By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – After 40 minutes of solid hockey, the Hartford Wolf Pack disintegrated and dropped a stunner 6-3 game to the Charlotte Checkers Sunday afternoon.
The Pack led by two after two periods. Entering the third, they had not lost in regulation all season, but the Pack was out of gas.
Hartford surrendered five goals and pulled goaltender Louie Domingue after 50 minutes of play. After that, the Checkers were like waves at high tide-just crashing all around the Wolf Pack.
The Pack and Charlotte were both ending a three-in-three weekend, and both playing an 11-7 format (11 forwards-seven defensemen), with both sporting six players out. However, the third period shocked the best crowd in over ten years, 7,808, into complete silence.
With their fifth win in the eight games between the two teams, the Checkers take the season series.
The Checkers needed just 84 seconds to erase a two-goal deficit.
The first came 32 seconds into the third when Gerry Mayhew redirected Lucas Carlsson’s left-point drive. Then, at 1:56, Riley Bezeau was in the left wing circle and captured his second goal of the night, and fifth of the season, to tie the game at three.
At 9:19, Charlotte scored again.
Matt Kierstad was at the right point and took a diagonal pass from Riley Nash from the left wing circle. Kierstad fired from the point and tallied his fifth of the season with what would prove to be the game-winner.
Eleven seconds later, Oliver Chau, a college teammate of the Pack’s Bobby Trivigno and Zac Jones when both were at UMass and a Quinnipiac grad transfer last year, tallied his first AHL goal over Domingue’s glove hand.
Head Coach Kris Knoblauch pulled Domingue with ten minutes left, a first in Wolf Pack history. The team had never pulled a goalie that late in a contest for his play. The only other times were for a player injury.
Dylan Garand came in relief after having had no work the previous night.
It was shocking as the Checkers had the puck, and the Pack skated into quicksand throughout the third.
The Pack held the last playoff in the division as the afternoon started but slipped into seventh, tied with the Bridgeport Islanders with 58 points, but have more wins.
The Checkers tacked on one more in the nightmare third period for the Pack, with Nash earning his second point of the night on an empty-netter.
The Pack took a 2-1 lead as Tim Gettinger split the defense, catching Santtu Kinnunen going the wrong way. Gettinger went backhand-to-forehand but was stopped by J.F. Berube. However, Lauri Pajuniemi was there to scoop up the rebound for his 15th of the year at 2:25.
The Pack added a third goal as Trivigno, with good harassment of Charlotte’s Calle Sjalin, forced a turnover behind the net and got the puck to newcomer Anton Blidh.
Making his Wolf Pack debut, the Swedish winger took a shot that Berube got his right pad on. The rebound returned to Blidh, who scored his first as a Wolf Pack and third of the year at 18:55.
The Wolf Pack built off the energy of last night’s 9-0 shellacking of Bridgeport and scored the game’s first goal.
Captain Jonny Brodzinski was skating off the left wing and benefitted from some puck luck as Charlotte’s John Ludvig tried to clear the puck, but it bounced up off his shoulder instead.
Brodzinski deftly knocked the puck down and whacked home his 12th past ex-Pack goalie Berube despite the puck being on edge.
Charlotte tied the game at one as winger Dominic Franco was deep on the left wing and waited for defenseman Lucas Carlsson, who was the trailer, to get into position. Carlsson then uncorked a cannon, and it was re-directed by Bezeau for his fourth goal of the season, going past Domingue at 17:42.
The goal ended a shutout streak of 199:53 dating back to the Syracuse Crunch game.
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