SEAN WHO…?

    VERSUS   

The Wolf Pack rode another fabulous performance by goaltender Matt Zaba, three point nights from Artem Anisimov and P.A. Parenteau and a great first performance with the team by Mark Bell en route to a 3-1 win in front of 2,260 at the XL Center Wednesday night.

The win, the team’s seventh straight and just two short of the franchise record, was not without cost. Defenseman Corey Potter was scratched just before the opening faceoff when he sustained an undisclosed upper-body injury during warm-ups. While Potter is listed as day-to-day, there is no way of knowing how long the team’s top pair defenseman will be down for.

Zaba (34 saves) and fresh off of being named the AHL goaltender of the month for February, continued his outstanding play in his first contest in March. While he was not challenged early, seeing only six shots in the first and eleven in the second, Zaba was constantly under attack in the third as Worcester fired 18 solid scoring shots at the Colorado College graduate. Zaba has now won seven of his last eight starts and the only loss was a 1-0 defeat by Bridgeport back on February 18th. Zaba has won eleven of his last thirteen starts.

Bell, playing in his first game since being sent to the Pack by the Rangers earlier in the week, made an already lethal top line with Anisimov and Parenteau that much more dangerous. While Brodie Dupont has been effective in forechecking and digging pucks out of the corners and playing in front of the net for the top trio, Bell, 28, adds an NHL veteran presence to the two goal scorers. Bell, another of President Glen Sather’s reclamation projects after various run ins with the law, has played in 445 NHL games with Chicago San Jose and before the Rangers plucked him off the waiver wire on February 25th. This season, Bell has put 12 pucks in the net and helped out on 15 others while playing in 56 games for the Toronto Marlies.

After the game, Bell told reporters that playing with Anisimov and Parenteau was going to be exciting. “Obviously Pierre and Artie are pretty gifted offensively at making good decisions, so I wasn’t about to change my game,” He said. “I just wanted to create some room for them and go to the net hard, and what happened on the first goal is pretty much what I do.

The first goal came with just 13.2 seconds remaining in the first period. Anisimov made a tremendous outlet pass that banked off the far boards right onto the stick of a streaking Parenteau. The leagues third leading scorer then rushed the puck along the right wing and once in the face off circle faked a shot drawing Thomas Greiss  (26 saves) to him. Both Brendan Buckley and Derek Joslin reacted to Parenteau and left Bell unattended. Parenteau made a great quick cross ice pass to Bell who had a vacated net to put the puck into as he one timed the Parenteau feed.

“You always want to get your first (goal) with your new team, so it was nice to get it so quickly. It’s a fresh start where I feel a weight has been lifted off me, and I’m looking forward to what I can do with the Rangers and the Wolf Pack.” Bell said afterwards.

After intermission, the Pack struck just 26 seconds into the period when Vladimir Denisov took a hard shot from the right point. Greiss stopped the initial shot but could not control the rebound. Anisimov was stationed right in front of the Koln, Germany native and proceeded to whack at the puck until he slid it past the fallen netminder for the 2-0 lead.

Zaba made one of his many brilliant stops on the night at 1:18 when he denied Sharks (30-26-1-2) center Matt Fortunato backhanded shot from right in front of the crease.

The Sharks finally solved Zaba at 3:12 when a Ryan Vesce feed to Derek Joslin led to a long shot from the right point. Joslin’s shot snuck through a crowd in front of the net and wound up under and through the Pack netminder.

Greiss made his share of solid saves as well stopping a Jordan Owens breakaway attempt after the mercurial winger took a Mike Ouellette pass and broke free from defenseman Jason Demers at 11:26 of the second frame.

Anisimov would put the game away for the home team when at 6:11 he took a pass from Bell and has all sorts of room up the right side of the slot and  put a beautiful backhander past Greiss. Parenteau had a piece of all three goals with his third helper of the game.

After the game, Head Coach Ken Gernander told reporters that he’s feeling confident with his current line combinations. “(Bell) plays a similar game to Brodie, who I thought could play just fine with (Patrick) Rissmiller and (Greg) Moore, so you also had three big guys on that line who can all skate and play physical when need be and have good hands,” Gernander said. “And I’m always confident with (Tommy) Pyatt, (Mike) Ouellette and (Jordan) Owens because they work so hard and are diligent defensively.”

Zaba denied Vesce’s shorthanded chance with under two minutes to play and then held serve as he repelled multiple shots from Shark attackers as they pulled Greiss for an extra player.

“Zaba is doing a whale of a job for us,” Gernander said to reporters afterwards.

Bruce Berlet is once again the master of the grammar and vocabulary with his recap at Hartfordwolfpack.com and for the Worcester perspective there is Mr. Happiness, Bill Ballou in the Worcester Telegram.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET.

NOTES:

* The win gave the Pack their first seven game win streak since earning nine consecutive victories from October 16 through November 4th in 2005 to start the 2004-05 season.

* Hartford Wolf Pack’s game this Saturday night, March 7 at Springfield will be aired live on WTIC NewsTalk 1080.

* Next Saturday, March 14, a GEICO Connecticut Cup battle with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, will be preceded by an exhibition game featuring the U.S. National Amputee team taking on a team from the Connecticut State Police.

Also at that game, the Wolf Pack will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day a couple of nights early, with the help of local Irish rock band The Mighty Ploughboys, who will be performing live throughout the game.

* Northland AEG announced that Warner Brothers recording artist Eric Hutchinson will perform live at the Hartford Wolf Pack’s home game Wednesday, March 18 at the XL Center. Hutchinson will also conduct a pre-game “meet and greet” with fans that night, prior to the Wolf Pack facing off against the division-rival Lowell Devils at 7:00.

Hutchinson has been a sensation in the music world since his self-released debut album, Sounds Like This, exploded to number one on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart in September 2007. Sounds Like This reached as high as number five on the iTunes album chart, which made it the highest-charting album by an unsigned act in iTunes history.

LINES:

Bell – Anisimov – Parenteau @

Dupont – Moore © – Rissmiller

Owens – Ouellette – Pyatt

Zaborsky/DiDiomete – (Rotated) – Sugden/ Weise

Denisov – Fahey

Urquhart – Sauer

Sanguinetti

Zaba

SCRATCHES:

Potter – Upper Body injury – Day-to-Day

Ford – Healthy

Nightingale – Healthy

Soryal – Hand – 2-3 weeks

Byers – Knee – Season

THREE STARS:

1. HFD – 42 Artem Anisimov
2. HFD – 22 Mark Bell
3. HFD – 17 Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Chris Brown (86), Referee
Jim Briggs (83), Linesman
Robert St. Lawrence (10), Linesman

SCOREBOARD WATCHING:

Providence, which lost key players that the parent Bruins traded away before the deadline yesterday, dropped an important road contest to the Toronto Marlies 6-4 while Manchester throttled Springfield 5-1.

Friday sees Philly visiting Worcester, Lowell travelling to Norfolk, Albany up in Springfield and Providence visiting Manitoba.

STANDINGS:

Rank          Team                          GP     W       L       OTL    SOL    PTS

1	Providence Bruins	62	34	23	2	3	73
2	Hartford Wolf Pack	62	34	23	2	3	73
3	Portland Pirates	62	30	23	3	6	69
4	Manchester Monarchs	62	30	26	0	6	66
5	Lowell Devils	60	28	24	2	6	64
6	Worcester Sharks	60	30	27	1	2	63
7	Springfield Falcons	63	19	35	7	2	47

NEXT GAME:

The Pack look to get win their eighth straight for only the second time in team history when they visit Manchester at the Verizon Wireless Center Friday night.