BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howling
SPRINGFIELD, MA – The Hartford Wolf Pack’s weekend of hope turned into a sea of problems as they dropped their fourth straight game, 4-1, on Sunday afternoon to the Springfield Thunderbirds.
The win snapped a four-game skid for the T-Birds.
Springfield tallied two late goals to pull away in a tight game. Hartford played two-men short for a majority of the game and lost steam in the engine at the end of the game.
Hartford’s record drops to 31-19-6-5 (73 points) while Springfield keeps its playoff flame alive 31-27-3-0 (65 points).
On the bad side, the Hershey Bears lost 3-2 in a shootout. They have 81 points while the second-place Providence Bruins have 80. The Charlotte Checkers were idle and remain four points behind the Wolf Pack.
“We’re going through some adversity right now. We’ll get out of it. We’re relying on our guys and sticking with them. It’s the team we have,” said Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch.
The offensive production has been an issue tallying just four goals in the last four games. The Pack is talking to themselves.
“We haven’t faced this type of adversity all year and every team goes through it. We’re going through it now. It’s not the time you want it, but we can flip this back with three wins next weekend,” remarked veteran forward Matt Beleskey.
It was old-time hockey at Mass Mutual Center with the first period taking close to an hour to play out.
At 6:50 on Sunday afternoon, three-in-three erupted into a line brawl that resulted in 67 minutes worth of penalties that included three game misconducts.
It all started with a seemingly minor push-and-shove in the right-wing corner of the Wolf Pack zone. Nothing out of the ordinary as things were starting to cool down.
Mason Geersten and Springfield’s Brady Keeper, who each are their respective team’s policeman, were doing some pushing-and-jawing when Danick Martel swung at Greg Chase that prolonged the event. The Pack’s Darren Raddysh was in there and it seemingly was all under wraps as Geersten was being escorted off to the penalty box by the linesman.
Behind the play, things got ugly rapidly and turned into a wild scene.
Keeper not being held by the linesman inexplicably somehow wound up with Vinni Lettieri at the Springfield blue line in front of the Thunderbirds bench.
Keeper let loose with a gloved left hook to the head of Lettieri and the fuse was lit. Matt Beleskey came to his aid and had a spirited fight in front of the Springfield bench with Keeper.
“I know they’re trying to do their best job out there (refs and linesman) it’s hard in a situation like that when you have guys everywhere. I just wish they had gotten him (Keeper) off the ice. When a guy sucker-punches Vinni like that. It’s not right,” said Beleskey who has had three fighting majors in the last two games.
Lettieri ended-up grappling with the Thunderbirds, Ryan Haggerty, an ex-Pack player, who was deep in the Springfield-end of the ice.
Both players kept throwing punches, While Lettieri was on his back on the ice and eventually a referee had to get involved to separate them.
Several other fights almost started. Martel and Chase looked like they were ready to drop them before order was eventually restored.
Lettieri was tagged with a game misconduct for leaving the bench while Geersten was tagged with a game misconduct for leaving the penalty box. Keeper was hit with a game misconduct for abuse of officials.
Knoblauch said Lettieri was on a line change as they were anticipating getting a power play.
Ironically, after the melee, they were shorthanded and lost two players.
“I couldn’t tell if he (Lettieri) was out there before or after. He was out at that end of the ice because we were going to get a power play.“
The team will look to challenge the game misconduct to Lettieri. “Yes. We’re going to look at everything,” said Knoblauch.
Incredibly, neither Lettieri or Haggerty got fighting majors though they could have.
Geersten left the box when he saw Keeper’s cheap shot to Lettieri, one he wouldn’t be penalized for. He earned the game misconduct trying to wrestle away from the linesman to get at Geersten, who was standing at center ice but did not get physically involved.
This kind of moment was out of character for this team. “We’re the least penalized team in the league. You’re not gonna see that too often from us,” Knoblauch stated.
Hockey play was resumed and the Thunderbirds got the only goal of the period as Joel Lowry in front took Rodrigo Abols pass in the chest at 6:13 and smacked it past Adam Huska for his eighth of the season.
Huska would face several quality chances especially stopping Jack Rodewald on a shorthanded breakaway at 12:40.
Daniel Audette followed with back-to-back chances and the Pack countered with Libor Hajek and Raddysh.
“I was pleased with Adam and other players stepped up Chase played well. Gropp played our so-called fourth line, played a lot of minutes and helped out with a goal.”
After a strong mid-ice hit on Lowry, Beleskey nailed him behind the Thunderbirds net.
Beleskey was given a major for boarding Lowry with 1:55 left in the period.
Pack captain, Steven Fogarty, had a shorthanded bid from off the left-wing stopped. His second whack at the puck drew a crowd led by Martel with 14.6 seconds to go.
The Pack had 35 shots for the game and tallied just two goals in nine periods and game up empty in the win column.
“The old adage of gripping your stick too tight, worrying too much just try to relax and enjoy playing hockey,” said Knoblauch.
Down two players, the Wolf Pack battled back in the second period, just 48 seconds after Belesky’s major expired, the Wolf Pack struck for their first goal.
Nick Ebert with a good short pass to Ty Ronning as they broke across the Springfield blue line. Then Ronning put a short pass in the middle from the left-wing past Springfield’s Chase Priskie. Ryan Dmowski stepped into the shot and beat the Thunderbirds Philip Desrosiers at 3:53 for his fourth of the season tied the game at one.
“Ronning made a nice play there and so did Ebert. They create scoring chances by working hard it allows them to force turnovers and strike quick like they did.”
Ice time was aplenty and the Wolf Pack kept working to keep themselves in the game.
Then the best chance of the period came as Chase, off of a perfect stretch pass sent by Beleskey, was on a breakaway, but missed the net.
Desrosiers stopped Fogarty, with a game-high seven shots, twice, Ronning’s backhand wraparound attempt and Nick Jones on a bang-bang play.
Huska was a rock in net stopping Ethan Prow on successive chances and Rodrigo Abols late in the period and Haggerty as well.
“He was outstanding. It was Huska’s best game of the season. He made huge saves for us and kept us in this game to have a chance,” remarked Beleskey.
Desrosiers denied Nick Jones on the right-wing rush with 2:03 left in the period.
In the third period, the toll of skating two men down on the third day of a three in three gave way as the Thunderbirds scored three times in the third period the last two 1:11 apart.
The game-winner for Springfield came off the stick of former QU Bobcat Chase Priskie just acquired from Charlotte in the last two weeks.
As he took Audette’s pass on the right-wing and fired it top shelf right side high for his eighth of the season.
Then like a fighter in the 11th round, the Thunderbirds went up 3-1 as Abols was coming hard on the left-wing whistled off where the post and crossbar meet and that popped in the air hit Ebert and went into the net at 18:15.
Then the sniper Martel bagged his 20th of the season on the backhand in front of the net off a pass from the net by Haggerty to close out the scoring at 4-1.
“We’re down a goal we’re trying to cheat a little bit late in the game you have to. If your cheating and your tired it’s a tough combo to handle,” noted Knoblauch.
LINES:
Fogarty-Lettieri-Dmowski
O’Regan-Newell-Kravtsov
Beleskey-Jones-Gropp
McBride-Ronning-Chase
LoVerde-Hajek
Ebert-Geersten
Raddysh-Crawley
SCRATCHES:
Tim Gettinger – Upper-body – Day-To-Day
Boo Nieves – Upper-body – Day-To-Day
Yegor Rykov – Healthy
Gabriel Fontaine – Shoulder Surgery – Season-Ending
NOTES:
Yale University won its ECACHL quarterfinal meeting at Ingalls Rink as Graham Lillibridge scored at 3:10 of double overtime eliminating Union College. Next week the Bulldogs travel seven miles down Whitney Avenue to meet Quinnipiac University.
In the NEPSAC hockey championships held at Trinity College (Hartford) at Koeppel Community Center saw Salisbury Prep with a 4-0 shutout over Dexter Academy captured the Open Division title.
Loomis Chaffe (Windsor) won Large Division also in shutout fashion 2-0 over Cushing Academy.
In the Small Division, Gunnery (Washington) outlasted Pomfret 5-3.
The CT public school playoffs start on Wednesday.
