BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Pierre-Olivier Joseph scored two goals and goalie Casey DeSmith made 25 saves to lead the visiting Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins to victory over the Hartford Wolf Pack 2-1, for just their second home loss of the season on Wednesday night at the XL Center.
The Wolf Pack pressed to knot the score in the third period, but DeSmith stopped all six shots he saw in the second half of the period and allowed no second or third chances on those shots.
“There were not many scoring chances either way. We have to work harder to generate our opportunities. I thought we turned the puck over (too much) in the first three-and-a-half minutes, and Wilkes-Barre did a good job denying the blue line. We were trying to make a play when it wasn’t there,” remarked Wolf Pack head coach Kris Knoblauch.
On the flip side, the Wolf Pack defense held the Penguins to just 16 shots, the second-lowest number of attempts since they held Hershey to 15 on January 8th at the Giant Center.
“I thought we defended really well,” said Knoblauch. He paused and said, “It’s the fewest scoring chances we have given up all year. I thought defensively we were pretty good.”
The best offensive chance the Wolf Pack had was at 3:05. The Pack had Nick Jones and Tim Gettinger lead a shorthanded, two-on-one, but they couldn’t connect. Jones opted to pass instead of shooting.
Pack leading scorer, Vinni Lettieri, had several bids for goals including one at 7:05. The Pack had another shorthanded two-on-one with Shawn McBride and Steven Fogarty but they missed connecting as well.
Pack defenseman Joey Keane had a good rush with 5:04 left, but again it just one lone shot.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton tried to seal the game with an empty-net tally, but Darren Raddysh made an excellent effort diving forward with 56.5 seconds left with a successful one-hand swipe at the puck and knocked it away before he crashed into the net.
Lettieri had two chances in the last 15 seconds to tie it. The first was a slapper from the top of the left-wing faceoff circle. DeSmith made a right pad save on it and then on a very late six-on-four power play with 2.5 seconds left Danny O’ Regan won the draw, getting the puck right back to Lettieri. His shot was kicked away by DeSmith ending any chance of a miracle ending for the Wolf Pack.
The Wolf Pack record drops to 27-13-5-5 (64 points). They were unable to pick up any ground on the idle Hershey Bears, who remain in second place in the Atlantic division three points behind.
Wilkes Barre/Scranton improves to 25-18-3-5 (58 points). They are now tied with the Providence Bruins for fourth place in the Atlantic.
The Pack home record now stands at 20-2-0-2. This was the first home loss since November 20th against the Syracuse Crunch, when a 3-1 loss ended a twelve-game home winning streak.
The Wolf Pack didn’t let the Penguins hold the lead for very long, scoring 2:08 into the second period, taking advantage of the situation through solid work in the Penguins zone.
The whole sequence began with a faceoff win by Shawn McBride. The win allowed the Pack to keep the puck in the zone. A Penguin sought to exit their own end of the ice, but McBride’s backhanded swipe on the loose puck put the puck back toward the net.
Penguins defenseman Niclas Almari couldn’t control the biscuit and Vincent LoVerde was there to take it and get off a shot on DeSmith, who made a butterfly save.
However, the rebound of LoVerde’s shot went right to Ryan Dmowski who was deep in the right-wing corner, and along the goal line. He deposited his third of the season from the sharpest of angles to even the score at one.
It wasn’t what Dmowski was trying to do.
“To be honest, I was just throwing it at the net. The goalie was in mid-slide and was going backward. I saw on the replay, it was definitely one of the weirdest goals I’ve ever scored. I was lucky. I was just in the right spot for the rebound.“
Of late, it’s seemed like the Pack’s fourth line for Knoblauch has been his top unit.
“I think our fourth line has been maybe our best line the last three games. They’ve been very consistent. They work hard every shift. It’s tough to play against a line that’s got three guys playing with that intensity. There helping this team a lot,” remarked Knoblauch.
The Penguins picked up a late goal off the stick of Olivier-Joseph at the left point after he received a pass from Jon Lizotte via some fine board-work on the right-wing and got it to him.
Lizotte kept the pass along the ice and got it over to Olivier-Joseph, who, from 55 feet, nailed it with a double screen in front provided by Brandon Hawkins and Cole Cassels. It left Adam Huska unable to see the shot at all 14:51.
It looked like Cassels tipped it, but the goal at the end of the game was still credited to Joseph. Knoblauch said it was clearly tipped.
It was a fairly pedestrian first period. There was very little action until the end of the period when the Penguins took their 1-0 lead.
Myles Powell sent a point-to-point pass to Olivier-Joseph and the big rookie was left with an open lane off the left point. He drilled a shot that was blocked by Lettieri. He retrieved the puck and sent a 40-footer that went off the tip of Huska’s glove and into the net with 1.5 seconds left in the period.
It was his second goal of the year with his first coming in Texas a little over two months ago.
NOTES:
The crowd of 1,537 was the sixth the worst in team history.
LINES:
Fogarty-Kravtsov-Gettinger
O’Regan-Newell-Beleskey
Jones-Gropp-Lettieri
McBride-Dmowski-Ronning
Hajek-Raddysh
Keane-Geersten
Crawley-LoVerde
SCRATCHES:
Nick Ebert – lower body injury, still day-to-day. He’ll likely play this weekend.
Boo Nieves – upper body injury, out indefinitely. He skated in practice yesterday for the first time in more than a week.
Yegor Rykov – healthy scratch for the third time in the last four games.
Jake Elmer – healthy scratch who was just recalled from Maine.
Gabriel Fontaine – shoulder surgery, season-ending
Knoblauch gave a good review of Brandon Crawley’s first AHL game of the season.
“For a defenseman coming in and playing for the first time (Vincent LoVerde) he played really well. Not flashy, just getting here (from Maine) he did all the small things well.”
Olivier-Joseph was a former first-round pick of the Arizona Coyotes (23rd overall) in 2017. He was acquired last summer in the Alex Galcheynuk for Phil Kessel deal. Galcheynuk was traded to Minnesota on Monday.
Joseph’s brother Mathieu plays for Tampa Bay.
The Penguins lineup featured ex-Pack goalie Dustin Tokarski (as backup goalie) and Cole Cassels, the son of former Hartford Whaler, Andrew Cassels. He just signed a PTO just after the New Year and has nine points in 16 games.
The parent Vancouver Canucks have loaned Utica veteran goalie, Richard Bachman, to IK Oskarshamn (Sweden-SHL) for the rest of the year.
Ex-CT Whale, Casey Wellman’s planned transfer to SC Bern (Switzerland-LNA) from SC Rapperswil-Jona was nullified as he didn’t pass the team’s physical. No details were disclosed.
