BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack sit atop the entire AHL with an impressive 10-1-0-4 (24 points) and have been getting a heavy dose of the Providence Bruins lately. The first place in the Atlantic Division team also played them last Sunday and will now have a home-and-home series starting in Providence Friday night and then will meet back at the XL Center on Saturday Night as part of “Hockey Fights Cancer” Night in the Connecticut capitol.
“Three times in one week is a little different,” Pack head coach Kris Knoblauch said with a chuckle. “It’s just a quirk in the league schedule.”
With the Pack sitting not only in first place but also top the entire AHL has them far ahead of all expectations after six weeks.
“At times, our wins have exceeded our weak play. We have only one regulation time loss. We have been in every game, but a lot of one-goal games so far, and they could have gone either way, and we have been on the fortunate side of those games.”
The late game tenacity in forcing these overtimes and shootout games says a lot about the compete level so far of the 2019-20 edition of the Wolf Pack.
“The pressure has been on (us) whether it’s a late game penalty kill in Providence where we got the late goal and stayed composed and you have to have your goalies make saves and we have gotten that.”
Its impossible to overstate how important goaltenders Igor Shesterkin and Adam Huska have been to the Wolf Pack.
“Our goaltending has definitely exceeded our expectations. Its been outstanding some nights, above average on others. I can’t think of one night our goaltending hasn’t been exceptional. You rarely see a team that has success that doesn’t have good goaltending. That’s the biggest reason we have been doing well.”
Not ever aspect of the Pack’s play has been stellar.
The power play has had its shortcomings. The team is 27th with a meager 9.8% success rate. The penalty killing unit though remains a very big bright spot with the veteran tandem of Steven Fogarty and Boo Nieves as their first defensive forward pairing followed by Tim Gettinger, a second year pro, and rookie, Nick Jones, the Pack are eighth overall in the AHL at stopping the opposition and impressive 88.2% of the time.
“Tim and Nick have been doing well because of their work ethic. They don’t force plays, but make the play that is available to them, and as a coach, those are things you want to see. When players perform this way, they’re going to see more ice time from the coach.”
After just six weeks of his first full pro experience, Jones is seeing the fruits of some very hard work.
“Since game one, we (he and Gettinger) have been together. We have 15 games together and we’re starting to read each other and since we play together five-on-five as well we’re reading off each other well and getting to know where each other is.”
The mixture so far is paying off for the Wolf Pack as they hope to add more W’s in the win column this weekend.
NOTES:
Don’t change what’s been working. Igor Shesterkin will start in goal tomorrow night with Adam Huska going on Saturday night
An injury list update. Matt Beleskey was back skating today, but won’t play this weekend. His return is more likely to be next weekend.
Gabriel Fontaine will be out for at least two weeks. He is currently in New York getting some more tests done on what is described as an upper body injury.
Defenseman Yegor Rykov suffered a high ankle sprain in the Traverse City in September. He is now back skating, but is wearing a non-contact jersey. He is at least two weeks away from gaining medical clearance to play.
The other hockey tenant in the XL Center is the UCONN Huskies. They have a critically important Hockey East home-and-home weekend with UMASS-Lowell. That pair of back-to-back games begins on Friday night at the XL Center.
The Huskies (2-5-1 overall, 1-3-0 HEA) come off of last weekend’s miserable performance where they were outscored 11-1 by Boston College. They looked dreadful in both games and they are winless at home this season with an 0-4-0 record.
UMASS-Lowell is ranked 12th nationally. The red-hot Riverhawks are 7-2-3 overall, (4-0-2 HEA) and are the top team in Hockey East. They lead the series with UCONN, 6-4-1, and have won four straight against the Huskies.
Standing in UCONN’s way is another of the New York Rangers deep goalie prospect pool, senior Tyler Wall. He has been lights-out early in the college hockey season. He’s played 11 of the team’s 12 games and sports a .949 save percentage and a GAA equally as impressive at 1.59.
Wall has just two regulation losses. He dropped a 3-2 defeat to Colgate in OT, and a 2-1 loss to the defending national champion, the University Minnesota-Duluth. He also has two overtime ties to go with his seven wins.
UCONN has its next seven games at home as part of a ten game stretch.
UCONN sophomore goalie Tomas Vomacka has been one busy goalie. He stopped 41 shots last week, his second 40-plus save performance already this season.
The two teams play Saturday night in Lowell at the Tsongas Center.
Ex-Pack defenseman Vince Pedrie is hanging up his skates away permanently after playing just five games with the Tucson Roadrunners over the first six weeks of the regular season. He played 106 games in Hartford, but was a routine scratch during the Keith McCambridge tenure.
In his Twitter post he said he will try to get into hockey coaching at some level.
