VERSUS 
CANTLON: (FRI) WOLF PACK TRIP UP MARLIES 5-2
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Scott Kosmachuk had three assists and Boo Nieves added a goal and an assist to pace the Wolf Pack to their first regulation win of the season, 5-2 over the visiting Toronto Marlies.
The Pack travels to Springfield on Saturday night for their first meeting of the season with the Thunderbirds at 7 pm at the Mass Mutual Center.
The Pack sealed the deal by scoring two empty-net goals and getting a big save from goalie Chris Nell in the final minute-and-a-half of play.
“Guys came out with some jump and a work ethic (that) was very good. We were on our heels a bit and Toronto was making that push that we knew would be coming. We did an intelligent job of handling things in the third to help gain the win,” said head coach Keith McCambridge as he saw the Pack go to 1-1-1 on the young season.
The first empty-netter came on a blocked shot from Kosmachuk and he sent Cole Schneider off to deposit his second goal of the year with 37.9 seconds left to make it 4-2.
“To see how much (Kosmachuk) has improved a year removed from coaching him brings a real smile to my face to see him at the level he is at right now.”
Joe Whitney converted on a turnaround wrister that entered the net with just a second remaining on the clock before the green light came on to close out the scoring at 5-2.
Nell made a superb blocker save with 1:16 left with the score just 3-2 on Kasperi Kapanen that prevented overtime as he was open on the right wing.
“You need those game-savers like that during the season to get two points he played a strong game,” McCambridge said. He was not willing to tip his hand as to who his Saturday night starter would be.
The Marlies were held in check for the first two periods. They made it a game with two goals in 45 seconds to start the third period.
Kapanen tallied the first when he was wide open in the lower left wing circle. Kapanen buried Matt Marincin’s cross-ice pass from the right for his first goal of the season at 1:21.
Defenseman Vincent LoVerde made it two in 45 seconds when he raced down the left wing side untouched, swept in front of the net and deposited his first of the year shorthanded to turn a 3-0 Pack lead into a 3-2 game at 2:06.
McCambridge wisely took his timeout to settle the troops down.
“It was like, ‘What did we learn from the Charlotte game?’ We were playing back on our heels there and we knew Toronto would make a push. We had to manage the puck better. You can’t play play passive and you have got to be on your toes and you have to stay aggressive in your own zone,” said McCambridge.
The Wolf Pack grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second period with stronger puck possession and offensive zone time than they had in the first period.
The goal came as a result of a smart lead pass from Ryan Graves. As he approached the Pack blue, Graves spotted Matt Puempel all alone and fed him the puck. Puempel went down the right wing side catching the Marlies in a bad line change.
Puempel’s first shot was stopped by Toronto goalie, Garrett Sparks. The biscuit came right back to the Pack winger and despite it rolling on its edge, Puempel chipped over Sparks left shoulder for his second goal of the season at 6:23.
The Wolf Pack expanded their lead to 3-0 converting on what was their third straight powerplay chance.
Kosmachuk was in the thick of things as he swept around the net and came up on the left wing side. Kosmachuk spotted Nieves in front. Nieves perfectly redirected the Kosmachuk pass for his first of the season at 10:49.
“That was a really nice play. They make good possession inside the (offensive) zone and capitalized on the chance,” McCambridge said of his highly productive line.
The Nieves, Kosmachuk and Adam Tambellini line produced six points and ten shots on goal between them and accounted for a third of the team’s entire offensive production in the contest.
The penalties, particularly the crackdown on slashes, created more powerplays for both squads. Nell, who faced only six shots in the second period, stopped two big chances in the final 30 seconds off the stick of Marlies defenseman Timothy Liljegran. Both attempts came from the blue line. The first was a pad save and the next right in the breadbasket. Liljegran provided three of the six shots for the period for Toronto.
The Pack grabbed the lead for a third straight game as the “top line” of Nieves, Kosmachuk and Tambellini were all involved in creating the goal.
Kosmachuk forced a turnover to the right side of the Marlies net. He then advanced the puck to Nieves. In turn, Nieves flipped a perfect backhanded pass up the middle of the ice to Tambellini, who was perfectly positioned. Tambellini got the puck and snapped his third of the season past Sparks, low to the glove side for the 1-0 Wolf Pack lead.
“The key for us is to keep it simple and we’re complmenting each other right now,” Koshachuk said. “It’s only to get better from here.”
The head coach doesn’t want to define a first, second, or a third line at this point, but what he sees, he’s happy with in terms of production.
“(Koshackuk, Tambellini, and Nieves)’s line has such good speed up the middle. They make them play back a bit and they read off each other well. We have been able to keep them together in the first three games. They have been a very strong line for us so far,” said McCambridge
The Pack ran into some penalty problems in the first, but Nell picked up where he’s left off making strong saves on former Wolf Pack, Chris Mueller, Miro Altonen in a four-on-four situation and LoVerde. Noe of them could get the puck past Nell.
“Anytime you’re going to play a team like Toronto you have to have the goaltending and we did,” McCambridge said. “Their goalie made some saves too. Chris did a good job controlling the rebounds and in traffic was able to find things.”
The few chances the Pack were good, but there weren’t enough of them.
NOTES:
The Pack’s Eric Selleck had the first fighting major of the season. Selleck dropped the mitts to face off with the Marlies Mason Marchment, The scrap came after Marchment threw an elbow on Vinny Lettieri in the right-wing corner.
Marchment eventually did go to the dressing room at the next play stoppage and never returned the rest of the game from a fairly uneventful fight.
Marlies sent ex-Sound Tiger, Josh Winquist, to Orlando (ECHL).
The St. Louis Blues reassigned Tage Thompson (Orange/UCONN) to San Antonio after playing in the first three Blues games.
Defenseman Vince Pedrie is still out with an upper-body injury. He wore a non-contact jersey in practice and will not be in the lineup this weekend. “He is progressing well. He’s on course and along the timeline, we had expected, but he won’t be available for this weekend. We will evaluate more next week to see when he will be available for us,” said McCambridge.
The Leafs feature several ex-Wolf Pack players including Chris Mueller, Mike Paliotta (Westport/Choate) and the sons of ex-Hartford Whalers in the high flying Kasperi Kapanen (son of Sami) and Mason Marchment (son of Bryan) and Ben Smith (Avon/Westminster Prep).
The goaltending situation with the Marlies is wild as ever. The team is carrying three goalies after getting Calvin Pickard earlier in the week from the Las Vegas Golden Knights for Tobias Lindberg and a 2018 sixth-round draft pick. Pickard was selected in the expansion draft from the Colorado Avalanche whom he played 50 games for last season.
Anaheim Ducks Assistant GM, Dave Baseggio, was in the house. Baseggio played at Yale and was with the New Haven Nighthawks. He was also an assistant coach and then the head coach in Bridgeport (2004-2008).
Baseggio is back living in CT on the Connecticut coastline. His son Mike is playing prep school hockey at Pomfret.
Wolf Pack Jersey of the Night; Honorable mention to the one wearing Miika Wiikman #62, Jordan Owens #46, but the winners are the ones wearing a Benoit Dusablon #19 (male) and a Dusablon Val D’Or Foreurs (QMJHL) #46 jersey (female).
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