CANTLON: (SAT) PACK VISIT MASSMUTUAL CENTER AND LOSE 5-1  

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

SPRINGFIELD, MA- The Hartford Wolf Pack’s difficulties at the Mass Mutual Center continued as the Thunderbirds three-goal first period put them on their heels and they never recovered and dropped a 5-1 decision on the road.

“We were chasing the game right from the start,” remarked a clearly frustrated head coach Keith McCambridge.” when you’re chasing the game you’re out of your structure, you’re giving up too many quality chances.”

The Pack will return home to play Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins tomorrow night at the XL Center. The Wolf Pack record is 23-25-6-3 (55 points) and remains in last place in the Atlantic Division. They are now ten points behind Providence. Springfield climbs to the .500 mark at 23-23-6-5 (57 points) and 7th place.

In the third period, Springfield added their fifth goal Vincent Praplan from behind the net fed Cliff Pu who scored his second goal of the year first as a Thunderbird after being acquired from Charlotte earlier in the week off the skate of Halverson at 8:49.

At that point, McCambridge lifted Halverson for Chris Nell who stopped all seven shots he faced. It was the fifth time this season when McCambridge has pulled a goalie in a game, the third time in a month and now four of five goalies that have played this season have been lifted at least once.

The Pack ended the Thunderbirds shutout bid at 13:07 as Gabriel Fontaine after winning the draw was able to retrieve the loose puck moved to the middle and fires a good low shot along the ice for his eighth goal and second in two games to make it 5-1.

“I was kinda lucky on that play I was just trying to fire up the team and hopefully we can learn from that and have more success tomorrow,”.

The Pack battled back a bit in the second period were unable to dent the net at all on Chris Driedger (36 saves). McCambridge wasn’t even sunny about that period.

“We had a couple of good chances we didn’t finish on, but simply not enough to make a difference,” said McCambridge even though they had a 15-8 shot advantage in the period cutting the Thunderbirds shots in half from the first period.

Gabriel Fontaine was spot on for one of the Pack ailments.

“It’s a 60-minute game, no? We had some chances two or three minutes we need a lot more than that.”

Sean Day had three quality shots, Vinni Lettieri two including an open chance on the left wing denied by Chris Driedger. Ryan Gropp and Darren Raddysh had chances that were turned aside by Dreidger.

Steven Fogarty had a quality chance that rang off the post with 7:17 then two shifts later Springfield gained a 4-0 lead.

Juho Lammikko coming off the right wing took a Thomas Schmetisch pass and beat Halverson low glove side at 15:59.

The first period was all Springfield.

The Pack had a great early chance that Thunderbirds goalie couldn’t Chris Driedger tried to squeeze the pads, but the puck it trickled through however his teammate Ludwig Bystrom swept it away and that was the last Pack offensive zone foray for the next seven minutes.

In that time Springfield got their first two goals.

At 4:11 Harry Zolniercyzk scored his ninth goal standing unchecked in front as he opened his stick blade up and redirected Thomas Schmetisch’s shot as he came in off the right point unchecked and put the puck perfectly on his stick for the redirect.

Then on the Thunderbirds first powerplay two Pack killers the past several years combined to strike for the second tally of the Thunderbirds.

Anthony Greco with all sorts of space and time came off the right wing zoomed in and as he went to make his pass he flubbed the pass however the puck bounced over the stick of Julius Bergman and off the shaft of the stick of newly acquire Jean-Sebastien Dea and it went past Halverson for his seventh goal and first as a Thunderbird at the 6:00 mark.

Give the primary assist to Murphy’s Law.

“They played a heavier game than us when they had the puck or we did. In all aspects of the game Springfield was better than us,” remarked somber McCambridge.

The Pack did get some offense on their first powerplay with Sean Day having a quality shot from the left point.

The Thunderbirds in the later part of the first period increased their lead to 3-0.  This time Vincent Praplan carried the puck out of the end of the ice easily dodging the forechecking Zack Lynch of the Pack’s got into the Wolf Pack zone fed Matt Mangene.

Mangene waited till he got into position for Jason MacDonald and in the same spot as Harry Z tipped his 13th by Halverson at 15:31.

“We know Springfield play a heavy, physical, but we didn’t show up tonight and it blew up in our face. If we want success we gotta get our hands dirty,” said Fontaine in a succinct blunt assessment.

McCambridge employed an 11-7 strategy (11 forwards and seven defensemen) usually reserved for the third day of a three in three. If he had nine defensemen or 13 forwards would have made no difference in the outcome of this game.

NOTES:

SCRATCHES:
Ryan Lindgren (ankle, day-to-day)
Rob O’Gara (lower body, week-to-week)
Ville Meskanen (upper body, day-to-day)
Chris Bigras (ankle, week-to-week)
Dawson Leedahl (healthy)
Drew Melanson (healthy)

LINES:

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

Raddyash-Gilmour
Day-Tolkinen
Crawley-Josh Wesley
Bergman

Day, Fontaine and Lettieri each had five shots on goal for the game.

John Gilmour has gone cold with one goal and three assists in his last 13 games.

Attendance was 5,856

Libor Hajak made his NHL debut against Montreal last night at MSG paired with Marc Staal wearing his number 43 jersey.

Springfield lost Patrick Bajkov and Riley Stillman to recall to Florida. With Samuel Montembeault on recall, they signed goalie Matt Greenfield to a PTO as a backup who just completed his third Canadian college hockey season with the University of Calgary Dinosaurs (CWUAA).

Rangers announced the signing of 2018 third round draft pick Joey Keane to a three-year entry-level deal and he will be manning the blue in Hartford for 2019-20.

Keane is playing the London Knights (OHL) where he was traded to at the OHL Trade Deadline in January from the Barrie Colts where he has played for two and half years. Keane is 6’1 195 lbs. and is a right-handed shot.

Sad news to report, the longtime face of the Springfield hockey, Bruce Landon and his wife lost their youngest daughter, Tammy Jackson-Landon at the all too young age of 44. A moment of silence was held prior to the start of the game. Our condolences to the Landon family.