BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The American Hockey League verdict is in and the justice was swift and the Hartford Wolf Pack have been hit hard.
On Monday afternoon, in a first in Wolf Pack history, three players, Forwards Vinni Lettieri, Matt Beleskey, and Mason Geersten, were all simultaneously suspended. Four in were suspended as a result of Sunday afternoon’s melee in Springfield against the Thunderbirds.
All three Pack players were issued three-game suspensions that will knock them out of the lineup for this week’s round of AHL contests.
Losing Lettieri, the Pack’s leading scorer leaves the team with a gaping scoring issue. The loss of Beleskey further hurts the team’s line combinations. Geersten is a mainstay on defense, this leaves the team short a very important physical asset.
Lettieri and Beleskey were suspended for leaving the bench despite being in the midst of a line change and then engaging in an altercation. Ironically, Beleskey played the remainder of the game and actually incurred a major for boarding during the game.
Despite a ten-minute delay, the referees missed it altogether.
Geersten was punished for leaving the penalty box after being placed in there.
The suspension for Lettieri isn’t logical.
Springfield’s Brady Keeper was hit with three games for his manhandling of the linesman on two occasions during the skirmish. Keeper ignited the whole affair with a left hook with a gloved hand to Lettieri’s head, a move neither the refs on Sunday and the league did not address.
The number of clips on YouTube that show Lettieri hopping over the boards to start a rumble is exactly ZERO! Hockey fights.com lists just three previous scraps, one NHL, one AHL, and one USHL.
The AHL did acknowledge that the players were on a line change. The league should look to change some of the language of those suspendable offenses to measure a player’s intention in the play. Beleskey responded to the clear mismatch of Keeper and Lettieri. He was not an instigator.
These suspensions put the Wolf Pack in a bind as they seek to address their lineup issues. Tim Gettinger and/or Boo Nieves will start on Wednesday against the Providence Bruins and again two road games that include a rematch in Springfield next Friday, and then the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Saturday.
The team might reach down to the ECHL and their affiliates, the Maine Mariners and recall forward Jake Elmer and veteran defenseman Jeff Taylor.
The Wolf Pack announced a signing Monday. Zach Giuttari from Brown University (ECACHL), who’s season ended by losing to the ECACHL quarterfinals Colgate in two games. Giuttari could be pressed into service in one of the games.
Giuttari, a 6-2, 190-pound native of Warwick, RI, just completed a four-year career at Brown University. The 23-year-old Giuttari served as Brown’s captain this season, and led the team in points and assist. He had four goals and 11 assists for 15 points, along with ten penalty minutes. His four goals tied for the top among Bruins defensemen, and fourth overall on the team. That earned Giuttari his second consecutive Second-Team All-Ivy selection.
In 121 career games at Brown, Giuttari totaled 16 goals and 38 assists for 54 points, plus 43 penalty minutes. Prior to his college tenure, Giuttari spent three seasons (2012-13 through 2014-15) at The Loomis-Chaffee School in Windsor, CT and played 18 games with the Connecticut Wolf Pack’s U-18 team in 2014-15.
The team also conducted a paper transaction sending Adam Huska to Maine to be on their playoff roster and conversely goalie Francois Brassard in Maine was assigned to Hartford.
