CANTLON: WOLF PACK TRAVEL TO SPRINGFIELD 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

SPRINGFIELD, MA – Road play is clearly a Wolf Pack issue.

The Wolf Pack (26-11-4-5) couldn’t get any sustained pressure and Springfield were opportunistic in their scoring doing so twice in 2-0 win. Springfield goalie Ryan Bednard made 28 saves for his first AHL shutout and he had one in Greenville (ECHL) earlier this year.

The loss ended a four-game Wolf Pack winning streak and it was the Thunderbirds (26-20-2-0) first victory against the Wolf Pack this season in five contests.

The two teams meet again on Wednesday at the XL Center at 7 pm.

The Wolf Pack maintained their first place position as Hershey was shutout 3-0 by Lehigh Valley.

The Wolf Pack is now 7-10-4-3 now the road with road game of their 30 games left this will need some correction soon and the team play clearly irked head coach Kris Knoblauch.

“We played well in the second I thought we had a really good period, but 20 minutes isn’t enough to win a hockey game. If we had played that way for 60, I like our chances better.”

It was fast-moving, very few whistles Saturday night of hockey at the Mass Mutual Center to start before a sold-out crowd of 6,793.

The game’s first turned out to be the game-winner. Ex-Sound Tiger Matt Mangene who always plays well against Hartford made a strong pass to Jonathan Ang who came down the left-wing on Vincent LoVerde.

LoVerde lost his edge and fell down that allowed Ang the extra room and snapped his seventh of the season on Tom McCollum’s stick-side at 3:54.

“They were the hungry team early on,” remarked Wolf Pack’s Phil Di Guiseppe “hats off to their goalie he played well, but we had three or four open net chances we missed. Bottom line, we didn’t execute our game plan and they did.”

The Wolf Pack just a total of 24 shots over two periods Alexsei Saarela had four of Springfield’s 15 shots and Tim Gettinger and Darren Raddysh had six of the Pack’s 19 shots over the first two periods three for each of them. There were only three penalties and two powerplays for Hartford.

“We just thought we could ride the momentum from the third period last night and into this game. The first period was one of the worst we have played this year,” said Knoblauch tersely.

There were long stretches of continuous action and the Wolf Pack couldn’t get those second and third shots on rookie netminder Ryan Bednard making just his third AHL start

“We just didn’t have enough guys going to the net to sustain that pressure.”

The Wolf Pack had times where they couldn’t connect two passes or lost control of the puck and Yegor Rykov and Libor Hajek had their issues in that department but weren’t alone.

“There were moments we clearly held the puck too long and things will zero out on you when you do that,” referencing the time of possession Springfield had.

Of the eight shots in the second, the Wolf Pack’s best chance came late as Darren Raddysh pinched in with 1:06 left in the period but Thunderbirds rookie playing Ryan Bednard came out on the top of the crease to make the save.

The Wolf Pack’s Tom McCollum was given plenty of space to see the shots coming his way.

“I had no problems with Tom’s play he gave us a chance to win, but we have to give him some goal support.”

Four minutes into the third the Thunderbirds got the all-important second goal in this game.

Just after a cut to through right-wing faceoff circle Dryden Hunt was repelled but stayed in down low released from his checked cycled in on and tipped Matt Mangene’s right point drive for his 10th goal and second in as many games for a 2-0 Springfield lead.

The Pack with nine shots in the third saw Bednard stop Nick Jones in close with 8:37 left, then Joey Keane with 4:50 and Matt Beleskey with 3:50.

Too much time between shots.

Springfield did its best to get a third goal as ex-Pack Ryan Haggerty had two chances and Cliff Pu with 2:21 sent a backhander just wide. Defensively a few minutes earlier Vitali Kravtsov stopped Joel Lowry on a backdoor play with a perfect block of the quality scoring chance.

One other key defensive play Keane blocked Bednard’s attempt at scoring a goal from the Springfield goal line in the right-wing side with 14 seconds remaining.

LINES:

Gettinger-Kravtsov-Lettieri

O’ Regan-Fogarty-Di Giuseppe

Jones-Gropp-Beleskey

McBride-Newell-Dmowski

Hajek-Raddysh

Keane-Geersten

Rykov-LoVerde

SCRATCHES:

Nick Ebert (lower-body injury day to day)

Boo Nieves (flu day to day)

Jeff Taylor (healthy)

Gabriel Fontaine (shoulder surgery-season ending).

-Yegor Rykov didn’t suffer a broken nose, but did have nasty cut from last night’s game and played.

-Steve Fogarty also waylayed by the flu played both games. That’s a team captain. Gernander-esque without question.

-Ex-Pack Rob O’Gara is out with a separated left shoulder after playing 20 games after coming over in a trade with San Antonio.

Last season with Hartford ended early with back surgery.

He reminds me of former Wolf Pack Jake Taylor the injury bug followed him in Hartford his whole career which he concluded in Springfield ironically.

-On Sunday. Di Giuseppe was recalled to the Rangers likely to take Chris Kreider’s spot who was accidentally kneed in the head by teammate Mike Zibanejad in the Rangers 1-0 win over Detroit last night early in the second period.

Initial reports said he was fine, but headshots are tricky issues

The Rangers play Dallas Monday night at MSG.