WORLD JUNIOR QUARTERFINALS SUMMARY 

                              By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack profited by Slovakia losing at the World Junior Championship earlier this week.

Slovakia’s thrilling 4-3 overtime loss to Finland allows Adam Sýkora to return to Hartford. Since his assignment to Slovakia, Sýkora’s return will solidify a lineup in flux.

The Wolf Pack are embarking on a critical stretch of three games in four days beginning Thursday in Bridgeport against the Islanders. Sýkora should be eligible for Saturday’s game in Hershey against the league-best Bears or Sunday against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. He’ll likely get a day or two to recover from the jet lag caused by the time change coming back from Sweden.

During the game, Sýkora found the right time to score what would turn out to be his only WJC goal.

With 1.7 seconds left in the first period, he won the draw and headed to the net as Filip Mesar got the loose puck and got a shot on the net.

Sýkora got inside Finnish defenseman Otto Salin, collected the rebound, and fired it upstairs with two-tenths of a second remaining to give Slovakia the lead at 1-0.

In the third period, after the two teams traded goals, it looked like Finland would win when, with 1:34 left, Alexsanteri Kaskimaki hit the post and put the puck in.

Mesar followed with Sýkora in front screening, found a rebound, and scored a goal to tie it with 44 seconds left.

Just 24 seconds into the 10-minute three-on-three OT session, Finland ended it when Jere Lassila made a tremendous end-to-end rush. He went backhand-to-forehand and ended Slovakia’s strong tournament.

CANADA ELIMINATED

After a lackluster first period, Team Canada came out flying in the second period. A 10-bell save by Mathis Rousseau, the grandson of New York Rangers/Montreal Canadiens great Bobby Rousseau, made a fantastic save on a two-on-one on Czechia’s Eduard Sale, who was set up by Matyas Melovsky, preventing Czechia from taking a 3-0 lead.

Back up the ice, Matt Wood (UCONN-HE) took a lead pass from Easton Cowan and, from twenty feet, wristed a top-shelf shot into the net to get the Canadians back into the game at 3:42. Nashville GM Barry Trotz was in the crowd watching Wood, the prospect his team picked last June in the first round (15th overall).

The Canadians tied it in the last five minutes of the period as Jake Furlong scored. Furlong scored just one goal all year in Halifax (QMJHL), registered in November.

Sales sent a shot with 11 seconds left that went off Oliver Bonk’s shin pads, changed its direction, and eluded Rousseau.

Czechia and Finland were the first two teams to punch their semifinal ticket.

Team USA avoided losing to a lower-seeded team by defeating Latvia, as third-round Rangers’ draftee and future Wolf Pack, Drew Fortescue, scored 1:31 into the game.

Another Ranger draftee, first-rounder (23rd overall) Gabe Perreault, a fellow Boston College Eagle (HE), one of another seven players on the team like Fortescue, the son of former NHL’er Yanic Fortescue, deposited his first tournament goal into a wide-open net as they stretched out the Latvia defense.

The US responded 13 seconds after Latvia scored with a shot that went off Danny Nelson’s shin pads to have them exit the first period leading 3-1.

Perreault scored with 21.7 left in the second with his second.

Team USA never looked back, securing a 7-2 win. They will play in the other semifinal on Thursday and try to get to Saturday’s championship final.

The last quarterfinal pitted Sweden against Switzerland.

Sweden needed an OT to survive tallied in the extra session.

Late in the game, the officials changed a spearing call from a major to a minor for slashing.

The Swiss patiently battled back to even the contest at two but lost in overtime.

The top-rated Alexis Sandin-Pellika scored the winner, firing it in from the right point.

Sweden plays Czechia in the first semi (9:00 am EST). The US takes on Finland in the second semifinal at 1:00 pm on Thursday. Both games will be broadcast on the NHL Network.

NOTES:

Sýkora’s eventual return, Adam Edström’s reassignment by the Rangers, and the new signing (see below), the roster is taking shape, and a few skaters will likely be heading to Cincinnati.

Howlings reported the Pack was about to sign a veteran forward and did. It signed a former Pack to Professional Try-Out (PTO), Artem Anisimov. He returned to Hart City, where he started his professional career.

He did not sign with Grand Rapids. He played 55 games last season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, where he registered 36 points. He had 124 points in 154 games (209 AHL games total) and has accrued 771 NHL games. He last played here in 2008-09. Then, an entire season consisted of 80 games. He was a second-round Rangers draft pick in 2006.

One of Anisimov’s most memorable Wolf Pack moments came at the end of a game at the XL Center against the Lowell Devils’ Alexandre Vasyunov. At the time, Lowell was the home to the Devils’ AHL affiliate.

Anisimov and Vasyunov took a wonderful center-ice picture after the game. The two had played together on youth teams in Yaroslavl, Russia.

Tragically, Vasyunov perished when the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (Russia-KHL) team plane at Tunoshna Airport in Yaroslavl, Russia, suffered a major malfunction and crashed upon takeoff into the river bank, killing 43, including former Hartford Whaler Brad McCrimmon, who was their head coach. This happened on September 7, 2011. He was the older brother of current Vegas GM Kelly.

Then, in the fall of 2011, the Rangers had an exhibition preseason game in Albany, NY (then Devils AHL home). Anisimov declined an interview request, stating, “There are too many ghosts here, “Vasyunov had played there the year before.

NOTES:

Nick Jermain (Cos Cob/Quinnipiac University) leaves the Trois-Rivières Lions (ECHL) after 20 games and just six points signs for the rest of the year with HC Anglet (France- Magnus-FREL) joining goalie Dylan St. Cyr, also a former Quinnipiac player and son of former New Haven Senator Gerry, Michael Young (Yale University-ECACHL) and Craig Puffer (Greenwich).

Brady Shaw, the son of former Whaler Brad Shaw, goes from HC Innsbruck (Austria IceHL) to ASG Angers (France Magus-FREL).

Ex-Pack Patrick Sieloff signs and returns to Cologne (Germany-DEL) after two years he last played for them. He played in  San Jose (AHL) last season.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

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