It was his second straight penalty and came with 7:29 left. The Bears capitalized 24 seconds later.

AHL veteran, Nathan Walker, the first Australian to play North American pro hockey, sent a perfect net front feed to Riley Barber, who got behind Libor Hajak and redirected the puck past Pack netminder, Brandon Halverson, for his 25th of the season. The goal came with 7:05 left.

Then, just 24 seconds later, the Bears struck again with what would prove to be the game-winner and the 2-1 lead.

Beck Malenstyn won a one-on-one battle in the right corner and made a diagonal pass to Jonas Siegenthaler at the left point. Siegenthaler shot the puck from 55-feet out and amazingly it found the back of the net as Halverson was partially screened and may have gotten a piece of it.

The Bears had the lead and momentum.

Hershey made it a two-goal lead with 2:02 left on the clock. The play started on a major miscue by the Pack netminder. Halverson, usually a good puck handler, made a dreadful decision to go up the center of the ice with the puck, but it was intercepted by Barber, who tallied his second of the period. The goal was his 26th of the season and came on his seventh shot of the game. Barber is the eleventh leading scorer in the AHL.

Nathan Walker sealed the Pack’s fate with an empty net goal from the Hartford blue line with 1:19 left. It was his 13th goal and with it, a seemingly strong defensive effort evaporated into a very difficult loss for the Wolf Pack.

The Wolf Pack entered the third with a 1-0 lead. The team is now 14-3-2-2 when leading after two.

The Pack’s lone goal came as a result of a strong three-way power-play goal midway through the second period.

John Gilmour, who had one of his stronger defensive games of the season, used his vaunted speed and quick passing to find Vinni Lettieri. He, in turn, fed Gabriel Fontaine who motored off the left-wing, cut to the inside on the Bears’ Aaron Ness, and fired his seventh of the season past Illya Samsonov at 10:08.

With the assist, Lettieri extended his point-scoring streak to six games that include five goals and three assists over that span.

SCRATCHES:

Rob O’Gara (lower body)
Chris Bigras (ankle)
Ville Meskanen (upper body)
Brandon Crawley (healthy)
Dawson Leedahl (healthy)
Zach Tolkinen (healthy)
Dustin Tokarski (healthy)

PACK LINES:

Fogarty-Lettieri-Gropp
Gettinger-Beleskey-Butler
Fontaine-Ronning-St. Amant
O’Donnell-Melanson-Lynch

Gilmour-Lindgren
Raddysh-Hajak
Bergman-Day

NOTES:

The Bears have won all three games with the Wolf Pack this season

Julius Bergman, a right-handed defenseman, was acquired Monday from the Columbus Blue Jackets made his Wolf Pack debut. He wore number 63. The Pack is Bergman’s third NHL/AHL organization of the year. He started in Belleville with the Senators and then with the Cleveland Barons. He was originally drafted by the San Jose Sharks in the second round, 46th overall in the 2014 NHL Draft.

Matt Beleskey had a team-high seven shots on goal, however, his goal scoring drought has reached 20 games. His last goal was scored on January 5th against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The effort is there, but the bucket is still empty. Not since Bob Errey in the Wolf Pack’s first season has a quality veteran had a streak like this.

Lettieri had five shots, and St. Amant season had a high four shots on goal.

With 49 seconds to go in the game, Shawn O’Donnell and Connor Hobbs had a nice scrap. It was O’Donnell’s 5th fighting major on the year tops on the team.