CANTLON: WOLF PACK GROWING STRONGER IN TIGHT 2-1 WIN OVER HERSHEY 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Steven Fogarty had a goal and an assist and provided strong team play allowing the Hartford Wolf Pack to collect their ninth win of the season while maintaining their status as the AHL’s best team as they took the first of a weekend’s three-games-in-three days with a 2-1 win over visiting Hershey Bears.

The Wolf Pack (9-1-0-3) play on Saturday night at 7:30 pm on the backend of a hockey doubleheader with UCONN. Hershey (6-5-1-1-) heads to Allentown, PA to play the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

The Wolf Pack caught some early puck luck to start the third period.

A broken play allowed Fogarty to snatch a Hershey clearing attempt off the glass, and then while off-balance got a shot toward the net.

Darren Raddysh cut through the right-wing circle and was able to get enough of a piece of the puck to get the red light turned on with what proved to be the game-winner at the 22-second mark.

“Any time you get the puck to the net, you’ll get rebounds or a deflection or something. I just threw it at the net and was fortunate Raddysh was able to get a piece of it,” Fogarty, with six points in his last five games, said.

Raddysh, who was coached by current Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch, while playing in juniors, felt his play tonight was not something he hadn’t seen before. “He does so many things. He did a great job managing the puck and getting it up to our forwards tonight.”

The Pack did so many of the small things needed to win this game. Rookie Nick Jones won two late faceoffs from veteran center Mike Sgarbossa. Boo Nieves blocked a late-in-the-game shot while Raddysh played a strong two-way game.

“We’ve been rewarding him (Jones) with the play. He has earned it. We’ve been having him take the right side draws, and it worked well, and those were big draws. We rely on him on the penalty kill and late in the game,” Knoblauch said of his rookie centerman out of the University of North Dakota.

Goaltender Igor Shesterkin continued to show his net mastery and calm demeanor in key situations. He stopped Hershey’s Alex Jonsson-Fjallby twice in the last five minutes with two strong left-wing chances.

“Shesterkin reads the play well and anticipates what the other team is going to do so well. He’s got a lot of hockey smarts,” Knoblauch said with a smile.

Hershey broke the scoreless contest in the second period just after the Wolf Pack’s third powerplay ended.

The Bears rearguard, Christian Djoos, was at the left point and saw an open lane as Ville Meskanen peeled off to go cover the right point. Djoos was able to launch his shot with the red-hot, Sgarbossa in front. Sgarbossa was credited with the tip-in for his sixth goal of the season with a strong position on defenseman Vincent LoVerde at 7:27.

Hershey effectively kept the Wolf Pack to the boards for a majority of the second period. After three early shots on net, the next six were spread out until the last minute of the period when the Wolf Pack tied the game.

Nieves won a critical offensive zone draw from Sgarbossa. The puck came back to defenseman Joey Keane at the right point, who waited patiently for the play to develop.

Keane scooted around the Liam O’Brien and zipped a cross-ice pass to Fogarty who was wide-open. Fogarty deposited his third of the season over a fallen Bears goalie, Vitek Vanecek.

“He showed so much composure (Keane) to make that play. He had a chance to shoot it, but we didn’t have anybody up-front at the net (yet) and it wouldn’t have been a quality scoring chance. He faked the shot, moved to the right, and he slipped it back door to Fogarty. It was just a heck of a play,” Knoblauch stated.

The Pack’s best scoring chance didn’t count as a shot when LoVerde rang one off the pipe at 6:53.

It was a chessboard hockey game over the first 10-minutes of the game with Hershey having the lead in shots, 2-1.

The teams finally got some space to operate with which got the crowd into the game.

The first quality chance came with Ty Ronning taking a perfect lead pass from Keane before going backhand-to-forehand but Vanacek denied him at 10:39.

Hershey defenseman, Martin Fehervarty, turned the puck over deep in the Bears zone while on the powerplay. With Jones heavily forechecking, he took the puck away and looked first for Tim Gettinger who was coming in backdoor off the right-wing side. Instead, Jones caught the trailer LoVerde, but he was stopped.

65 seconds later at 15:25, Gabriel Fontaine was flying off the left-wing and eluded the check of Bears defenseman, Connor Hobbs. Fontaine spotted Vinni Lettieri who was open at the right side of the net and he missed the open left side slipping it past the post.

In the waning seconds of the first period on the Wolf Pack’s second powerplay, Phil DiGiuseppe was on the right-wing and sent a cross-ice pass dead center to Patrick Newell, who made an open-blade redirect that Vanecek stopped with his right pad with about 13 seconds to go.

The Pack held the shot advantage at 9-6 heading into the first intermission.

NOTES:

The Wolf Pack powerplay remains dead last in the AHL at 8% and has not scored a PPG since Keane’s tally on October 26th in Bridgeport. The current streak now sits at 0-21 over a six-game span.

LINES:

Nieves-Fogarty-DiGiuseppe
O’Regan-Lettieri-Fontaine
Gettinger-Jones-Newell
Ronning-Meskanen-Zerter-Gossage

LoVerde-Raddysh
Day-Ebert
Geersten-Keane

SCRATCHES:

Matt Beleskey (upper body)
Jeff Taylor
Ryan Dmowski.

Pack Fan Jersey of the Night:

#34 Dane Byers. a one time captain who is now retired
#81 Fedor Fedorov, who didn’t exactly have a good run with the team.