CANTLON: (SAT) Phantoms Make Last Visit Trip to XL Center
VERSUS 
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack scored on the power play early in overtime to beat the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to sweep the season series winning all six games and dropping the Phantoms to their third straight loss – the first extended losing streak they’ve had this season.
In the extra period, it took the Pack just 19 seconds to cash in and put the game in the win column. Chris Bigras fed Vinni Lettieri in the lower left circle, and he put a rocket past Dustin Tokarski for his 22nd goal of the year and his second game-winning goal.
“He and I have worked a lot on that play in practice. He knows exactly where to put it. The ice by overtime is not the best, so you gotta make your passes count. Credit Tambo (Adam Tambellini) who got things started getting in the zone, made the shot and forced the penalty (by TJ Brennan),” remarked Lettieri.
The key to the powerplay, besides Tambellini’s play, was the head coach taking a rare overtime timeout before they went to tackle the play.
“You have it, and I can’t take that timeout home with me, McCambridge said with a laugh. “I was gonna use it. Two (of the three) players on the ice needed a few minutes to catch their breath, and it helps us get organized to what we wanted to do.”
Lettieri agreed that the time-out was a good decision.
“(It was a ) good call by the coach there because if you don’t use the chance well, you spend the next five minutes running around on a three-on-three on open ice.”
The Pack record rises to .500 at 32-32-6-3 (73 points). The Phantoms record falls to 44-19-5-5 for (98 points). They will play the Charlotte Checkers in the first round of the playoffs.
The Wolf Pack are in action Sunday afternoon against the Springfield Thunderbirds at 5 pm in their final division game.
The Phantoms are first in the Atlantic Division and second overall in the AHL for a reason. Getting a late power play, they made their chance count after Brandon Crawley tripped Phil Varone at the Pack blue line.
Pulling Tokarski, the Phantoms kept the puck in the Wolf Pack end of the ice. Brennan, a veteran rearguard and powerplay specialist, was at the right point and drifted to the middle. He sent a pass over to the AHL’s leading scorer, Varone, and on the right-wing circle. Varone had time and space to take the shot with Wethersfield-native, Colin McDonald, using his 6’3 frame to screen Marek Mazanec. Varone let fly a wrister and tallied his 22nd goal of the season. The puck sailed past Mazanec, tying the score at three with exactly 18 seconds left in regulation.
“They’re a good team five-on-five and on the powerplay, and its a six-on-four, they’re even more dangerous. Somebody is gonna be open, and Varone showed why he can score goals. I give credit to the players and our leadership group for not getting down when they pull their goalie and score for finding a way to win a game in dramatic fashion,” said McCambridge.
The Pack came out strong at the start of third and grabbed a 2-1 lead.
After getting stopped at 46 seconds, on the ensuing faceoff, Boo Nieves won it. With the puck bouncing near him, he was able to get a piece of it and fed Dan DeSalvo, who did the rest.
DeSalvo settled down the puck, moved to the middle, and fired a shot past Tokarski at 1:09.
“He has set me up for some other chances I had and didn’t get one. When I got that chance, I made sure. You never know when you’re going to get that chance. I didn’t bear down on the first couple, I made sure on that one,” said DeSalvo.
The Pack struck again shorthanded a minute later.
Cole Schneider came down the left wing and patiently waited before zipping a cross-crease pass to Nieves, who snapped his eighth past Tokarski on the far side of the net grabbing the Pack the lead.
Nives scored the Wolf Pack’s 12th shorthanded goal of the season.
The second period was much like the first with scoring chances spaced apart and second and third chances negligible for both sides. The period produced no scoring.
“They were very good, Fontaine had a very good game. Just learning about Jasper, and we have had Leedahl for most of the season. It is was a point in the period where we had sustained pressure and helped us get momentum on our side.”
DeSalvo said the Pack was aware that the Phantoms defense is banged up a bit. We knew they were hurting a bit, and they really like to have their defense jump into the play. We made sure we kept it in their end and that line did a good for us doing that.”
With only eight shots between each team, the period had sparse offense, but the first Wolf Pack mistake wound up in the back of the net.
Crawley’s outlet pass went right to Mikhail Vorobyev and the Russian winger quickly snapped nis ninth goal past starter Marek Mazanec at 16:10.
Cole Schneider had two quality chances for the Wolf Pack at 12:27 after a 10 minute lull in shots for the Pack and then at 14:50 as veteran Dustin Tokarski snatched his RW circle drive with his glove hand.
NOTES:
A very late piece of news Rangers fired head coach Alain Vigneault this evening. More to follow
Now that the Rangers season is done, Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, and Steven Fogarty were all reassigned and will be available for the last three games of the season. Neal Pionk, John Gilmour, and Ryan Sproul will not be reassigned.
PACK SCRATCHES:
- Dan Catenacci (veteran scratch)
- Brendan Smith (broken hand week to week)
- Ty Ronning (healthy)
- Scott Kosmachuk (lower body injury likely is done for the season)
- David Hallisey (healthy)
- Brendan Kotyk (healthy)
PACK LINES:
Fontaine-Leedahl-Evan Jasper
Albert-Schneider-Melanson
Lettieri-Gropp-Jason Salvaggio
Nieves-Tambellini-DeSalvo
Lindgren-Labrie
Bigras-Crawley
Martin Lamarche
Rare time as the NHL parent teams play on the same say as their AHL teams as the Rangers played their regular season finale in Philly. The Flyers blanked the listless Rangers 5-0. Steve Fogarty played his first NHL game with 12:16 of ice time one shot, two hits and one minor penalty for high-sticking the Flyers’ Matt Read for the Chambersburg, PA native.
Late in the Day
The Rangers announced Ty Ronning, who signed a three year entry level deal last month, was being reassigned to Hartford after his Vancouver Giants (WHL) team after being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in seven games by the Victoria Royals.
McCambridge said Ronning will play tomorrow against Springfield.
Salvaggio was signed to an ATO deal out of the University of New Hampshire (HE). He wore jersey #44. Ronning has been assigned jersey #21. Tysen Helgesen made his debut wore jersey #22.
Henrik Samuelsson, in training camp with the Wolf Pack earlier this season, has signed a formal AHL contract with Rockford for the rest of the year to replace his PTO deal for the rest of this year and next season after playing a part of the year with Idaho (ECHL). Samuelsson is the second of the Ulf Samuelsson’s four children. Ulf of course is Whaler great with his number 5 in the XL Center rafters. He also played with the Rangers. He was an assistant coach for the Rangers, Wolf Pack, and Avon Old Farms.
Congrats to Northeastern (HE) Huskies Adam Gaudette on winning the Hobey Baker Award the top prize for college hockey players.
Gaudette led the nation in scoring with 30 goals and 30 assists for 60 points. He was selected as the Hockey East conference Player of the Year and was a First Team All Star and in January and February was named national College Player of the Month.
The 5th round pick of Vancouver in 2015 it’s been some week he signed his first NHL contract giving up his senior season an entry level deal and played in his four NHL game including this past Thursday which turned to be the last for the Canucks longtime top stars, Daniel and Henrik Sedin and then flew to Minnesota to be a part of Hobey Baker Award presentation ceremony as a finalist and finds out he was selected.
Wolf Pack fan jersey of the game; #36 Craig Weller a former captain and #25 Danny Syvret.
-The Wolf Pack like all of the hockey world held a moment of silence regarding the awful tragedy of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. Will have more reaction in a story in the coming days.
Current Wolf Pack Dawson Leedahl (Saskatoon) and Brendan Kotyk (Regina) are Saskatchewan natives.
Four former Pack players hailed from the province in Steve MacIntyre (retired), Dane Byers (played with Manchester England-EIHL this year), Wade Redden (retired and current Assistant Director of Player Development Nashville) and Tanner Glass currently playing with Calgary. 18 players from Saskatchewan in total have played with the Wolf Pack/CT Whale in 21 years.
Anyang Halla of South Korea won their third straight ALIH (Asia League Ice Hockey) title sweeping the Oji (Japan) Eagles in four straight.
Garrett Noonan who played six games with the Wolf Pack at the start of the season and left to play for Austrian Elite League playing Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia-AEHL) has signed to play for the Krefeld Penguin (Germany-DEL) for next season.
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