BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
ALLENTOWN, PA – Hartford Wolf Pack (3-1-0-1) captain, Johnny Brodzinski, tallied with 5:02 remaining to give the visitors a 3-1 victory over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at the PPL Center in Allentown, in Pennsylvania.
Prior to the faceoff, the Phantoms were unable to make a defensive personnel change that ended up being lost to Garrett Wilson. The Phantoms’ German Rubstov mishandled the puck while he was harassed from behind by Tim Gettinger. Greco stepped in front of defenseman Egor Zamula backhanded the puck to a wide-open Brodzinski who fired the winner into the net.
Felix Sandstrom (38 saves) made the best save of the game just two minutes prior robbing a point-blank shot by Anthony Bitetto with 7:32 left to play.
SANDSTROM SAVE
Ty Ronning was open in front with Bitetto behind him. The puck hit him in the chest and fell to the ice, took a bounce, and then he took a swipe at it. Sandstrom dove across with his blocker, losing his stick in the process. He dove to attempt to stop the scoring chance but got the puck with his right leg pad to temporarily keep the Pack off the board.
Sandstrom earned second-star status stopping Greco with 3:23 to go after he came down the right-wing side and let go a snapshot. The puck rebounded to Gettinger, but Sandstrom was alert and stopped that one too. Greco could do nothing more than just look up to the ceiling in frustration.
Greco and Gettinger each had team-high seven shots.
The Phantoms did not go down without a fight. Brennan Saulnier went high and hard on Brodzinski in the right-wing corner. Bitetto came across with his stick and elbowed him high sent him flying him backward. He was penalized for an interference minor at 17:19.
HUSKA
Goalie Adam Huska (21 saves) did his best penalty-killing effort stopping both Cam York on two chances and Morgan Frost.
When Bitetto exited the penalty box after a successful kill, he picked the loose biscuit and put it into the empty net to seal the win.
Garrett Wilson charged Bitetto with gloves dropped and a fight ensued. The refs called Wilson initially with a roughing and unsportsmanlike conduct plus a major for fighting, as well as game misconduct with 33.6 seconds remaining.
Hartford tied the score at one with a little puck luck in the first five minutes of the second period.
RONNING
Ty Ronning entered the Lehigh Valley end on the left side before sending a backhand saucer pass in the direction of Tanner Fritz. The puck went off Wilson’s skate and past Sandstrom for the equalizer.
The Phantoms took the 1-0 lead.
On a late powerplay, the Wolf Pack tried a slingshot offensive zone entry but it backfired.
Brodzinski took Zac Jones’s feed, was stripped of the puck by a Frost poke check. The biscuit was up scooped up by Max Willman, who was recently reassigned by the Flyers after his first two NHL games in Max Willman. He raced in and beat Huska low to the glove side along the ice with 36.6 seconds left.
LINES
Richards-Brodzinski-Gettinger
Khordorenk-Pajuniemi-Ronning
Fritz-Greco-Whelan
O’Leary-Labrie-DiCiacinto
Bitetto-Jones
Schneider-Robertson
Giuttari-Reunanen
NOTES
Wolf Pack Head Coach, Kris Knoblauch, and the Phantoms head coach Ian Lappiere both worked together in Philadelphia as assistant coaches.
New Jersey native Laura White was the first of the AHL’s ten women refs officiated the game. The first in team history and at the PPL Center in Allentown. The other ref was Beau Halkidis.
The Phantoms Brennan Saulnier’s older sister, Jill, a member of the Canadian women’s national team and the Montreal (PHWA) club, was in town. They played Team USA in PA winning 3-1. She is heading to Hartford for the next leg of the seven-game tour that ends at the WJC tournament in Edmonton/Red Deer, Alberta in January.
The entire family from Halifax, Canada was able to make the trip to see them both.
He also help initiate the first set of fighting majors this year with a spirited scrap with Wolf Pack vet Pierre-Cedric Labrie in the second period. Saulnier, a lefty squared off with the righty Labrie, who sought revenge for a hard, high hit behind the Wolf Pack net of Zach Giuttari in the first period.
The loss was the first in the nine-year history of the Phantoms in opening night games that now reads 6-1-2-0.
