BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Terrific goaltending from the Hartford Wolf Pack’s Dustin Tokarski backed up with timely scoring allowed the New York Rangers’ AHL affiliates to edge out the visiting Laval Rocket 3-1 on Sunday afternoon, completing an opening weekend sweep of the team’s first two games.
Learning to play with the lead is one of early lesson plans that Pack head coach Keith McCambridge is working with his new crew.
“It’s something we talked about that we wanted to do better at this season; learning to do (play with leads) and so far we’ve done that. Remember it’s just two games so far.”
After being held to just one shot on goal for 13 minutes, the Pack exploded for three goals in a span of 1:27 and four on the night came in just 2:34.
The Rocket took their only lead of the contest when Alexandre Grenier was at the top of the circle and took a pass off the right wing wall from Cale Fleury. Grenier beat Tokarski high to the glove side at 15:29. Tokarski misplayed the puck behind the net to start the whole scoring sequence, his lone error of the evening.
The Wolf Pack responded 52 seconds later when the team’s newly-named captain, Cole Schneider, picked off Fleury’s cross-ice pass and fed a wide-open Swedish rookie, Mikael Lindqvist, whose shot went off the inside of Charlie Lindgren’s right pad and trickled over the goal line for his first pro goal.
35 seconds later, Finnish forward, Ville Meskanen, scored his first AHL goal. Steven Fogarty dished out the assist at 16:56.
Getting the two young European rookies involved in the scoring was important.
“It’s nice to see them score early in the season and build some confidence,” McCambridge said about giving the two more ice time in game two.
Just 1:12 later, Bobby Butler made a cross-ice pass from the right wing that deflected off a stick and found John Gilmour, flying as if in fifth gear of a Mazzerati and in one motion beat Lindgren to the far side for his first of the season at 18:08.
“He was the fastest skater at the AHL All-Star game last year and you saw it there and anytime he gets the puck its fun to watch,” McCambridge said with a smile.
The Rocket came in off a night game the previous night in Providence and had some jump on the rested Wolf Pack.
“They came out with a real heavy forecheck on us, and the first 10 minutes it was tough. After that, we were able to do a better job coming out of our zone and started to get some scoring chances,” McCambridge commented.
From the other side, ex-Wolf Pack, Ranger, and Bridgeport Sound Tiger, and now Laval’s first-year head coach, Joel Bouchard, was philosophical.
“We came out the box good, after a quick turnaround (from last night’s game in Providence), I told them its gonna be a mental war today. We let it get away from us for those five minutes and we really didn’t get it back. We lost our momentum, but we battled hard and their goalie made some big saves and we hit three posts.”
The second period was much like the first, there was a lot of play going on along the wall, and few offensive chances until the second half of the period.
The Pack’s best chance came from Lias Andersson with an interception in the Rocket zone and swooped in, but Lindgren made a good glove save.
On his next shift, he got into a tussle with the Rocket’s 6‘6 center, Michael McCarron, and wisely chose not to start throwing punches with the giant-sized forward.
Tokarski made his Wolf Pack debut and the former Montreal goalie stopped Brett Kulak’s bid with 1:40 left in the period from the right wing circle.
Then Tokarski stoned Michael Chaput’s bid as he cut across the middle, slipped the puck past rookie Libor Hajak, but the Pack netminder read the move and dove across to make the save.
“The biggest thing is we got the two points. Guys battled hard. We held on to the lead and it was a lot of fun,” Tokarski, who played in Hartford as an opponent with St. John’s and Norfolk. Both cities are now in the ECHL.
McCambridge was happy as the second half of his veteran goaltending tandem provided the netminding they are going to need.
“(Tokarski) played excellent. He was so calm back there. He reacted well, even when pucks were tipped. The team played well in front of him.”
NOTES:
The Wolf Pack are in Binghamton on Wednesday and then back home to play Providence on Friday.
The announced crowd of 1,834 was the 17th lowest crowd in Wolf Pack history and there were well less than a 1,000 bodies in the building.
Pack scratches for the game (for the time being) will always include two defensemen as there are eight on the roster. The two out in this one were Brendan Crawley, who’s day-to-day while recovering from a training camp injury suffered in the Rangers camp in Bridgeport. Also scratched was Vince Pedrie. Ty Ronning was the forward scratch.
PACK LINES:
Andersson-Gropp-Butler
Holland-Schneider- Lindqvist
Fogarty-Gettinger-Meskanen
Fontaine-O’ Donnell-St. Amant
Gilmour-Lindgren
Day-O’ Gara
Bigras-Hajak
LAVAL LINES:
McCarron-Froese-Shinkaruk
Grenier-Chaput-Kenny Agostino
Vejdemo-Jevpalovs-Alain
David Skelinicka-Brett Lernout
Brett Kulak-Cale Fluery
Adam Plant-Michael Moravcik
Laval features several recognizable names starting with ex-Wolf Pack, and Sound Tiger head coach Joel Bouchard, and players Kenny Agostino (Yale University) as well as, Hayden Verbeek, who was scratched. He is the nephew of former Hartford Whaler and New York Ranger great, Pat Verbeek, who is also the assistant GM/Director of Player Development. Finally, ex-Springfield Falcon, Michael Chaput one of the last cuts in Montreal.
The Rocket were victorious 3-2 in their season debut in Providence with a third-period rally as Brett Kulak got the game-winner with 35 seconds left in regulation.
The third-year pro, Michael McCarron had two assists.
Laval opens in the second season at the Place Bell Centre next weekend against.
They are the second Canadiens farm team to be in the city the Montreal Voyageurs played at the fabled Montreal Forum on Atwater and St. Catherine for two years before moving to Nova Scotia where they became an AHL powerhouse in the early to mid-1970’s mirroring Montreal success in those years.
The first official farm team outside of Quebec was in Omaha, NE in 1963-64 in the original Central Hockey League.
Ex-Pack Eric Selleck signs with HC Banska Bystrica (Slovakia-SLEL) after being the last cut in the Toronto Marlies camp
Not so good debuts for two ex-Wolf Pack players. Ryan Graves finished minus-three, and Scott Kosmachuk was a minus-four as the Colorado Eagles first home AHL game was spoiled by the Chicago Wolves 5-1.
Former UCONN Husky, Max Letunov, has two goals in two games for San Jose
Wolf Pack jerseys of the night a #9 Brodie Dupont, #39 Ryan Haggerty and well-timed a #6 Joel Bouchard.
The most unique was a Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (QMJHL) jersey of Nikita Jevpalovs, the team Bouchard still owns, but was their GM/Head coach and likely their Zamboni driver too.
From a Swedish hockey blog, ex-Pack, Danny Kristo, might be on the move from Brynas IF. The stated reason is not a lot of enthusiastic play.
