BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Steven Fogarty had four points, while Lias Andersson added three and Adam Huska made 24 saves to pace the Hartford Wolf Pack to a 5-2 win over the Binghamton Devils at the XL Center Saturday night.
The Wolf Pack record advances to 13-4-2-5 (33 points) placing them in second place just two points behind the division-leading Providence Bruins.
The Pack has won their last two games while the Devils have lost six straight.
Providence is up next for the Pack as they will close out the weekend there Sunday afternoon at 3 PM. Igor Shesterkin will be in goal going for a weekend three-in-three sweep.
“For 50 minutes we played really well. After the first 10 minutes, they came out strong like they did last night against Providence, but after that, we played some of our best hockey,” remarked Hartford head coach Kris Knoblauch.
The Devils (7-13-4-0) had plenty of fight left in them early in the third period and scored to narrow the Pack lead to two goals.
Joey Anderson took advantage of a Wolf Pack breakdown as the righty shooter broke in off the left-wing. Andersson was back as the defenseman and the Devil put a perfect wrist shot into the net past Adam Huska at 1:39. It was his seventh goal of the season.
The Pack played solid team defense and limited quality chances for the Devils. When a breakdown occurred, Huska made the save. Huska bailed them out on chances by Nathan Bastian at 8:41 and then Mikhail Maltsev on a clear scoring chance.
Fogarty put the finishing touches on his four-point night with his second goal that came after he stripped defenseman Dakota Mermis and potted his ninth goal of the season into an empty net at 18:44.
In the second period, the Devils forechecking caused the Wolf Pack headaches and set them up for their first goal.
One of the few turnovers of the night came after the Devils’ Michael McLeod got and hit Bastian who zipped in his third goal past Huska at 5:06.
The Pack were able to weather the storm and were able to put up two goals of their own to expand their lead to three goals.
At 14:07, Andersson came up the right-wing with room and spotted Fogarty alone at the left side of the net where he easily put his pass in for his eighth of the season.
“It was a good play by (Matt) Beleskey along the wall to get us going, and Andy just put it on my stick to put it in.”
Andersson passed back the compliment to Fogarty. “He’s been doing a great job getting to those spots and putting the puck into the back of the net. He’s great to play with and is always in the right spot. It was two-on-one and it worked great and went in for us.”
Andersson factored into a late power play goal.
Fogarty was high on the left-wing side and sent a perfect cross-ice pass through the box to Danny O’Regan, who had moved into the right-wing faceoff circle. He sent a pass that glided along the ice to Andersson, who was wide open at the left side of the cage. Andersson deposited his second of the night and fourth of the season at 19:15.
“I wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot or pass it,” remarked Andersson. “I just had to have my stick down for that one.”
The Wolf Pack, as they did Friday night in Springfield, had a strong, three-player sequence for their first goal.
Joey Keane made the strong lead pass to Ville Meskanen at the end of his shift. But Meskanen kept going into the Devils’ zone and pulled up as two players went to him.
Meskanen then fired the puck and hit Andersson bursting off the right-wing side with a tape-to-tape pass and in full flight. Andersson went forehand-to-backhand and tucked the puck inside the short-side post for his third goal at 3:13 and gave the Wolf Pack a 1-0 lead.
“That was a little Scandanavian connection there. A beautiful play by him,” Andersson said with a laugh of the Finnish Meskanen. “I was thinking of doing the Filip Forsberg (Nashville) move first, but I did something in between. He closed the five-hole and caught me a bit there, but I was happy with the move and it went in.”
Forsberg, a fellow Swede in a Stanley Cup playoff game against Colorado, was on the rush and put the puck between his legs. The defender then went in scored against Colorado!
This looked like the Andersson the Rangers have been waiting to emerge.
“I’m just getting back to playing hockey and having some fun again and getting my mind going. It’s been tough. I’m just trying to earn my way back (to New York) by just playing hockey.”
Meskanen’s play had Knoblauch grinning and effusive in his praise.
“Sometimes you don’t think fourth line guys have high-end skills. That was an elite pass by Ville.”
The Wolf Pack took a two-goal lead by scoring shorthanded.
Fogarty was just as dangerous a man down as he is five-on-five. He broke into the Devils zone with a perfect drop pass and had Nick Ebert as the trailer drilled his second of the season past Gilles Senn at 13:53.
LINES:
Andersson-Fogarty-Beleskey
Nieves-Gettinger-Newell
O’Regan-Lettieri-DiGiuseppe
Jones-Meskanen-Dmowski
Raddysh-LoVerde
Keane-Geersten
Rykov-Ebert
SCRATCHES:
Jeff Taylor (healthy)
Shawn McBride (healthy)
Lewis Zerter-Gossage (healthy)
Gabriel Fontaine (season-ending shoulder surgery)
NOTES:
Forward Ty Ronning was reassigned to Maine.
GM Chris Drury was on hand and all smiles post-game and gave Jeff Gorton and JD a good report.
The Devils Mikhail Maltsev is no relation to former great Soviet captain Alexander Maltsev from the 1960 and 1970s.
