BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack Wolf Pack won their fifth in a row edging out the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 3-1. The Pack rode a goal and an assist from Peter Holland and Matt Beleskey, a very strong team defensive performance, and a sterling 25-save performance from Dustin Tokarski to get the win.
With the lead after two periods, the Wolf Pack are 11-2-1-2. They sit in sixth place and raised their record to 17-15-2-2 (38 pts), but remain one point behind the Springfield Thunderbirds who defeated the Providence Bruins, 5-3.
“Scoring the first goal was big,” a measured winning coach Keith McCambridge said. “When they did score, we did a good job of not getting down. We were able to limit their amount of scoring chances overall. We were pleased with the win.”
In the third period, the Wolf Pack played very strong team defense and got timely stops from Tokarski especially late in the game.
Mark Friedman and Mikhail Vorobyev had Grade A chances, but Tokarski offered no rebounds as the Pack netminder got pucks to the corners or his defense came in to clear it away as the team worked in their own zone as a five-man unit.
“One of the things I like was he (Tokarski) didn’t give anything away. There were no rebounds lying around the front. He did a good job managing the game,“ remarked McCambridge.
The Wolf Pack scored early in the third to get the two-goal cushion.
Cole Schneider in front snared a rebound of Steven Fogarty’s right point shot and tapped in the rolling puck.
“It deflates teams when you get that two-goal lead. That was a huge goal by Schneider’s line.” Holland said of his team captain’s tally.
Closing out the game was an early season nightmare now this group has found a way to shut the door on their opponents.
“At the beginning of the year we struggled when we had the lead,” Holland said, “and now we’re finding a lot more consistency and getting better when playing up.”
The Wolf Pack grabbed the lead back at 2-1 early in the second period.
Rob O’Gara sent Matt Beleskey up the right wing and just after crossing the blue line he launched a backhand pass to Peter Holland on the left wing. Holland used the Phantom’s Reece Willcox as a screen and whipped his eleventh goal of the season off the post and into the net at the six-minute mark even for the lead an eventual game-winner.
“I knew we had numbers (coming in),“ Beleskey said. “I saw him coming in late so I just got it to him and that’s his patent shot these days and he put in the right spot.” The line picked up another four points on the night.
Holland has seven points over his last three games and should be an AHL Player of the Week candidate
The Wolf Pack reversed the first period by changing the shots on goal in their favor 13-5.
They were able to keep the Phantoms at bay with strong one-on-one battle wins like John Gilmour on Mark Vecchione and then using his stick to blunt another Phantoms offensive foray.
Bobby Butler and Gabriel Fontaine converged nicely in front, but couldn’t jam the biscuit home and then later, Ville Meskanen shot first from the right wing and then Vinni Lettieri had a whack at a loose puck, but it just bounced on him as he took a swipe at it with just under minute left in the period.
Science says for every reaction you can get an equal reaction and that is what happened for the Wolf Pack in scoring the game’s first goal.
Just seven seconds after Dustin Tokarski handled the game’s first quality scoring chance as Greg Carey picked off a bad clearing and fired his slap shot from the top of the right circle.
“He’s been playing great, you need everyone playing their best right now, and you can see what this team is capable of,” Holland noted about a rejuvenated Wolf Pack squad.
The ensuing faceoff Holland cleanly won the draw from Phantoms Mikhail Vorobyev and got the puck back to John Gilmour. Then 7:15 Acela Gilmour left from behind the net train and raced up the right wing side and fed Ville Meskanen as they hit the Phantoms blue line.
Meskanen then led the Wolf Pack break in a quick developing three on two he caught Peter Holland perfectly in stride on the left wing who in turn feathered a perfect soft pass for Matt Beleskey going straight down the middle that he redirected top shelf over the left shoulder of Phantoms starting goalie Branden Komm making his first AHL start for his fourth goal of the year at 5:07.
“That was perfect who could ask for anything better,” smiled Beleskey with four points his last three games.
Meskanen has seven points in his last six games.
The rest of the period the Phantoms were able to finally get around the Pack defense with 15 more shots and the better quality shots came just before and after the goal.
“He’s been solid back there, he has brought a calming influence. He’s a pillar we have a lot of confidence with him back there,” remarked Holland.
The Phantoms tied the game as a cross-ice pass from the right wing boards by Mike Vecchione who initially kept the puck in the zone put it across the crease area and it hit off the back of Libor Hajek’s skate who was turned around facing the net and Nicolas Aube-Kubel with a wide open net to shoot and put his 10th of the season into open cage at 17:52.
The Phantoms had a glorious late chance with 58 seconds to go with some poor puck handling by Lias Andersson at the right point Connor Bunnamen to get a breakaway that thankfully his poor shooting skills, he missed the net by 10 feet stick side on Tokarski.
WOLF PACK LINES:
Fontaine-Butler-Leedahl
Andersson-Gropp-Lettieri
Holland-Meskanen-Beleskey
Fogarty-Schneider-Gettinger
Gilmour-Hajak
Bigras-O’ Gara
Day-Lindgren
SCRATCHES:
Shawn O’Donnell (Flu/Injury)
Brandon Crawley (Healthy)
Shawn St. Amant (Healthy)
Terrence Wallin (Healthy)
NOTES:
On bring your dog night Cole Schneider’s bulldog terrier Chase came out with Holland for the interview.
The Wolf Pack booster club named Vinni Lettieri their Player of Month and gave him an award in a pre-game presentation.
The Wolf Pack defenseman Vince Pedrie who was reassigned a second time this year to Maine earlier in the week his time with the Rangers has come to an end. Pedrie, from Penn State, was placed on unconditional waivers with the purpose of terminating his contract.
No other info on his next destination is available.
Congrats to ex-Wolf Pack Ryan Graves of the Colorado Avalanche who scored his first NHL goal ironically in New York against the Rangers on Friday. The goal put the cap on a 6-1 win came unassisted out in front of the Rangers net. He spent three years with the Wolf Pack and never once was recalled.
His smile could be seen back in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island where he lives and in Quebec City where he played his junior hockey.
The US World Junior team beat Russia yesterday 2-1 in Vancouver to advance for the second time in three years to the gold medal game however lost to Finland 3-2 wh won their 5th title, but first one outside of Europe.
Kappo Kakko on the doorstep lifted a backhander to the top half of the net with 1:32 remaining to give the Finns victory
The loss came in part because a US goal by Sasha Chmelevski in the first period was disallowed ruled goalie interference that would have given the US a 1-0 lead. This isn’t US bias here it was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen! I mean Dean Morton, Francois St. Laurent bad.
Cayden Primeau, son of ex-Whaler Keith made 32 saves in the win over Russia and was a standout in the final four minutes in helping to hand the Russians their only loss of the WJC tournament.
Russia secured the bronze with a 5-2 win over Russia.
-Several AHL players have returned to the league from their various World Junior teams Martin Necas (Charlotte/Czech Republic) Tobias Geisser (Hershey/Switzerland), Erik Brannstrom (Chicago/Sweden) and Timothy Lilejgren (Toronto/Sweden) and Klim Kostin (San Antonio/Russia).
-UCONN lost the first game of their two-game tourney in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile arena to the #17th ranked nationally Western Michigan Broncos 5-1. The Broncos are 10-6-1 overall were led by Cam Lee and Austin Rueschhoff each had a goal and an assist.
UCONN did have freshmen center Jachym Kondelik back from the Czech Republic WJC team and he picked up an assist on the lone Huskies goal.
Goalie Adam Huska stopped 36 of 41 shots in the loss for the Huskies now 6-12-1 overall.
The Huskies beat St. Lawrence Saturday 6-3 in the consolation game of the tournament.
UCONN built a 4-0 lead in the first 10 minutes as Max Kalter got things started at 2:25 into the game and Marc Gatcomb tallied his first collegiate goal, Kale Howarth, Jachym Konedelik, Karl El-Mir, and Sasha Paysuov would help the Huskies with six different scorers and up their record to 7-12-1.
