By: Jason Alwang, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT: The Utica Comets defeated the Hartford Wolf Pack in a tightly contested battle, 2-1, at the PeoplesBank Arena in front of a big Hartford crowd of 7,581 on Friday night.
Marc McLaughlin scored the game-winning goal off a two-on-one rush for his third goal of the season at 12:30 of the third period, giving the Comets a 2-0 lead at the time. The goal is McLaughlin’s third of the season, and Brian Halonen and Calen Addison recorded the assists on McLaughlin’s marker.
Ethan Edwards scored the first goal of the game when the Comets quickly put on a good shift and capitalized with Edwards putting in a shot past Dylan Garand (23 saves) for his ninth goal of the season at 10:05 of the third period. Topias Vilen and Cam Squires recorded the assists on the goal. The Comets got multiple shots off on the shift, tiring the Hartford skaters.
Jusso Parssinen gave the Wolf Pack their lone goal on the night at 17:26 of the third period to cut the Utica deficit to 2-1. The goal is Parssinen’s second of the season, with Travis Dermott recording an assist in his Hartford debut, and Anton Blidh recording the secondary assist.
Nico Daws made 16 saves on the 17 Wolf Pack shots in the game. The Wolf Pack had plenty of looks in the offensive zone, just not enough shots at the net to give them a great chance to win the contest.
The Wolf Pack did have chances in the game, especially when a Utica turnover resulted in Hartford’s best chance of the game in the second period, creating a scrum in the crease in front of Daws after multiple shots got through and the puck was still loose before play was whistled down.
The Wolf Pack received the one power play of the evening but couldn’t get properly set up to get any quality looks toward the Utica net.
Garand robbed the Comets on multiple occasions in Friday’s game, with the best coming on a backdoor play with Garand sliding with the glove with less than four minutes left in the second period. Angus Crookshank was the one with the shot and was robbed by Garand.
The Wolf Pack just couldn’t capitalize with the extra skater and dropped their eighth game in their last nine, falling to 17-24-5-2 on the season. The Wolf Pack will look to bounce back Saturday night when they host the Belleville Senators.
