HARTFORD WOLF PACK LOSE TO ROCKFORD ICE HOGS IN FIRST VISIT EVER TO HART CITY 

By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The Rockford Ice Hogs won the one-on-one battles and received a goal and an assist from Lukas Reichel and Dylan Sikura to pace them to a 4-2 win over the Hartford Wolf Pack at the XL Center.

“We got our chances in the third (period), and we didn’t get much in the way of rebounds. Once we forced the issue we got a lot more chances. We just couldn’t score. I thought the chances were pretty even between both squads. We didn’t get the offense we wanted, but then again we are missing five or six of our top forwards right now. Our guys worked hard, we just didn’t get the results we wanted, “Pack Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said in his post-game comments.

In the third period, the Wolf Pack trailed by three when the Wolf Pack used solid forechecking to force a two-on-none and made it count. The Wolf Pack had a pair of forwards force a turnover. Guttman was in the offensive zone at the Pack blue line and swiped by Tanner Fritz after Bobby Trivigno’s forecheck forced the turnover.

Then Fritz and Trivigno broke out on the odd man rush.

At 6:06 came the game’s only clean scoring chance for the Wolf Pack. In a give-and-go situation, Fritz shuffled it back to Trivigno, who put in his fourth goal of the season with Matt Rempe trailing to make it an actual three-on-none.

“We had a lot good opportunities. We played right at five-on-five. We just have to find a way to win these one goal games. Too many are going the other way on us. We’re making those first or second but, we just have to capitalize and put it in the back of the net. Getting down 3-0, it’s tough to dig out of that hole,” remarked Trivigno.

Knoblauch was pleased but offered a caveat.

“It’s good we got that chance and showed we know what to do with (the puck); it’s just we’re not getting a chance like that that often. Bobby made a good play there….We just need more of them.”

The Pack’s netminder, Louis Domingue, made two saves on Reichel and Alec Regula to keep the Wolf Pack within shouting distance early.

The Pack played with a sense of urgency, getting some net-front presence and offensive zone time in the process. Will Cullye made a shorthanded pass to Turner Elson with a backhander just before the goal was stopped by the goaltender, Jaxon Stauber. At 15:42, a rare net-front rebound came off an Andy Welinski shot. Cullye attempted to score, but Stauber gobbled it up.

Ryan Lohin was wide-open on the right wing side and was stopped with no other chances as Stauber controlled the rebounds effectively.

“When you have stretch like this, we just have to simplify our game. We have to hone in on our special teams right now and try to get it to click and get some pucks in the back of the net and make it a totally different game than it becomes,” Trivigno said.

The Pack continued to inch closer. They had a tremendous late-game power play opportunity but only managed one shot, Welinski’s left point blast with 18.5 seconds left in the power play.

With 4.5 seconds left, Brandon Scanlin’s rocket from the left point converted Cristiano DiGiacinto’s feed from behind the net and saw his first pro goal go to the short side that sailed past Stauber cleanly.

The Wolf Pack had 15 shots in the third period and 30 in the game. It was undoubtedly their most productive evening period, but hockey is played for 60 minutes, not just 20.

In the second period, at 6:19, Rockford went up 2-0 as Adam Clendening was at the right point inside the blue line. He took a Sikura pass up from the right wing half-wall and fired a cross-ice pass to Cole Guttman, who one-timed it over Domingue’s glove for his fifth goal of the season.

The Ice Hogs managed the puck efficiently and kept possession. They limited time and space on the Wolf Pack whenever they had the biscuit making Stauber’s job that much easier.

When the Wolf Pack did have a chance, it was usually a “one and done.” There were few second or third chances for the Pack.

On the flip side, Domingue did his best to keep the score close with stops on Brett Seney, David Gust, and Louis Crevier.

The first period was a tight-checking affair, with both teams unfamiliar with the other. Due to injuries and call-ups, the Pack was fielding a team filled with ECHL call-ups that had little practice time together. Rockford had played the night before, and it showed.

Rockford got the first break on a Reichel dump-in. The Pack said it hit a lousy board behind their net as Domingue glared at the off-ice crew nearby and smacked the end boards with his goalie stick, but the video replay showed the puck glanced in off his skate and his stick in front of the net. Sikura quickly turned around and swept his seventh of the season into the open net at 13:19.

Just a few minutes earlier, Domingue had used his left pad to make one of his best saves of the night. He extended his leg completely out on Seney twice on the right side of the net at 11:10.

LINES:

Ruesschhoff  – Trivigno – Smith
Henriksson – Whalen – DiGiacinto
Fritz – Cullye – Elson
Hillman – Lohin – Rempe

Emberson – Robertson
Zac Jones – Welinski
Scanlin – Giuttari

Garand

SCRATCHES:

Gustav Rydahl (Day-to-Day, Lower-Body )
Lauri Pajuniemi  (Day-to-Day, Upper-Body)
Tim Gettinger (Out For a Month, Upper-Body)
Patrick Khordorenko (Season Over – Shoulder Surgery)

NOTES:

Blake Hillman moved from defense to play left wing on the fourth line. No decision has been made on tomorrow’s starting goalie.

The Rockford team bus arrived late as they got lost coming from Springfield.

The Wolf Pack got some tough news early this afternoon as captain Jonny Brodzinski and a defenseman were recalled by the Rangers.

Defenseman Zac Jones is coming back down to Hartford on a conditioning stint after being a healthy scratch. “It’s great to have him back. I’m very close with Zach from our days UMASS. It’s a tough thing, because you want him up there, “remarked Trivigno.

Knoblauch got an early Christmas gift. “Its good to have him here and we’ll enjoy having him while he’s here.”

Ryan Lohin was inserted into the lineup for the Wolf Pack. Gustav Rydahl was held out and is likely to play in Providence. He’s trying to come off an upper-body injury. Lohin was recalled from Jacksonville last week.

The Pack is already 15 points behind the first-place Providence Bruins and ten points behind the fourth-place Charlotte Checkers in what is the last divisional playoff spot. This is after just 18 games played.

The Hershey Bears have won five in a row and are 8-2 in their last 10. They were idle on Saturday.

The Wolf Pack have a mid-afternoon (3:00 PM) date tomorrow in Providence with the Bruins led by ex-Pack Vinni Lettieri.

Rockford is in fourth in the AHL Central by three points ahead of the Iowa Wild, who they return home to play on Tuesday night.

The Wolf Pack had a whole week before their first-ever meeting with the Rockford Ice Hogs, the top affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks. They have started goalie Jackson Stauber, the son of former Wolf Pack/New Haven Nighthawks goalie Robb Stauber. The elder Stauber also won the Hobey Baker Award at Minnesota and, as a sophomore, won the gold medal as the head coach of the 1998 US Olympic Women’s team in Nagano, Japan.

Rockford’s assistant coach is former Wolf Pack Jared Nightingale.

Nightingale remembers his time fondly in Hartford and Springfield as he played in both places.

“Hartford was always good to me. The second time (2007-2008) I was playing my best, but there was too many contracts, so they had to let me go.”

One of his first pro games was with Springfield in Harford. Dale Purinton chased him all over the ice. “That was my baptism. Dale screaming my name at me chasing me from one side of the rink to the other.” In regards to his first goal, “I scored so few. You think I’d remember them all.”

Both parent teams, the Rangers and Blackhawks, met last night in an Original Six meeting at MSG. Chicago won that game 5-2.

The Ice Hogs won 4-2 in Springfield on Friday night behind three assists by Brett Seney and a goal and an assist by Lukas Reichel and Cole Guttman.

Two other Midwestern teams, the Milwaukee Admirals and Grand Rapids Griffins, come in next weekend. So in two weeks, the Wolf Pack will make a (sadly) rare Midwestern-road trip to Rockford, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids in kind.

Milwaukee features current Admirals captain and former Wolf Pack captain and UCONN Husky Cole Schneider from their AHA years and another former Husky of recent vintage from their Hockey East incarnation, Jáchym Kondelík.

Milwaukee beat Manitoba 4-3 in a shootout Thursday. Schneider scored a team-best ninth goal, and Kondelik had an assist. Milwaukee lost a matinee game Saturday in Winnipeg at the Canada Life Centre, with the Moose winning 3-2 as ex-Pack Nick Jones earned the game’s first star with a goal and an assist for the Moose.

Then Grands Rapids, where current Wolf Pack GM Ryan Martin (Simsbury, CT) spent eight years before coming to Hartford. Former Pack defenseman Steven Kampfer resides there, just reassigned on a conditioning stint, is goalie Magnus Hellberg. He was claimed off waivers for the third time this year by Detroit. Finally, Wyatt Newpower of UCONN spent four years in Hockey East and is in his third pro year.

Hellberg had 34 saves last night and Newpower an assist in Friday’s 4-1 loss to Texas.

Also playing is a Wolf Pack training camp invitee last year, cut on the last day, and an ex-Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Cédric Lacroix, and Austin Czarnik, who was just recalled for a second time by the Red Wings.

Griffins’ assistant coach is a former Division II/III UConn Husky  ECAC East, former Hartford Whaler of two years, and former New Haven Nighthawk of 13 games, Todd Krygier. The other assistant is ex-Ranger Mike Knuble, and the head coach is a former Springfield Falcon, Ben Simon.

The Bridgeport Islanders saw three players go up to the New York Islanders in Simon Holmstrom, Cole Bardreau, and Hudson Fasching. Bardreau was sent back Saturday.

Two forwards, Collin Adams and Jimmy Lambert, the nephew of current Islanders coach, former Sound Tigers bench boss, and former Nighthawks player Lane Lambert, were both recalled from Worcester Railers (ECHL).

Ex-Sound Tiger Kieffer Bellows cleared waivers and was reassigned to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms by the Philadelphia Flyers. They come into the XL Center Wednesday.

Hershey released former UCONN forward and Yale grad Kevin O’Neil without ever playing a game and heads back to the South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL).

Ex-Pack Phil Di Guiseppe remains a cap liability until the Canucks trade is made to alleviate the issue was sent down from Vancouver to Abbottsford.

Drake Rymsha, the son of ex-Nighthawk Andy Rymsha, was recalled by Bakersfield from the Ft. Wayne Komets (ECHL).

Peter DiLiberatore (Quinnipiac University-ECACHL) is recalled from the Savannah Ghost Pirates (ECHL) to Henderson.

On Friday, #6 nationally ranked UCONN lost the back end of a home-and-home series 7-3 to Merrimack College. In addition, they have been outscored in their last three games by a combined score of 15-6.

Bryce Brodzinski, the younger brother of Pack captain, Jonny Brodzinki, scored and extended his point-scoring streak to five games in a 5-0 win Minnesota win over Michigan State in a Big 10 matchup both teams play tonight again at Munn Arena at Michigan State.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

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