WOLF PACK FINISH OFF MONSTER SWEEP SUNDAY 

By: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

CLEVELAND, OH – The Hartford Wolf Pack completed a two-road game sweep of the Cleveland Monsters Sunday on Matt Rempe’s second goal with 5:46 remaining for a 3-2 win in front of 10,650 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

The Wolf Pack earned six of a possible eight points on their four-game road trip. For Rempe, it was his first two-goal game in nearly a year. The last coming against the Charlotte Checkers.

On his second goal, the game-winner, Rempe started the scoring sequence by forcing a turnover in the neutral zone on a hit to the Monsters’ Justin Pearson. Turner Elson picked up the loose biscuit and fed it to Brennan Othmann, who brought the puck into the zone and put a shot on Cleveland starter Jet Greaves. Rempe was trailing the play, came charging up the left wing, found the rebound, and wasted no time in firing his seventh goal of the season past Greaves.

The assist gives Othmann a five-game point streak.

The Monsters had two late chances to tie it. Still, the Pack’s Louie Domingue stopped Trey Fix-Wolansky on a tip-in attempt of a David Jiricek shot, and Mikael Pyythia with 1:38 to go with his blocker to seal the deal for the New York Rangers AHL affiliate.

The game didn’t start well for the Pack. Just 57 seconds into the contest, they took a Too Many Men call off a bad line change.  At 2:49, Rempe took a High Sticking call, putting the team down two men for 8 seconds. Three of the game’s first four minutes were spent killing penalties. Domingue stopped Cleveland’s best chances, denying Ty Angle and Luca Del Bel Belluz to keep the Monsters off the scoreboard.

The Pack then got their game together and scored twice in a 59-second span after not having had a shot on goal for the first 7:17 of the game.

Cristiano DiGiacinto got the puck off a carom off the left-wing boards. Rempe, taking full advantage of his 6’8 frame in front in front of Greaves, deflected the puck into the net for his sixth of the season at 7:30.

A day after celebrating his 28th birthday, Blake Hillman packaged a nice gift for himself, reading the play and pinching in to take a Mac Hollowell pass that was set up from a short pass from Bobby Trivigno while streaking toward the net took the pass and put it into the back of the net for his second tally of the campaign at 8:29 and a 2-0 Pack lead.

The Pack nearly made it 3-0 when Brett Berard broke in on a breakaway but ran out of real estate and fired his chance wide.

The Monsters got on the scoreboard to make it 2-1 on a power play. With Elson in the penalty box for a Delay of Game for a face-off violation for batting the puck with his hand, Pyythia was at the left point and half-fanned on his shot attempt. The puck went to Carson Meyer. For some reason, everyone seemed frozen in time and still reacting to the first play. Everyone, it seemed, except Cleveland’s captain, Brendan Gaunce. He was in front of Domingue and easily tapped in his 10th goal of the season at 14:33.

In the second period, the Monsters tied the game.

Jake Christiansen fired in his 10th goal of the season past Domingue.

On the goal, Rempe lost a faceoff in the defensive zone to Gaunce, who sent it back to Christiansen.  There was plenty of traffic in front of a screened Domingue, who never saw the shot, and the score was tied at 2 at 7:48.

The Wolf Pack had a solid chance with 2:02 to go in the period as Adam Sýkora had one of the few offensive zone entries with a sharp snapshot that Greaves stopped.

Domingue made strong stops on Cole Clayton and Owen Sillinger, who is the son of the ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger Mike Sillinger, as the period wound down.

The Wolf Pack return to Connecticut to begin a six-game home stand starting with Charlotte on Wednesday at the XL Center.

GAME SHEET

LINES:

Karl Henriksson-Brennan Othmann-Brett Berard
Adam Sýkora-Ryder Korczak-Alex Belzile
Artem Anisimov-Anton Blidh-Bobby Trivigno
Cristiano DiGiacinto-Matt Rempe-Turner Elson

Mac Hollowell-Matt Robertson
Nikolas Brouillard-Brandon Scanlin
Blake Hillman-Bryan Yoon

Louie Domingue
Dylan Garand

SCRATCHES:

Ben Harpur (upper body, indefinite)
Riley Nash (lower body, day-to-day)
Zach Berzolla (lower body, week-to-week)
Matej Pekar (lower body, week-to-week)
Adam Edström (upper body, week-to-week)

NOTES:

Greaves was playing in his 100th game for Cleveland.

The Wolf Pack played with a full complement of players and no healthy scratches.

Hartford is still in fourth place. They remain two points behind the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and four points ahead of the fifth-place Springfield Thunderbirds.

Connor Mackey, who was recalled, left Cleveland at 5:45 a.m. after last night’s game and headed to Ottawa, where the Rangers are in the Canadian capital city. The Rangers won convincingly 7-2. It was the last game before the NHL All-Star break, and Jacob Trouba’s two-game suspension for elbowing by the NHL opened up a spot for Mackey. In his fifth recall. He was wearing #14. He finally got some NHL game action and got into his first Rangers fight at 4:58 of the second period with Senators captain Brady Tkachuk. After a clean hit on Tim Stützle, the Senators’ hottest offensive forward, which sent him flying into the left-wing corner, on the way up the ice, Tkachuk challenged him at the blue line, and the gloves came off. No instigator call.

The former Wolf Pack factored in two goals by the Rangers.

Little used Zac Jones, pinched up for a two-on-one connected. Then, in the next shift, Jones, with a right point shot, former Wolf Pack captain Jonny Brodzinski redirected the puck into the net. Will Cullye had the secondary assist for the all-Hartford scoring play.

Cleveland changed half their defense for the game, including former #6 overall pick David Jiricek, who arrived back from Calgary, where parent Columbus was playing.

Cleveland had to sign an emergency goaltender, Evan Moyse, a former Ohio State Buckeyes (NCHC), because goalie Pavel Cajan was too ill to be the Monster’s backup tonight.

Last year, he was with seven teams in three leagues.

The Edmonton Oilers continued to roll on with their 16th straight win under Kris Knoblauch, 4-1, this afternoon. After the All-Star break ends, they will seek to tie the NHL record of 17 straight on February 6.

Besides Billy Sweezy, Cleveland had Justin Pearson (Yale/UCONN) in their lineup.

In the CT Ice tourney Yale’s Jack Stark had another 35-save performance and Yale held off a late rally by Sacred Heart to win 3-2.

The Bulldogs Dave Andreychuk (Frederick Gunn School-Washington), opened the game’s scoring.

In the championship game, Victor Czerneckianair (Southington) helped engineer a three-goal comeback as an early third-period goal by freshman Zach Tupker was the game-winner as the Quinnipiac University Bobcats, the defending National champions, beat UCONN, 4-3, to win their third straight CT Ice championship.

The event is to be hosted by Yale next year.

The #2 Boston College Eagles swept the number # 1 Boston University Terriers in a weekend Hockey East matchup along Commonwealth Avenue. Ranger draftee Gabe Perreault scored twice more this weekend.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

HOWLINGS