CANTLON: (WED) WOLF PACK LOSE IN SPRINGFIELD, 5-2 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

SPRINGFIELD, MA – A strong start allowed the Springfield Thunderbirds to stay ahead of and eventually beat the Hartford Wolf Pack 5-2 on Wednesday night at the Mass Mutual Center. The Thunderbirds won the season series six games to four.

For the Pack, the loss was their fifth in a row (0-4-1-0) and drops their record to 28-33-7-3 (66 pts) leaving them in 8th place. They will be in action on Saturday night against the Utica Comets at the XL Center.

The Springfield record improves to 30-27-9-5 (74 pts), seven behind Providence, in fourth place, but with a game in hand and six games left for the Bruins.

“They came out hard on us and while they’re not mathematically eliminated, they’re still in the (playoff) mix, and they came out with lots of desperation and took a little bit of time to get our feet under us.”

The Pack’s lack of desperation of any kind both early and for the better part of the second half of the season has been painfully obvious, no more so than in the game’s first ten minutes in which a white flag or towel could be seen.

It didn’t take long for the Thunderbirds to score on the Pack.

At 1:01, Joel Lowry was on the left side of Adam Huska and left unchecked. He was able to redirect Matt Mangene’s right point shot for his ninth goal.

Lowry bagged his second goal on the powerplay when he was again, unchecked, but this time on the left side of the net. He took a pass from Vincent Praplans and buried it at 3:24, just 30 seconds into Brandon Crawley’s hooking minor.

“It’s not like we haven’t played them before,” said Pack center Gabriel Fontaine. “We know they’re a big, fast team, and we weren’t ready to play.”

The Pack responded back and cut it down to a one-goal deficit.

Ty Ronning got the puck to Josh Wesley who was coming off the right point and he got all of it from 30 feet out for his first Wolf Pack goal at 5:36.

The Thunderbirds were able to regain the two-goal advantage when Blaine Byron found a speeding Anthony Greco surging down the left wing. The Pack killer flipped a backhanded pass to a wide-open Jonathan Ang on the right wing, who easily slipped his fifth past Huska at 7:46 as he was getting zero defensive support.

At the ten-minute mark, the shots read 10-5 Springfield, and a blowout was hanging ominously over center ice.

“They had us on our heels early, and it took us getting that first goal to get ourselves back in the mix, and we got down one and closed the gap again, but that shorthanded goal was a dagger for us,” remarked Pack head coach Keith McCambridge.

Pack rookie Nick Jones got his second point of the period & first professional goal when he sped down the right wing and put a wrist shot on net that eluded Chris Driedger at 13:45 and again made it a one-goal deficit.

Matt Register also recorded his first Wolf Pack point on the play.

Typically a goalie might get pulled in a situation like that. But McCambridge wasn’t thinking about doing that to Huska.

“The last thing I want is for our goalie to worry about the head coach at that point,” McCambridge said. “Adam wasn’t at fault on any of those goals. There are times during the season you utilize that move, it wasn’t the time to do so.”

In the third period, the Wolf Pack for the second period in a row, had a power play to start the period but failed to capitalize. Again, midway through the third, another man-advantage and Thunderbirds Driedger was a large part responsible for the power play outage as he shut the door on some strong Wolf Pack chances.

“Give their goalie credit, he made saves in tight on us. I don’t have a problem with how we made the plays, we just couldn’t find a way to execute them,” said McCambridge.

Byron scored an empty-net goal in the third at 18:36 for Springfield, his 13th of the season to close out the scoring and the game.

The Wolf Pack played better defense in the second period and maintained puck possession in the offensive zone better, but one mistake on the power play cost them.

“We were getting to loose pucks, we’re coming out on some of those battles on top, we were just unable to find lanes to the net or take the eyes away from the goalie,” said McCambridge

Wesley had two shots stopped, early in the period. Ronning was denied, and rookie Patrick Newell made a nice play off the half wall to Register who was stopped.

On the flip side, Huska was finally getting some team defensive support and made some key stops on Juho Lammikko at 6:56 and a blocker save on Bobby Farnham’s shot from the slot. However, the season-long penchant for giving up the big play reared its ugly head once again.

The Pack defensive pair of Sean Day and Darren Raddysh got caught and Greco took the lead pass from Lammikko who intercepted Ryan Gropp’s pass. It allowed Greco to race away after splitting them like a Sunday brunch cantaloupe and beat Huska, high over the right shoulder and popping the water bottle allowing the Thunderbirds to restore their two-goal lead at 12:54.

It was Greco’s team-leading 27th goal and his second point of the night.

The Pack had a great chance to cut the lead again on two on one and Gabriel Fontaine on the right wing a lefty shot missed the net entirely.

SCRATCHES:

Dawson Leedahl (upper body, still a week away)

Terrence Wallin (healthy)

Matt Beleskey (lower body, likely done for the season)

Rob O’Gara (lower body flare up, day to day)

Julius Bergman (healthy)

Chris Bigras (ankle done for the season)

LINES:

Fontaine – Meskanen – Gettinger
Fogarty – Gropp – Patrick Newell
Ronning – Ryan Dmowski – Jones
O’Donnell – Butler – St. Amant

Linden – Raddysh
Day – Crawley
Wesley – Register

NOTES:

The Pack is 3-7-0 over their last 10 games. Their winning another game this season seems remote at this point.

Newest Pack tryout Patrick Newell wore jersey #29

The Wolf Pack announced John Gilmour was named the team winner of its IOA/American Speciality Man of the Year Award and now joins 31 other team winners to potentially be selected as the AHL Yanick Dupre Award Winner.

Some of the other team winners include, Ben Holmstrom (Bridgeport), Bobby Farnham (Springfield), ex-Pack Daniel Walcott (Syracuse) who missed most of the season thus far with offseason knee surgery,  Alex Lyon (Yale University) from Lehigh Valley and Stratford native who played high school hockey at Fairfield Prep and Salisbury Prep defenseman Jamie Sifers with Utica.

The first winner of the award was Beast of New Haven and ex-Wolf Pack defenseman John Jakopin,

Dupre who played with Hershey passed away after a 16 month battle in 1997 from leukemia,

Hartford signed local Springfield product Shawn McBride, the captain of American International College (AIC) late this afternoon to an ATO deal. He is not yet listed on the roster and will likely play this weekend. AIC knocked off St. Cloud State in their first NCAA tourney game one of the biggest upsets in college hockey history.

He is the second McBride to play for the Wolf Pack Brock played eight games in the 2008-09 season and is no relation and presently is an assistant coach with the Cornwall Colts (CCHL) one of the 10 Junior A leagues in Canada.

The college signings continue as Quinnipiac University (ECACHL) free agent goalie, Andrew Shortridge, has signed with the San Jose Sharks for a one-year, two-way deal and was assigned to the San Jose Barracuda (AHL).

Huska’s UCONN teammate, Miles Gendron, was released by Brampton (ECHL) after four games with one assist and 10 PIM. Gendron has a one-year AHL deal to play in Belleville next season.

Wolf Pack fan jersey of the night – #23 Tomas Kloucek.