By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack vanquished their playoff demons after a 7-1 dismantling of the Springfield Thunderbirds at the XL Center before 5,745, completing the two-game sweep of their I-91 rivals.
The Pack received outstanding efforts from Tanner Fritz, Turner Elson, and Anton Blidh in the series-clinching win. The Pack saw seven players score in the first-round sweep and will need to continue to receive that kind of balanced scoring if they are to continue moving forward in the playoffs.
“Going into the series, they had won nine of the twelve regular season games, but I felt at five-on-five we had played good hockey against them. The special teams was the difference,” remarked Hartford Head Coach Kris Knoblauch.
The Wolf Pack move on to challenge the Providence Bruins in a Best-of-Five series beginning Friday, April 28th, and Saturday, April 29th, at the Amica Mutual Pavilion. Both games start at 7:05 PM. As the higher seed, The Bruins will have the home-ice advantage in the Atlantic Division semi-final. After the first two games in Providence, the Pack return home for Game Three on Wednesday, May 3rd, and a potential Game Four on Friday, May 5th. Those two games will have puck drop starting at 7:00 PM. Finally, a potential Game Five would be back in Providence on Sunday, May 7th, with the first puck drop coming at 7:05 PM.
The Pack should have a level of confidence in this upcoming series. In ten regular season games against the Baby Bruins, the Wolf Pack went 5-3-1-0.
“We have been playing playoff hockey for three or four weeks before this series, so we got into a groove,” Knoblauch said.
The challenge for Knoblach with the Pack’s top four regular season players on recall to New York serving as the Black Aces squad for the Rangers meant the call went out to the roster to come together and find ways to score. “We needed somebody to step up and everybody did so in some way. We had the energy and we knew Springfield had taken us lightly in Game 1, but our guys were prepared for them.”
THIRD PERIOD
In the third period, Springfield trailing 5-1, they pulled their goaltender early. The Wolf Pack capitalized, adding two unassisted empty net goals. The first came shorthanded from Blidh at 13:34, and then Tim Gettinger tallied at 15:02.
Pack goaltender Dylan Garand managed the third period well. He made key stops on Martin Frk, Will Bitten, and Nikita Alexandrov to secure the victory over Springfield in a contribution reminiscent of Cam Talbot, who thwarted the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in a short playoff win for CT Whale years ago.
“Garand, has been solid all year and we played well defensively in front of him,” said Knoblauch.
SECOND PERIOD
The second period started with the Pack picking up right where they left off in the first frame scoring early and controlling the play. “We got great support from all our lines, and you need that in the playoffs,” Knoblauch stated.
Adam Edström forced Brady Lyle down and out into a tripping penalty on an early two-on-one.
The Pack power play, a work in progress throughout the regular season, paid off in this series.
After a successful zone entry, Bobby Trivigno took a short pass from Elson and fired it into the net off the near post at 3:57 for the team’s fourth goal.
Moving Elson from the fourth to the first line wasn’t difficult for Knoblauch.
“He got lost in the shuffle, when we had all those trades in the beginning of March. He kept working. We had him when (Ryan) Carpenter was sent down (by the Rangers) in early December and they had good chemistry. So we had to restructure our lines. We put them back together. It was a fairly easy decision for a coach to make,” Knoblauch said.
Repeating their success from Game One on Wednesday night, the Wolf Pack kept their foot on the gas pedal and continued their exigency.
Fine work on the left-wing boards by Will Cullye kept the puck in the zone. He intercepted a Thunderbirds clearing attempt and got it back to Zac Jones. The Pack defenseman wasted little time sending a cross-ice feed to a wide-open Blake Hillman.
Hillman moved in with Elson and Carpenter providing traffic in front of Joel Hofer and fired a rocket past the Springfield netminder for a 5-1 lead at 6:30.
FIRST PERIOD
The Pack struck first.
Lauri Pajuniemi received a backhanded pass from Blidh, faded off the left wing, and found Fritz rushing in. Fritz received the puck and deposited the first postseason goal of his career at 8:03.
“Fritz was so strong. We played a stretch of four-and-a-half minutes and he was a plus-three. It was easy to give him the tap on the shoulder to go out,” an impressed Knoblach stated.
With limited playoff experience, Fritz had opined weeks ago about his desire for postseason play. He put action into his words.
“I’ve got what, three games, in like six or seven years. It was something I really wanted to experience,” Fritz added, “We got belief in that locker room right now. We’re a lot different (team) than Springfield faced before. The crowd has been regularly exciting. We fed off that.”
The Pack made it 2-0 with Fritz and Blidh factoring in again.
Fritz got the puck to Wyatt Kalynuk on the left point. Kalynuk sent a perfect drive to the net with Blidh with the Hofer screen at 10:48 for what would prove to be the game-winning goal.
The Pack made it 3-0 with Fritz and Blidh factoring in on the tally again.
Fritz was on the left side. He and Jones played a quick pass and catch before finding Ty Emberson open on the right point. Emberson sent a low shot on the net with Blidh and Springfield defenseman Tyler Tucker tied up in front of Hofer, who never saw the puck.
Blidh will try to torture his ex-teammates in Providence in the next series.
With his team reeling early, former Wolf Pack and now Springfield Head Coach Drew Bannister was forced to use his timeout early to settle his rattled Thunderbirds down, much to the delight of the exuberant XL Center crowd.
The crowd started early, chanting, “We want pizza.” The chant was about a team promotion with a local eatery providing free slices to ticketed fans whenever the Pack scored four goals.
Adam Clendening laid a perfectly clean shoulder check and ran over Quinnipiac grad Matt Peca when he tried to cut across the ice on his zone entry in a one-on-four situation.
SPRINGFIELD’S ONLY TALLY
Springfield scored in the last minute of the first period on the power play.
A Bitten cross-ice, across-the-goal crease pass went off Alexandrov’s stick right back to Bitten. He put a shot on the net that went off the inside of Garand’s stick and pad while sliding over to make the save with 27.8 left in the period.
The Pack never wavered or gave Springfield a chance.
LINES:
Cullye-Carpenter-Elson
Fritz-Pajuniemi-Blidh
Gettinger-Edström-Lockwood
Henriksson-Sýkora-Trivigno
Jones-Emberson
Hillman-Scanlin
Clendening-Kalynuk
Garand
Gahagen #35
SCRATCHES:
Talyn Boyko #40
Matt Rempe (upper body, day-to-day)
Louie Roehl #4 (healthy)
Bryce McConnell-Barker #8 (healthy)
Brett Berard #27 (healthy)
Cooper Zech #37 (healthy)
Matt Robertson (upper body, may return in the later half of the next round of the playoffs)
Patrick Khordorenko (season-ending shoulder surgery).
C.J. Smith (hip area surgery done for the season)
NOTES:
Near the end of the second period, the XL Center scoreboard malfunctioned and went out. Only the video portion came back. The issue forced the XL Center PA announcer to announce the time left when the play stopped. This continued until just 7:46 remained in the third period when only a small video was shown for the rest of the game.
The last playoff series win for the Wolf Pack came in a six-game quarterfinal series victory over the Hershey Bears in 2015. Two of the team’s home games were forced to be played in Worcester, MA, at the DCU Center. The now-shuttered Ringling Brothers Circus was at the XL Center. Worcester was still in the AHL before becoming an ECHL city.
Simsbury native Tommy Cross (Westminster), injured for half the season, dressed and played as a captain for an elimination game for Springfield.
Fritz’s three assists on Wednesday allowed him to become the 21st Wolf Pack to accomplish that in the playoffs. Chris Bourque was the last player to do so on May 15th, 2015. That was the last time the Wolf Pack had won a playoff game.
The Wolf Pack had three playoff series in the early years against the Springfield Falcons. They came in 1999, 2000, and 2003.
Eleven Pack players made their playoff debuts for Hartford on Wednesday night.
The AHL media voted Calgary Wrangler’s Dustin Wolf the league’s regular season Les Cunningham MVP. He becomes just the eighth goalie in league history to accomplish that honor. Wolf is the first netminder since the Wolf Pack’s Jason LaBarbera won the award in 2004. LaBarbera is presently the Calgary Flames goalie coach. Another ex-Pack, MacKenzie Skapski, is the Wranglers’ goalie coach.
The Jacksonville Icemen, the Wolf Pack Double AA affiliate, began its seven-game ECHL South semi-final series against the Rangers’ former ECHL affiliate, the Greenville (SC) Swamp Rabbits. Greenville took Game 1 4-1, with former UCONN forward Ben Freeman registering one of the goals, and former Thunderbird Ryan Bednard was in the net for the Swamp Rabbits.
Former Quinnipiac Bobcat Craig Martin had Jacksonville’s only goal. In the net for Jacksonville was a former Wolf Pack emergency goalie, Charles Williams. He made 27 saves in the loss.
Gettinger played his junior career under Bannister for three seasons with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (OHL). The Greyhounds was the landing spot for Wolf Packm assistant coach Jamie Tardif before coming to Hartford.
Bannister was a member of the 2000 Wolf Pack Calder Cup championship team celebrated here two weeks ago.
The Springfield Thunderbirds went to the Calder Cup Final against the Chicago Wolves last year and didn’t face an elimination game until the Conference Final against the Laval Rocket. Then, they faced elimination against the Kevin Dineen-coached Utica Comets.
Speaking of Dineen, congrats to his son William. As a freshman at Yale, he won the William Chace Sportsmanship and Dedication Award at the Ivy League School.
Chris Harpur, the younger brother of current Ranger, and former Wolf Pack, Ben Harpur, was recalled from the Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL) by the Syracuse Crunch.
After five years of NCAA hockey, Erik Gotz, the nephew of Wolf Pack great Ken Gernander, heads to Europe and signs with the Krefeld Penguins (Germany-DEL). He played a fifth year at the alma mater of two of his other uncles, the Gernander twins, Jim and Jerry, who were graduates of the Vermont Catamounts (HE) program. They played a Wolf Pack exhibition game with their brother many years ago.
Twelve players are now off to Europe. 228 Division I and III college players have signed pro deals in North America and Europe.
The USA U-18 Team is about to embark on the World U-18 championships in Basel, and Ajoie, Switzerland. They’ll play April 20-23. They named their roster. The team is coached by former Yale assistant Dan Muse and one of his assistants is ex-Pack, Chad Kolarik. Their players include two former Mid-Fairfield U-16 members, Sal Guzzo and Ryan Fine, who played together at Don Bosco Prep (NJPREP).
The Canadian U-18 squad coaches are ex-Springfield Falcon coach Jeff Truitt (Prince Albert-WHL), with one of his assistants being ex-Danbury Trasher, Bruce Richardson (Blaineville-Boisbrand-QMJHL).
Ex-Pack John Gilmour officially signed with Adler Mannheim (Germany-DEL).
Cheshire native and former Hartford Jr. Wolf Pack, Robert “Bert” Malloy, now a dual citizen, has been playing for the Australian National team this week in Madrid, Spain. It hasn’t gone well. They dropped their first three games to Croatia, Spain, and Iceland in Division II Group A. They won a 7-1 rout of the Israel National Team. Malloy collected the last two goals of the game. He had three shots and was a plus-three. The team plays tomorrow against the nation of Georgia at the Pista del Hielo Arena.
Some European titles have been decided. But, amazingly, in the middle of everything going on in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Hockey League (UHL) has crowned MHK Sokil as their champion.
SG Cortina (Italy) has won the Alps Hockey League (AlpsHL).
Anyang Halla (South Korea) won the first Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH) title in three years because of the pandemic. The team’s head coach is former AHL’er Jim Paek, with one-time Providence Bruin Matt Dalton, a South Korean citizen, in the net.
The XL Center honored their late colleague Pat Rudolph-Anderson by having her family drop the ceremonial first puck after a moment of silence. In addition, all monies raised from the 50/50 raffle, Chuck-A-Puck, and jersey auction were donated to the family. The other tribute came behind the goal on each end of the ice as the name “Pat” was etched onto the ice surface by 40-year-plus XL veteran Ice Crew Chief Therell Wayne Knight in a thoughtful homage.
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