HARTFORD, CT – Alex Barré-Boulet’s goal and two assists paced an 8-4 Syracuse Crunch victory as the tumble down the Atlantic Division standings for the Hartford Wolf Pack continues.

The Pack dropped their seventh straight and have lost nine of their last eleven games while surrendering 24 goals in the previous four games and allowed seven or more goals three times in a month.

Only the exemplary efforts of newcomers former UCONN Husky Maxim Letunov and UMASS Minuteman Bobby Trivigno, who had two primary assists in his debut game, have stood out.

The team had a players-only meeting after the game, while the coaches and upper management were in post-game meetings as they separately tried to sort out what had caused this unraveling. In addition, the team pulled the plug on their post-game Zoom press conference for the first time to deal with this on-ice collapse.

The Wolf Pack leave home for what remains of the regular season in an all-important seven-game road trip.

As a result of their strong play earlier in the season, the team remarkably is still in the playoff hunt sitting in fifth place with a .524 winning percentage, just a fraction ahead of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, who were 9-2 winners at home against the Bridgeport Islanders who led 2-0 in the first period but allowed nine unanswered goals.

Bridgeport has a .523 winning percentage, but the Wolf Pack still control their destiny as just the Penguins and the Charlotte Checkers, 3-1 winners over the Hershey Bears, took advantage of the losses in the division.

SECOND PERIOD

Both the first and second periods were a wild affair as in the first period, the two teams exchanged goals. However, when the second intermission came, the Wolf Pack trailed 6-4.

The goal-scoring started early as Cole Koepke registered his 19th of the season at 1:32 from new defenseman Brandon Scanlin. An assist each went to Barré-Boulet and ex-New York Ranger, Frederik Claesson. The Pack came back to within one at 4-3 after Hunter Skinner sent his fourth of the season into the net from a cross-ice pass from Trivigno, who registered his first pro point at 7:36.

However, the Pack’s poor play continued as the Crunch tallied just 1:23 later.

Simon Ryfors was in the slot in the shooter’s position on one knee and blasted home Gabriell Fortier’s left-wing corner pass past Pack starter Keith Kinkaid at 10:28.

At 17:51, Ty Ronning brought the Pack back to within a goal on his 17th of the season, taking advantage of Alex Whelan’s second effort hustle on the left-wing boards. He beat ex-Pack Darren Raddysh to the puck and caught Ronning in full stride with a backhand chip pass. Ronning snapped it past Amir Miftakhakov to the glove side. Miftakhakov hasn’t played since February 19th.

The Wolf Pack gave the goal right back just 59 seconds later.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Ronning was the first Pack player to tally multiple goals in a game in a month. His last multiple-goal game came on November 5th.

Syracuse’s Otto Sompii beat everyone to a loose puck on the left-wing side and shipped it back to ex-Pack Sean Day at the blue line. Day beat Kinkaid from 55-feet out with a high shot to the short side and off the post.

In the third period, Nick Merkley cashed in for his 13th goal to make it 6-5, with Trivigno earning his second pro point with a nice setup in tight at 3:29.

The Pack power-play continued to sputter, going 0-for-9 on the weekend, and gave up their ninth shorthanded tally.

Merkley had a quality chance stopped, and Lauri Pajuniemi’s cross-ice pass for Austin Rueschoff late in the power play was picked off by Gabriel Dumont.

Anthony Richard broke away from Scanlin and Ronning and slipped in his 13th goal on Dumont’s lead pass at 8:09. Finally, Richard put the last nail in the coffin with his second goal into an empty net at 17:13.

FIRST PERIOD

A wild first period started with Barré-Boulet’s tally at 1:50. Syracuse had the edge in shots, 6-1 in the game’s first two minutes. However, the Wolf Pack answered as Patrick Khordorenko snaked a pass for his eighth goal off assists by Zac Jones with the primary helper and Zach Guittari earning the secondary assist at 4:47.

The Pack took a rare lead at 2-1 when Ronning got his 16th goal at 3:05. His shot went off rookie Declan Carlile.

Gabriel Fortier, who could operate freely from behind the net, found Simon Ryfors open on the doorstep, and he jammed home his eighth goal at 10:28.

Again operating behind the net, Riley Nash found Carlile, a former Hockey East second-team All-Star, up top. Carlile put a nice shot over Kinkaid’s right shoulder to restore Syracuse’s lead at 13:56 with his first AHL goal.

LINES

Merkley-#10-Bobby Trivigno-Letunov
Ronning-Greco-Khordorenko
Rueschoff-Pajuniemi-Fritz
Whelan-O’Leary-DiGiacinto
Lorito

Tinordi-Skinner
Jones-Scanlin
Robertson-Guittari

Kinkaid
Huska

SCRATCHES:

Gettinger – (Upper-Body)
Taylor
Lundkvist (Illness, day-to-day, Questionable for Monday)
Brodzinski #17

NEWS

Abbott Girduckis was released from his PTO and sent back to the Jacksonville Icemen (ECHL) with Trivigno and Brodzinski now in Hartford.

The signing of Ethan Brodzinski from St. Cloud State (NCHC) to a PTO deal makes him the third Brodzinski to put on a Wolf Pack sweater this season. Only one Brodzinski brother hasn’t yet. That would be Bryce Brodzinski, who is currently going to the Frozen Four next weekend in Boston with the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

It’s not the first-time siblings there have been brought into the Wolf Pack fold, but the first time in the regular season and three of them.

Michael Brodzinski is back with the Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL) and played three games mid-season. But, of course, Jonny, the team’s leading goal scorer and captain of the Wolf Pack, is currently on recall in New York.

Over 25 years, just a few brothers have been on the ice in three separate training camps. Wolf Pack great and AHL Hall of Famer, Ken Gernander, saw his twin brothers Jim and Jerry here one fall. PA (Pierre-Alexandre) Parenteau brought brother Guillaume, and Dane Byers had brother Cole to Hartford one year.

Only a few have played together in the regular season. The most famous were brothers Chris and Ryan Bourque, the sons of Hall-of-Famer Ray Bourque. They were the only duo to play together. The other two did not, Peter and Chris Ferraro, and Chris (older) and Michael (younger) St. Croix.

In the lineup, Syracuse had ex-Pack’s P.C. Labrie, Daniel Walcott, Day, and Raddysh.

Scratched as he was when he was here was  Brandon Crawley.

Day was hurt late in the game in the neutral zone. At the first break in play, he exited to the dressing room with an undisclosed injury. He never returned.

In 16 months of playing and a little over two years since the Las Vegas Golden Knights purchased their AHL team, The Henderson (NV) Silver Knights debuted their new $84 Million Loan Arena on Saturday night in a 5-2 loss to the Bakersfield Condors.

Next season San Jose Barracuda and Coachella Valley Firebirds will debut new state-of-the-art-new arenas.

Tarmo Reunanen will be wearing #29 for his new team, the Chicago Wolves. He will skate along with ex-Hartford Whaler and Trumbull product Ted Drury’s son, Jack Drury, ex-Pack skaters Chris Bigras, Joey Keane, and former Yale Bulldog Alex Lyon. also on the roster are the loaned-out former Bridgeport Islander, Richard Pánik. They will host the Texas Stars featuring one-time Sound Tiger Blake Comeau and GM, one-time New Haven Senator MVP Scott White.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

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The post CANTLON: PACK HOST SYRACUSE LOSE AGAIN 8-5 first appeared on Howlings.

BRIDGEPORT, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack extended their winning streak to a season-high three games with a 5-2 win at the Webster Bank Arena over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Good Friday.

The Wolf Pack will play the final game of this recent Sound Tiger three-pack on Wednesday at 1 pm at the XL Center.

The win put the Wolf Pack at the .500 mark as their record improves to 6-6-1-0 (13 points) as they start their busiest month of the season. Bridgeport’s record drops to 3-10-0 (6 points) and remains in last place in the Atlantic Division.

Bridgeport Head Coach Brent Thompson wasn’t pleased after the game.

“I was very disappointed after the effort we had over the last several games—we (thought) we had been building with better efforts. I think we took two steps back. We had some bad habits, not the physical presence we needed, and our penalty killing has to be a lot better.”

Special teams were the “Special of the Day” as the Wolf Pack went 4-for-5. Meanwhile, the Sound Tigers went 2-for-6, which under normal circumstances would be a satisfying outcome.

SECOND PERIOD

In the second period, the Sound Tigers were on the short end of the shot total. In the first period, shots were 13-3. They used the man advantage to claw back into the game.

Defenseman Daniel Bolduc was at the top of the right-wing circle and took a diagonal pass from Mitch Vande Sompel, who in turn wired a rocket over the blocker of starting netminder Adam Huska at 2:32.

“Sammy’s got a great shot. It’s heavy. He has a great wrister. He gets it to the net. We have a lot of positives with him. He gets the power play time, and he got it to the net because we were playing to the outside there for a while and got the shot with presence (in front). It was a nice reward for him, and he brought us back into the game,” Thompson commented.

Bolduc scored his fourth of the season, all against the Wolf Pack.

At 6:44, the Sound Tigers saw Cole Bardreau on the right-wing and took a pass from Vande Sompel from behind the Pack net. He slipped the shot just under Huska’s blocker side for his sixth of the season to tie the score at two.

PP REACTION

“We had good movement on our power play, but we needed more secondary chances. We need more OZP (offensive zone pressure) time and five-on-five; we didn’t have enough time controlling in their end,” Thompson said regarding his team’s offensive output and pressure for the game.

The Wolf Pack roared back and snatched back the lead at 12:10.

Darren Raddysh launched a shot at goalie Cory Schneider who made the save. Schneider played in the second game of his conditioning stint, and on the Raddysh shot, he left a big rebound that 6’7, Austin Rueschhoff, picked up. He moved to the left-wing and lifted a backhander over the prone veteran netminder for his third goal of the year. He put the shot into the top half of the net for a power play goal and a 3-2 Wolf Pack lead.

Then the only non-power play tally of the afternoon came off the stick of red-hot forward Ty Ronning.

The speedster danced across the blue line and zipped his second of the game and seventh of the season to Schneider’s glove side for a 4-2 lead at 14:36 and gave Ronning three points in the game and eight points in his last five games.

POWER PLAY STRIKES AGAIN

The power play struck again, increasing the lead for the Wolf Pack to a three-goal margin. Morgan Barron received a pass from Patrick Newell and surgically placed a shot into a well-covered short side between the right goalie pad and the post. The goal was his team-best eighth of the season at 16:58.

“Our penalty kill has to be better, simple as that,” a frustrated Thompson said.

FIRST PERIOD

In the first period, the Wolf Pack controlled play from the opening whistle to the end of the period. They built a 2-0 lead in a contest delayed by 15 minutes from its original 1 pm start time for some unspecified reason.

The Wolf Pack power play started its torrid afternoon and strong play as of late ways scoring again on their first chance and giving the team the game’s first goal for a fourth straight game.

At 10:43, Anthony Greco sent a pass off the right-wing to Tim Gettinger below the goal line.

Gettinger banked a shot off Sound Tigers captain Seth Helgeson, who was down on the ice trying to block a pass coming across the crease. The puck went off his left leg and past Schneider at 10:43 for Gettinger’s third of the season. It was also his first goal in seven games. His relief was evident as he looked up towards the ceiling as if to say, “Finally.”

Schneider robbed Gettinger early on in the game as he was all alone and took a behind-the-back pass from Ronning. The NHL vet, who hasn’t had back-to-back games in over a year, made the sharp save.

Ronning picked up the second Wolf Pack goal with the man-advantage on the right-wing. He sent a snapshot on the right-wing side with Paul Thompson set in front of Schneider as a screen at 17:31 of the first.

LINES

Richards-Gettinger-Ronning
Newell-Barron-Greco
Sanchez- Rueschhoff-Geersten
O’Leary-Thompson-Whelan

Raddysh- Reunanen
LoVerde-Hunter Skinner
Giutarri-Sieloff

Huska
Wall

THREE STARS

Ty Ronning
Tim Gettinger
Morgan Barron

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Adam Huska
Darren Raddysh
James Sanchez

SCRATCHES

Jonny Brodzinski (3-4 weeks, upper-body)
Jeff Taylor
Will Cullye
Patrick Khordorenko
Brandon Crawley
Ryan Dmowski
Zach Bezzola
Francois Brassard
Gabriel Fontaine (upper-body, season-ending)

NOTES

Bridgeport plays on Monday in Providence. The two teams hook up at the XL Center Wednesday at 1 pm for the second of seven games with the Sound Tigers in April.

Wolf Pack rookie defenseman, Hunter Skinner, tallied his first AHL point (an assist) in his first AHL game. James Sanchez got his first pro assist.

Tyler Wall played 2:51 of the third period as Huska had to go to the locker room for a pesky skate blade repair.

For 40 seconds, Huska was waving and hollering to the refs to stop play because his skate’s blade came entirely off.

Taylor Raddysh, Darren’s brother, was sent to the Syracuse Crunch by the Tampa Bay Lightning parent club.

POWER PLAYS GALORE

The last time a Wolf Pack team had a game like this in terms of power plays was back on February 8, 2007, in Providence in a wild 7-5 victory. In the game, they went 5 for 8.

Andrew Hutchison won the Eddie Shore Award that year. (the only Wolf Pack to do) scored a hat trick on the power play during a seven-minute major.  Sean Curry had jumped Dane Byers in the Bruins crease at the 20:00 mark of the first period.

Former Wolf Pack and Sound Tiger, now the current Toronto (AHL) head coach, Greg Moore, had a goal and three assists.

COREY SCHNEIDER IN BRIDGEPORT

Sound Tigers Head Coach, Brent Thompson, had no answer for how long Schneider will remain in the Park City on his conditioning loan. He was more in the mood to discuss his youngest son, Tyce, signing his first pro deal with the New Jersey Devils and was put on the Devils taxi squad earlier in the day.

Schneider last played in the AHL in 2009-10 with the Manitoba Moose.

CONNECTIONS

Ex-Sound Tiger Jamie Fraser 35, announced the end of his playing career after spending the last nine spent in Austria and was the captain for the last two seasons for ESV Villacher (Austria-IceHL). Fraser is the nephew of retired NHL referee Kerry Fraser and played three seasons in Bridgeport in the mid-2000s.

Friday, April 17, 2015, goalie CJ Motte, who the Sound Tigers scratched, played against the Wolf Pack. He was in the net for a 3-2 loss at the XL Center.  The game was the next to last, and he faced 16 shots. The Wolf Pack backup goalie that night was Jeff Malcolm. He is now the Wolf Pack goalie consultant and a former assistant coach in charge of defense the last two weeks.

The starting Wolf Pack goalie was Yann Danis, also an ex-Sound Tiger.

ROCKET ROCKET TO AHL TOP SPOT

The Laval Rocket is the hottest team in the AHL. They are currently on a 10-0-0-1 streak (34 points) and lead the Canadian Division and the entire AHL with a 16-4-1-1 record.

The Rocket were back home Friday night to play the Stockton Heat (aka Calgary Heat) at the Bell Centre in a wild and heated game and registered a 3-0 shutout.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

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The post CANTLON: WOLF PACK POWER PAST BRIDGEPORT 5-2 first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The intensity and flow of hockey news are increasing with each passing day, especially since the NHL is plotting out their Phase III and Phase IV return to play plans and a date for the start of the playoffs is also in the news.

Cantlon’s Corner has learned from several collegiate sources that the Ivy League, which includes both Yale University in New Haven, and Quinnipiac University in Hamden, might be reaching a monumental decision regarding athletics and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic for the 2020-21 season. It will be announced by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

The current discussion under serious consideration is a proposal that would see the fall semester consist of just freshmen, juniors, and seniors only to be allowed on campus with sophomores excluded. In the second semester, Freshmen will be excluded from campus.

Should this come to pass, it would effectively end all sports for the 2020-21 season. It’s expected to be announced as a conference-wide policy.

All sports teams, men’s, and women’s would be adversely affected in one way or another and the decision would have national repercussions for all other college sports conferences.

Every Division I conference will be backpedaling on how to handle COVID-19, starting with the big moneymaker, college football.

It’s one thing for a Division III school like Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine to start spots on January 1st, but the ramifications for both the programs and university staff personnel will be immense.

For ECACHL hockey. it will likely lead to major transfers by under-classmen for colleges that will play Division I hockey starting in the fall.

Players, if eligible, could be returning to US junior hockey in the USHL or NAHL or head north to play Canadian Junior A hockey (Canadian citizens only) in order to retain their US collegiate eligibility under present NCAA rules, unless a waiver of some sort is granted by the NCAA to treat the situation like a transfer year.

Players also might elect to go to the Canadian major junior route if they have a Canadian passport as the border still remains closed to non-Canadian residents.

Players could drop out of school altogether and take a gap year, waiting until the dust settles and hopefully when life returns to normal in the fall of 2021.

Then some players, like Cornell’s Morgan Barron whom the New York Rangers drafted in the sixth round (174th overall) in 2017, have their NHL team working on them to leave school early. In Morgan’s case, the Rangers have been in discussions with him for over a year. Barron wants to get his Cornell degree switched his major last year.

Barron may have to turn pro as his only alternative and begin to play in the AHL in Hartford for the 2020-21 season… whenever that may happen.

At age 21, with a December 2nd birthday, he is no longer junior hockey eligible. His younger brother, Justin, 18, plays in their hometown for the Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL). He played 34 games last year before developing a blood clot that ended his season prematurely and was being scouted as well by New York.

The AHL season is likely to start in late-November or by January 1st according to several pro hockey sources.

This is all under review. There are no guarantees, and the situation is very fluid where views and changes come day-to-day.

The Ivy League schools were ahead of the curve in the spring as they were the first to close-and-cancel all winter tournaments and spring sports schedules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

PLAYER MOVEMENT

The June 30th expiration of AHL deals has come-and-gone with no change from the NHL, so players are free to seek deals.

The Wolf Pack’s Steven Fogarty is an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA), but he’s on a two-way (NHL-AHL) deal. The Wolf Pack has three Group 6 free agents with Vinni Lettieri and Danny O’Regan on the open market. Their third Group 6 FA, Nick Ebert, signed a European deal with Orebro HK (Sweden-SHL) last week.

The NHL has moved the date for expiring contracts until the end of the 24-team, NHL Stanley Cup playoff tournament this summer.

What remains, however, is the big issue of getting players back from Europe with new EU restrictions regarding COVID-19.

The season-ending rosters for the 31 AHL teams, a total of 620 players (20 per team as average) plus 147 have European home addresses makes up 24% of the players can be affected.

Laval signed two players for training camp, goalie Sam Vigneault, who was with the Cleveland Monsters last season, and defenseman, Corey Schueneman, who was with the Stockton Heat last season.

The deal for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ Mikhail Vorobyev with Salavat Yulaev (Russia-KHL) has been officially confirmed.

Dominik Masin of the Syracuse Crunch is close to a deal with Amur Khabarovsk (Russia-KHL).

Currently, 34 AHL players have left for Europe. 19 of 31 teams have lost at least one player.

Former Yale Bulldog, Antoine Langaniere, re-signs with EHC Straubing (Germany-DEL).

Two more college-to-pro signings. Tyler Nanne, the cousin to the Pack’s Lettieri, goes from the University of Minnesota (Big 10) signs a one-year AHL deal with the Hershey Bears.

After four years at Bemidji State (WCHA), Tommy Muck signs with Kansas City (ECHL).

Will Graber of Dartmouth College (ECACHL) heads to Hershey (AHL), while Luke Bafia, of the Western Michigan Broncos (NCHC), departs to the Kansas City Mavericks (ECHL).

Aidan Pelino of Bentley College (AHA) signs with RoKi (Finland Division-1).

Currently, that makes a 101 Division I college players to sign North American pro deals and 174 (Division I and III) players total have signed North American and European pro deals.

According to Rhode Island-based, collegiate hockey writer, Mark Divver, forward, Garrett Wait leaves the University of Minnesota (Big 10) and transfers for UMASS-Amherst (HE) making 23 Division I school transfers. There have been 18 grad transfers for next season.

One player not going to Europe who has decided to retire instead, and the first casualty of the new EU visa rules restricting Americans from entering the 14 country Euro travel zone, and non-area European countries like the UK.

Former Whalers TV announcer, and the voice of the Springfield Indians, John Forslund, is on the open market as a broadcast UFA after his contract expired with the Carolina Hurricanes.

EX-PACK RETIRES

Chad Kolarik, 34, and a former CT Whale has hung up the skates rather than return for another year with EC Salzburg (Austria-EBEL). Kolarik spent a little over two years with the Pack after being acquired from the then Springfield Falcons, for then captain, Dane Byers, who had requested a trade on November 11, 2010. It came just as the Wolf Pack’s name was changed for the ill-fated move to the CT Whale brand. He would play the very first Whale game against Springfield.

Byers was injured on the third day of training camp with a torn ACL and it cost him a year-and-a-half of hockey. The time was extended by a major Rangers procedural screw-up that left him off the Whale playoff Clear Day roster in February because he was not medically cleared at that point to play.

Kolarik carried a heavy load of anger and resentment regarding the incident that his teammates despised as it was omnipresent in his off-ice behavior with players and the coaching staff.

He had 35 points in 41 games with the Whale, but was dealt to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on January 24, 2013, for Benn Ferreiro. He then put up 33 points in 35 games and played in the AHL All-Star game in Providence as a Penguin a week after the trade.

That led to one of the tensest exchanges between him and Ken Gernander. It came in a lobby hotel while checking in. It was cordial but frosty.

Gernander was there for his AHL Hall of Fame induction.

HALL OF FAME MEDIA AWARD

Frank Seravalli of TSN, and the President of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association (PHWA), and Chuck Kaiton, the President of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association, and former Hartford Whalers radio play-by-play announcer for their entire history on WTIC-AM (1080), announced today that Tony Gallagher (Vancouver) will receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for excellence in hockey journalism. Rick Peckham will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.

Peckham had been a broadcast professional hockey for 42 years before his retirement following the pandemic shortened 2019-2020 season. For the last 24 seasons, he was the TV play-by-play voice of the Tampa Bay Lightning, joining the organization in 1995.

Prior to that, he served in the same capacity for the Hartford Whalers for 11 seasons as part of SportsChannel New England and WHCT-TV Channel 18 in Hartford.

During his illustrious career in the NHL, he has received four local Emmy Awards for his work on Fox Sports Sun and SportsChannel New England. Peckham is a 1977 graduate of Kent State (OH) University.

Peckham served as the radio/TV voice of the Rochester Americans of the AHL for seven years.

“I have known Rick for 36 years, since his days covering the Hartford Whalers,” said Kaiton. “Rick has had a most distinguished hockey broadcasting career, which deserves to be recognized by this honor. His longevity and excellence tell the story and passion for his profession came through each broadcast.”

Tony Gallagher is the first writer to win the award for a body of work exclusive to the Vancouver market.

He became one of hockey’s most influential voices in Western Canada in a career at The Province newspaper that spanned from 1970 – 2015. He was recruited by The Province out of the University of British Columbia in 1968.

He was hired full-time in 1970 for high school sports before making the jump to hockey, covering the WHL’s New Westminster Bruins and then the WHA’s Vancouver Blazers.

By 1976, Gallagher graduated to become the paper’s lone beat writer of the Vancouver Canucks. He was promoted to general columnist in 1987, where he continued to break news and stir-the-pot and covered nearly 25 Stanley Cup Finals -including all three Canucks appearances.”

“Tony Gallagher owned the Vancouver market in a time before the internet when scoops lasted for 24 hours in a newspaper world where contact meant everything,” Seravalli said. “He was uber-connected and over time became the voice for the Western Canadian market that has always seemed to have a chip on its shoulder, sitting three time zones away from Toronto. Tony was the perfect writer for that constituency, never afraid to break a few eggs in writing his daily omelet. He fought for Canucks fans against a perceived injustice by both the League or their team, becoming a media icon in his city and beyond.”

Gallagher and Peckham will receive their awards at a luncheon tentatively scheduled on Monday, November 16th and their award plaques will be displayed in the Esso Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside past award recipients

FRANK CAMARA

Best wishes to a long-time Bridgeport off-ice official, Frank Camera, who is battling cancer.

Camara had been a penalty box presence at the New Haven Arena, New Haven Coliseum, and the Harbor Yard Arena for 62 years!

He witnessed the Eastern Hockey League’s New Haven Blades, the AHL’s New Haven Nighthawks, Roller Hockey International’s (RHI) Connecticut Coasters, the AHL Beast of New Haven, the UHL’s New Haven Knights, and the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

He always brings a smile and great stories and is in our thoughts and prayers.

The post CANTLON’S CORNER: HOCKEY OFF-SEASON NEWS AND NOTES VOLUME 16 first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Steven Fogarty had a goal and an assist and provided strong team play allowing the Hartford Wolf Pack to collect their ninth win of the season while maintaining their status as the AHL’s best team as they took the first of a weekend’s three-games-in-three days with a 2-1 win over visiting Hershey Bears.

The Wolf Pack (9-1-0-3) play on Saturday night at 7:30 pm on the backend of a hockey doubleheader with UCONN. Hershey (6-5-1-1-) heads to Allentown, PA to play the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

The Wolf Pack caught some early puck luck to start the third period.

A broken play allowed Fogarty to snatch a Hershey clearing attempt off the glass, and then while off-balance got a shot toward the net.

Darren Raddysh cut through the right-wing circle and was able to get enough of a piece of the puck to get the red light turned on with what proved to be the game-winner at the 22-second mark.

“Any time you get the puck to the net, you’ll get rebounds or a deflection or something. I just threw it at the net and was fortunate Raddysh was able to get a piece of it,” Fogarty, with six points in his last five games, said.

Raddysh, who was coached by current Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch, while playing in juniors, felt his play tonight was not something he hadn’t seen before. “He does so many things. He did a great job managing the puck and getting it up to our forwards tonight.”

The Pack did so many of the small things needed to win this game. Rookie Nick Jones won two late faceoffs from veteran center Mike Sgarbossa. Boo Nieves blocked a late-in-the-game shot while Raddysh played a strong two-way game.

“We’ve been rewarding him (Jones) with the play. He has earned it. We’ve been having him take the right side draws, and it worked well, and those were big draws. We rely on him on the penalty kill and late in the game,” Knoblauch said of his rookie centerman out of the University of North Dakota.

Goaltender Igor Shesterkin continued to show his net mastery and calm demeanor in key situations. He stopped Hershey’s Alex Jonsson-Fjallby twice in the last five minutes with two strong left-wing chances.

“Shesterkin reads the play well and anticipates what the other team is going to do so well. He’s got a lot of hockey smarts,” Knoblauch said with a smile.

Hershey broke the scoreless contest in the second period just after the Wolf Pack’s third powerplay ended.

The Bears rearguard, Christian Djoos, was at the left point and saw an open lane as Ville Meskanen peeled off to go cover the right point. Djoos was able to launch his shot with the red-hot, Sgarbossa in front. Sgarbossa was credited with the tip-in for his sixth goal of the season with a strong position on defenseman Vincent LoVerde at 7:27.

Hershey effectively kept the Wolf Pack to the boards for a majority of the second period. After three early shots on net, the next six were spread out until the last minute of the period when the Wolf Pack tied the game.

Nieves won a critical offensive zone draw from Sgarbossa. The puck came back to defenseman Joey Keane at the right point, who waited patiently for the play to develop.

Keane scooted around the Liam O’Brien and zipped a cross-ice pass to Fogarty who was wide-open. Fogarty deposited his third of the season over a fallen Bears goalie, Vitek Vanecek.

“He showed so much composure (Keane) to make that play. He had a chance to shoot it, but we didn’t have anybody up-front at the net (yet) and it wouldn’t have been a quality scoring chance. He faked the shot, moved to the right, and he slipped it back door to Fogarty. It was just a heck of a play,” Knoblauch stated.

The Pack’s best scoring chance didn’t count as a shot when LoVerde rang one off the pipe at 6:53.

It was a chessboard hockey game over the first 10-minutes of the game with Hershey having the lead in shots, 2-1.

The teams finally got some space to operate with which got the crowd into the game.

The first quality chance came with Ty Ronning taking a perfect lead pass from Keane before going backhand-to-forehand but Vanacek denied him at 10:39.

Hershey defenseman, Martin Fehervarty, turned the puck over deep in the Bears zone while on the powerplay. With Jones heavily forechecking, he took the puck away and looked first for Tim Gettinger who was coming in backdoor off the right-wing side. Instead, Jones caught the trailer LoVerde, but he was stopped.

65 seconds later at 15:25, Gabriel Fontaine was flying off the left-wing and eluded the check of Bears defenseman, Connor Hobbs. Fontaine spotted Vinni Lettieri who was open at the right side of the net and he missed the open left side slipping it past the post.

In the waning seconds of the first period on the Wolf Pack’s second powerplay, Phil DiGiuseppe was on the right-wing and sent a cross-ice pass dead center to Patrick Newell, who made an open-blade redirect that Vanecek stopped with his right pad with about 13 seconds to go.

The Pack held the shot advantage at 9-6 heading into the first intermission.

NOTES:

The Wolf Pack powerplay remains dead last in the AHL at 8% and has not scored a PPG since Keane’s tally on October 26th in Bridgeport. The current streak now sits at 0-21 over a six-game span.

LINES:

Nieves-Fogarty-DiGiuseppe
O’Regan-Lettieri-Fontaine
Gettinger-Jones-Newell
Ronning-Meskanen-Zerter-Gossage

LoVerde-Raddysh
Day-Ebert
Geersten-Keane

SCRATCHES:

Matt Beleskey (upper body)
Jeff Taylor
Ryan Dmowski.

Pack Fan Jersey of the Night:

#34 Dane Byers. a one time captain who is now retired
#81 Fedor Fedorov, who didn’t exactly have a good run with the team.

The post CANTLON: WOLF PACK GROWING STRONGER IN TIGHT 2-1 WIN OVER HERSHEY first appeared on Howlings.

HARTFORD, CT- The 2018-19 season has mercifully ended for the Hartford Wolf Pack and thus begins another long spring without having playoffs in the Connecticut capitol and a summer of big questions for the New York Rangers’ AHL franchise.

The locker room was silent.

The ice surface is gone as scrubbers cleaned up any residual water left over.

Wolf Pack players received their exit interviews and left for various different ports in the US, Canada, and Europe.

On a day the world mourned the burning of the 870-year-old iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, the Rangers were completing the immolation of the latest edition of the Pack.

The Rangers relieved head coach Keith McCambridge and his assistant coach, Joe Mormina. The team chose not to renew their contracts. This hardly came as a surprise given the team’s performance these past two years. They became the first AHL coaching casualties of the 2018-19 season.

Pack GM, Chris Drury, declined to be interviewed as he was conducting the exit interviews. Calls to McCambridge were not returned.

Three weeks ago, Cantlon Corner was told by an NHL source that McCambridge had been informed his tenure was up. Out of respect for McCambridge, an honorable man, we declined to publish that.

“It’s tough. You feel really bad, and you wish you could have done more for the team as a whole. It’s not fun for anyone,” Shawn O’Donnell said. The 30-year-old completed his third tour of duty in Hartford. “One thing is we had a lot of (personnel) turnover and it’s a part of the league. You look at Hershey. They had very few changes in the second half of the season. We had changes on an almost a weekly basis.”

One of the assistant captains, Rob O’Gara, was sidelined for much of the second half with back spasms was very disappointed. “When you work with someone who has helped you and you develop a relationship with them, it’s never fun to see them go through something like this. We do develop a family atmosphere and (McCambridge) was very honest with me, which I appreciated, and he helped me because I struggled a lot early on trying to do too much. I got to be in a good spot where I was playing some good minutes, and then I got injured, but I appreciate he gave me a leadership role this season.”

The season result was not all McCambridge’s fault, nor was it his predecessor, Ken Gernander’s, fault either. Asking a head coach to turn lemons into lemonade is what was asked of both men. The Wolf Pack have hit bottom and have been cresting at the bottom of the division and the entire AHL for almost five years. They have not made the playoffs in six of the last seven years. That’s an organizational failure, not just a coaching problem.

There have been some moments to celebrate the signs of player development, but those are few and far between and what has seemed to become a trend, change is in the air again.

The team’s break up day process was shifted until Tuesday despite ending on Sunday with a 3-1 loss in Hershey. Many of the players who ended the season with Hartford now will clearly not be here for training camp next fall.

Sunday’s loss saw the Bears sweep all the Pack in all six games they played this season. On January 14th, the Wolf Pack (40 pts) were four points ahead of the Bears (36) and just three points out of the fourth and final playoff spot in the Atlantic division. At the conclusion of the season, the Pack finished 25 points behind them!

Give some credit to the Bears, who played .789 hockey from that point and amassed 56 points. They will deservedly be in the playoffs while the Wolf Pack will look back to see that they won only TEN games in the final three months.

January 14th was the day the Rangers made the fateful decision to trade Pack captain Cole Schneider to Milwaukee for Connor Brickley.

The Wolf Pack simply never recovered.

“It was rough no question,” O’Donnell said. “Cole was a good hockey player, a good leader, and was an all-around good guy. We lost guys to the NHL and a couple of other trades. It was different that’s for sure.”

Schneider was the fourth captain in a row that was traded. For this Wolf Pack team, the self-inflicted pyromania by the Rangers continued with the subsequent trading of their goaltender, Marek Mazanec, who was the team’s first off-season signee. Then came the departure of their leading goal scorer, Peter Holland. All of this went down in a three-week span as the Rangers made it clear they had thrown in the towel, not only in New York but in Hartford as well.

“I had no idea that three other captains had been traded before Cole,” O’Gara said. “His going was tough enough. He was the backbone of this team and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be because we won the first game after the trade, 6-5 in OT, in Lehigh Valley. We weren’t consistent enough. We would win five in a row, then turn around and drop five in a row. In some games, we struggled to be consistent. We would have a bad five-minute segment that would kill us. Just before Christmas we were above .500. We never got back to that level the rest of the way.”

O’Donnell is at a playing crossroads and enjoys Hartford.

“Hartford has become a second home. I like it here, but this is still a business. What comes my way this summer, and my second year when we went to the conference finals, I will look back at the years here were one of the best of my life in hockey and it’s great to go on a playoff run like that. I just wish we could have had a few more of those here.”

The scoring on Sunday by Hershey was all done by ex-Pack, Chris McCarthy. He tallied a goal and two assists, while Joey Leach, who was just recalled from the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL, scored his first of the season. Joe Snively, fresh out of Yale, also tallied a goal and two assists.

Hershey’s Aaron Ness had two assists on Friday night in Hartford’s home finale. That production allowed him to surpass the Pack’s John Gilmour 55 to 54 points and capture the AHL defenseman scoring title.

The on-ice carnage is best reflective in the plus/minus numbers. While plus/minus can be skewered by individuals making a faux pas that reflects on the rest of their teammates on the ice, but once a player gets into the deep teens or to over minus-twenty, that reflects far more on a fundamental flaws that extend from the forwards to the defensemen and possibly even the goaltender.

Six Pack players were a minus-20. In that category, Bobby Butler and defenseman Libor Hajak were both a minus-26. Lias Andersson was a staggering minus-24 in just 36 games, breaking Matt Gilroy’s record of minus-16 in 31 games mark, yet he was recalled to NY. Sean Day was a minus-23 in 47 games. Steven Fogarty, the team MVP, was also over 20 with a minus-21. Rookie Tim Gettinger was a minus-20.

The best players on defense ended their season on the injured list, Chris Bigras (ankle) was a plus-5, assistant captain Rob O’Gara (back spasms) plus-3, Ryan Lindgren (concussion) with two Rangers recalls at minus-1.

Only Binghamton, Ontario, and San Antonio had numbers like that. Daniel Brickley, Ontario’s Jake Walman, John Gilmour’s collegiate defense partner were tied for the worst at minus-31.

The Rangers are on the hook here as they await the naming of a new president of the team to succeed Glen Sather. That fortunate soul will have to pick through the debris in New York and Hartford and try to plot a forward course. The Rangers clear indifference to Hartford has to end.

Winning and the playoffs were once synonymous here. Over a 14-year consecutive stretch where the team made the playoffs and competed at the top end of the AHL. Winning and playoffs still matter. The Rangers have to decide if they care to accomplish that objective here.

Cantlon’s Corner has learned that the Rangers have had a preliminarily interview with at least one Hockey East coach about the Hartford opening, However until a new President is named, these preliminary interviews will likely be done to present the new person a list of candidates to come for second interviews.

Director of Player Development, Jed Ortmeyer, was on the bench during three games this season. He also conducted several practices last week and is likely on an initial short list.

Clearly, the Rangers talent evaluation process is broken. A major shakeup is needed to achieve better results so necessary changes in the scouting department will likely happen.

About seven years ago in Worcester, a former high-ranking AHL official in a profanity-laced tirade lamented at how poorly Hartford had become both on-and-off the ice. Since then, it has only gotten worse.

Too many average skilled players have been sent to the Connecticut state capitol. Others were picked off the waiver wire scrap heap, or they were traded for, have all dotted the lineup over the past five years. Many of the present Wolf Pack need to excise a set of words from their vocabulary how good, great or talented they are.

The team’s record demonstrates the team’s reality and other teams that used to fear the Wolf Pack over the years, have, over the past several seasons, feasted on the Wolf Pack.

The Rangers have an abundance of selections coming up at the Vancouver Entry Draft this summer and that’s all fine and dandy, but they need to make sound choices and sign genuine quality AHL free agents to help nurse them along the path. The days of bringing in the likes of players like Akim Aliu, Cody Beach, Andre Deveaux, Dustin Tokarski, and Bobby Butler have to stop.

The organization must stop the goaltending madness. This year with simply a redux of years past with a refined packaging of rotating people to be Henrik Lundqvist’s backup. Remember the Cam Talbot-Chad Johnson saga when the Ranger’s rotated them up and down the Merritt Parkway like a relay recall race? Both players went elsewhere to find NHL playing time in other NHL cities.

This year Alexander Georgiev was dispatched to play in Hartford while Lundqvist went one of his playing tears. Tokarski and Mazanec went to New York to be well-paid practice goalies and fatten their bank accounts but didn’t help either team.

If the Rangers choose to name a captain or to sign a player next season to assume that role, that agent must extract the first AHL NTC-No Trade Clause.

A franchise that set the standard of what a captain should be and that had his number retired as his should have been, that indifferent approach to the captaincy has to end. The Schneider situation demonstrates so clearly that it can have a truly devastating consequence to the team’s in-season plight and the growth and development of their prospects.

The Rangers have to make choices in Hartford. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the status quo is not good and not working.

The post CANTLON’S CORNER: (FOR THE FANS) PACK SEASON COMES TO A MERCIFUL END first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The 2018-19 season that started out with so much promise, comes to an end with it being the fifth of the last six springs in Hartford without post-season hockey.

The magic of fourteen straight seasons with the Wolf Pack playing post season hockey has long since gone. In its place have come an annual ritual of eerily quiet locker rooms and the omnipresent feel of gloom with the recognition that the roster for 2018-19 does not resemble the one that started or in some cases that ends this season.

Friday night is the home finale against the Hershey Bears with the puck drop coming at 7:15 pm on Fan Appreciation night. Then the team travels to Pennsylvania to close things out. Saturday night they will be in Allentown against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and then on to the Giant Center in Hershey on Sunday.

The team’s record of 29-34-7-3 will again be under .500 for the season. The Pack is 3-6-1-0 in their last ten, currently 40 points behind the division-leading and AHL’s best, the Charlotte Checkers, and twenty points behind Hershey, who were below the Pack in the standings on December 1st.

The team will be in eighth and last place in the Atlantic Division. Only the Binghamton Devils prevent them from being last in the 16 team conference. The Pack will finish with either the fourth or fifth worst record in the AHL and have the third worst goals against at 2.54.

Not a pleasant read.

John Gilmour is battling Steven Fogarty for the team scoring title. Gilmour has 54 points and was named to the first team of the AHL All-Stars on Thursday. Gilmour is also in a race with Hershey’s Aaron Ness (51 points), and Zach Redmond of Rochester (50 points) to lead all AHL defenseman in scoring. If he succeeds, after Sunday’s games, Gilmour will become only the second player in franchise history to do so.  In 2008-09, Andrew Hutchison was the other.

One of the likely 2019-20 roster members will be Nick Jones. In his first six games, Jones has shown elements missing for large chunks of this season in Hartford.

He picked up two points last week in a game in Springfield, His first pro goal helped the Pack climb back into the game.

“It felt good to get it out of the way and not have to think about it too much. I caught him (Springfield goalie, Chris Driedger) in a weird position and I was able to sneak by the five-hole on him,” remarked Jones.

Jones is going through the standard pro-baptism like every college and Junior level player goes through.

“There is such a wide range of guys here and it’s a nice organization, happy to be here,” said Jones.

He has learned to play with different players very quickly.

“Seems like I have a new set of linemates every night and I’m certainly getting a feel for different players. Actually, at North Dakota, I had a lot of different linemates too. It’s nothing new to me.”

Life at North Dakota saw him get to play at one of the more prestigious hockey programs. He played at the Ralph Engel Arena, one the nicer hockey venues in the country.

“It’s a special place. I was very happy and fortunate to play there. The fan base, the culture, and the history it’s amazing to play in that arena every night.”

The Calgary, Alberta native opted for the college route than major junior.

“It gives you more time to develop. I think you don’t finish at 20, just a little later and I think it made a difference for me. I think you get more practice time, get to play against bigger players, which helps when coming to this level. There are a lot of draft picks on the team and in the league, and you get a lot of exposure.“

Jones is completing his degree with a concentration in sociology. Getting his diploma means working on time management.

“It’s so different. I’m trying to figure out what do with so much time because I’m running off to class and going to finish things up and head back for graduation next month.

His audition thus far looks like Jones will be a major piece of the 2019-20 puzzle for the Wolf Pack.

PYATT RETURNS

Its been ten long years and a lot of traveling, but ex-Pack forward, Tom Pyatt, finally found himself back in Hartford last weekend with the Utica Comets.

He started out his third season in Ottawa but got caught up in in the early season issues of the Senators and was traded to the Vancouver Canucks and found himself back in the AHL with the Comets.

He was able to pop in a goal in a 4-0 shutout victory.

“I was very excited to play here tonight,” Pyatt said. “I was able to walk downtown a bit before the game and it brought back a lot of memories. Time goes by quickly. I was 20-21 years old then, now I’m 32. It’s good to be back.”

With all his travels as a player, the thought of being back in Hartford wasn’t at the top of his mind.

“Things go by so quickly. You never know in this business where you might wind up.”

Pyatt scored just his fifth goal in 33 games so it meant a lot to him to get on the scoresheet last Saturday.

“Its been a while since I scored, so that felt really good. Credit Reid (Boucher). He did all the work on that play. Getting one shorthanded, always a plus. We have gone through a tough month-and-a-half. Between here and the changes in Vancouver, it hasn’t been an easy time. We’ve stuck together pretty good. It was nice to get Maz (ex-Pack netminder, Marek Mazanec) a shutout. It was one of our better defensive efforts,” Pyatt said,

Pyatt and his teammates helped the former Hartford goalie to record his first shutout of the season.

Pyatt spent two seasons in Switzerland with HC Geneva-Servette where he was coached by a former New Haven Nighthawk, Chris McSorley. He is currently undecided on his future hockey plans.

“I really am not sure. Been a pretty tough season. I started out my third year in Ottawa and halfway through changed my address. I really enjoyed my experience over there in Europe. I’m just looking to finish out this season and take some time off and think over the summer back in Thunder Bay and enjoy the family, enjoy the house and then make a decision later in the summer.”

When he was a member of the Wolf Pack, Pyatt took an extended period to help his middle brother, Taylor Pyatt, who had lost his then-fiancee, Carly Bragnalo, as a result of a car accident in a cab in Jamaica. She was just 27-years-old.

Time has been a great healer.

“It was great. I got to play with him in his last year of pro in Switzerland. That was a lot of fun. Now, he is a Dad with a two-year-old girl. I was in Hartford back then and took time off. It was a hard time for him. He got married again, and man how time flies, but things are all good for him now.”

In his time in Hartford, Pyatt was a very underappreciated player by the Rangers. He went on to rack up nearly 500 NHL games in other places like Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver.

“When you’re that young, you don’t appreciate the breadth of the game. I’ve had a lot of different experiences, but I got it all started here. It takes a few years to develop. I had two good years here and enjoyed my time here.”

Hopefully, Pyatt has a few more years of service as he’s one of the true good guys in hockey.

NOTES:

Former UCONN defenseman, and their team captain, Derek Pratt, who played in the Wolf Pack training camp, and was later recalled from Maine, but never played here signed a PTO deal with Utica for the final AHL regular season weekend.

The Pack released defenseman Matt Register after five undistinguishable games where he added an assist and five shots on goal. He was returned to the Toledo Walleye (ECHL).

Quinnipiac’s Scott Davidson signs with the AHL’s best team, the Charlotte Checkers. He brings the number of Division I college players that have signed pro contracts to 155 and the total number of college players to 174.

Ex-Pack, Chris McCarthy, who spent all season with the Reading Royals (ECHL) signs a PTO deal with Hershey.

Former Yale Bulldog, Mike Doherty, goes from Manchester Monarchs (ECHL) and signs a PTO deal with the Providence Bruins.

Another former UCONN player, Joseph Masonius, was released after twelve games with Manchester (ECHL). He’s had a long season. Masonius was cut from the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins after (AHL) camp. He was sent to the Wheeling Nailers (ECHL). His contract was brought out so he then played one game with the South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL) before being released. Pro hockey is a tough business.

Stratford native, Jamie Sifers, played his high school hockey at Fairfield Prep and Salisbury Prep (winning titles at both schools). He was in the opening lineup last weekend for Utica. He announced he will retire after this weekend after playing in 640 AHL games and compiling 167 points.

Sifers won a Calder Cup with Lake Erie (nee Cleveland) in 2016 and had 37 NHL games with Toronto and Minnesota. He also spent three seasons in the German DEL league after a four-year college career at the University of Vermont.

Ex-Pack Bert Robertsson gets his first head coaching gig in Sweden after seven years as an assistant coach at Skelleftea AIK in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). He will be the head coach of Linkopings HC in the fall.

Congrats to ex-Pack and ex-Ranger, Dane Byers, truly one of the nicest players ever to come through the Connecticut capitol city. He has announced his retirement from hockey after completing a second season with the Manchester Storm (England-EIHL) where he was their team captain.

He tallied 29 goals and 55 points in 56 games and 182 PM. He had 11 games in England 53 goals and 125 points and 289 PM

Byers played for the Wolf Pack for three-and-a-half years. He was the captain for two-plus years. Byers was the last captain before the ill-fated switch to the CT Whale brand. He was the first Wolf Pack captain ever traded, albeit at his own request, and ironically his first game was with the then Springfield Falcons in Hartford two days later on November 12, 2010.

In 255 games in Hartford, Byers scored 72 goals had 90 assists for 162 points and racked up 546 PM.

He was a captain with Hershey and Springfield, plus he was an assistant captain at Oklahoma City. In 564 AHL games, Byers had 128 goals and 304 points and 1,245 PM. He played with San Antonio too. In just 14 NHL games he scored one goal with the Rangers and had 60 PIM. He was an assistant captain for the Lahti Pelicans (Finland-FEL) for one season.

His brother Cole Byers played in one Wolf Pack training camp with him. He is the cousin of legendary Bruins ruffian, Lyndon Byers.

His wife Ashley and their three sons are moving back to his native province of Saskatchewan and taking a job outside of hockey.

The IIHF Division 2 Group A World Championships are underway in Belgrade, Serbia with Cheshire, CT native, Rob Malloy, playing for the third time for the Australian National Team. In their first game, Malloy tallied the second goal at 2:58 of the first period just 1:27 after Australia struck first.

The Mighty Roos dropped the opener in overtime to Belgium 4-3, but they won their second game, 3-2 over host Serbia. The key came in killing off a major penalty late in the second period and early third period to preserve their first win.

The Australian team shutout Spain 4-0 in their third game. Malloy was helped on their first tally, a power play goal, at 13:01 of the opening frame. Switching off with Jamie Woodman at the right point, Malloy headed to the left side of the net.

Woodman’s right point shot was redirected by Malloy but was stopped by Spain goalie Ander Alcaine. However, the rebound was the right there for AIHL top scorer Darge Wehebe to bang the rebound at the right side of the net.

Vadim Virjassov and Kieren Webster each had a goal and an assist for Australia including beautiful play on the fourth goal with Webster intercepting a Spanish outlet pass and sent a great behind the back pass to Visjassov and finished it with a forehand to backhand lifted over a prone Alcaine with 5:50 left in regulation.

The other countries in the six-team group are Serbia, Belgium, Croatia, Spain and China.

The only other familiar name is former NHL first round pick for Boston and AHL’er, Shaone Morrison is skating for Team Croatia after playing the regular season with the Oji Eagles (Japan-ALIH).

-When Malloy returns for the start of AIHL (Australian Ice Hockey League) season he will see a CT face face in the lineup against him with the Melbourne Ice.

Former UCONN player Jesse Schwartz who played this season with Roanoke Valley (SPHL) and a  two game recall to Brampton (ECHL) become the third university player to play in the AIHL (Matt Grogran and Trevor Gerling were the others).

-The short season South African Super League (SASL) has a new champion in year four of the league as the Cape Town Kings finished with the best regular season record winning all eight games and outscored their opponents 61-26. The leagues’s leading scorer is a former US Division III college player (Nazarethy College-UCHC) Uthman Sammal with 32 points in those eight games.

The Pretoria Capitals finished in second place.

The post CANTLON: WOLF PACK START FINAL WEEKEND OF THE SEASON first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The two parent organizations of the Hartford Wolf Pack and the Milwaukee Admirals, the New York Rangers and Nashville Predators respectively, announced an AHL deal Monday.

The Rangers dealt their Wolf Pack captain, Cole Schneider, to the Admirals for forward, Connor Brickley.

It’s the fourth straight year the Rangers have dealt the Pack’s captain. This trade, however, is the earliest of the four deals by four games. Ryan Bourque and Mat Bodie were each dealt exactly a year apart on the eve of the trade deadline. Joe Whitney was sent packing to the Hershey Bears ending his 40-game captaincy on February 9^th last year. Schneider played just 36 games.

It was the fifth captain traded in franchise history. The first captain dealt was Dane Byers, who had requested a trade and it was granted as he wound up with the Columbus Blue Jackets on November 11, 2010.

The deal on the surface is strictly a contract wash as each player is a UFA (unrestricted free agent) next season and were unlikely to be resigned.

Schneider was making $350K this year in his second season of a two-year deal while Brickley was making $300K for the Admirals on a one-year contract. Neither player got much ice time with their respective parent clubs this season.

Schneider was recalled as a possible emergency replacement for Vladimir Namestnikov but stayed for several games without being inserted into the lineup.

Several pro hockey sources with knowledge of the deal said it’s been floating around for some time.

“The Rangers had Schneider available a few months ago and I guess it’s the last two weeks they actively were shopping for a deal and got what they wanted.”

The irony is that last year, Whitney was offered to Nashville and they turned the Rangers down. This time they responded favorably as the Rangers wanted Brickley.

Schneider is an alumnus of the UCONN hockey program and he played in 112 games in Hartford with 29 goals and 75 points. This season, in 36 games, Schnieder had 13 goals and 12 assists (25 points) and just returned from a concussion.

This is the second time that Schneider was traded in his career. He went as part of a seven-player deal between the Ottawa Senators and the Buffalo Sabres on February 27, 2016. Milwaukee plays in Winnipeg on Wednesday against the Manitoba Moose.

Brickley, a University of Vermont grad played 39 games this season with seven goals and 11 points in 39 games. He was a minus-11. In his AHL career, Brickley has played 234 games and scored 58 goals and has 113 points for the Everett, MA native. Brickley has 67 NHL games to his credit with five goals and 17 points with the Florida Panthers who drafted him in the second round 50^th overall in the 2010 NHL Draft.

Brickley is the cousin of Dan Brickley, who plays for the Ontario Reign (AHL). He is the first cousin, once removed, from Andy Brickley who played in the NHL with the Bruins (385 games) and has been the long-tenured Bruins color commentator on NESN for Bruins broadcasts.

The Wolf Pack have a three-in-three weekend Friday night with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, followed on Saturday with the Springfield Thunderbirds at the XL Center and then they head to Providence to play the Bruins on Sunday.

It was a busy off day Monday for the Wolf Pack. They watched Schneider leave, plus defenseman Ryan Lindgren got recalled by the Rangers while Bridgeport’s Steve Bernier was handed a three-game suspension for the hit to the head of Steven Fogarty in Saturday night’s game.

The post CANTLON: SCHNEIDER DEALT TO MILWAUKEE first appeared on Howlings.

      VERSUS      

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Cole Schneider’s OT game-winner allowed the Hartford Wolf Pack to end their home schedule in winning fashion 2-1 over the Binghamton Devils in the first meeting of the season.

The Wolf Pack close out the entire regular season in Binghamton.

The Wolf Pack finished their home schedule with a record of 19-6-3-0. Their record sits at .500 at 33-33-6-3. With a win tomorrow, the team will finish above .500, a goal the team has worked toward for the end of this season.

“We have had it on the board to get to .500. That’s what we’re striving for,” said Schneider, the game’s hero.

The game-winner came as Schneider took a lead pass from Chris Bigras at center ice as the Wolf Pack were going for a wholesale change during the three-on-three marched down the right wing was able to stuff in his fifteenth goal of the season off a rebound of his backhander on goaltender Cam Johnson at 1:53.

30 seconds earlier, Johnson stopped Bigras on a breakaway which looked like it could have been the game-winner.

For Schneider, it capped a game perfectly where he was voted the Team’s MVP by his teammates.

“I was happy Biggie didn’t score on the breakaway so I could get out there and get the game winner,” Schneider said with a laugh.

He was humbled hearing the announcement of his winning the MVP.

“It’s very special to be respected by the guys like that. When your teammates do something like that, you really appreciate it. I look at it as so special. It will really hit me over the summer.”

The Pack’s Adam Tambellini had the first solid chance to win the game at 26 seconds of OT with a burst down the left wing that came off a pass from Vinni Lettieri that Johnson stopped.

“We had some good chances in the third and got a few early in overtime and Cole Schneider finished it off. I thought we did a solid job all night and were able to pull through for the win.”

Finishing with a winning home record was also uppermost important to the team.

“We talked about it before the game about getting back to .500 (overall) and to finish up strong at home for the fans and we were able to do that,” Schneider stated.

Lettieri had two chances in the final two minutes of regulation to win it but came up empty. As awards were announced, Lettieri was named as the Wolf Pack Fan Favorite as voted on by the Pack faithful.

“We had some chances where I had more time than I thought. We had chances. Tambo had a good effort on the backhander too against them.”

Winning The Fan Favorite Award and the support from the faithful meant a lot to Lettieri. “I was very thankful for that. We really appreciate the fans. They helped us a lot this year, whether we were winning or losing, they were there for us. I can’t credit them enough how they were there for us, especially in the second half. We saw more fans coming in and that gave us momentum. On some (nights) they got us fired up and thanks to them for that. We’re excited to give them something more to cheer about next year.”

Playing a brand new opponent in game 75 was alright with Lettieri.

“It was great. In fact, it was kind of refreshing actually to see somebody else. We play Springfield and Bridgeport, what, 50 times this year? So, it was nice to play a new team for a change.”

Binghamton nearly won it in the waning seconds of regulation.

Christian Bertschy came off the left wing wall and raced to the net. Pack goalie, Alex Georgiev, calmly poke-checked the puck off his stick.

In the third period, the Devils tied the game at one late in the period.

Nathan Bastian took a short drop pass from Mike MacLeod while Vince Pedrie and Schneider collided while trying to stop MacLeod. Bastian slipped away from Steven Fogarty and sped down the left wing untouched. He then cut across Georgiev and put his shot just under his right pad for his sixth of the season with 5:53 left in the regulation.

In the second period, the Wolf Pack held the Devils to just five shots. Part of the reason for the low shot total was strong defensive play inside the Wolf Pack zone from Ryan Lindgren, who did some fine shot blocking on an attempt by Christian Bertschy.

They were able to put eleven shots on Johnson including a right-wing drive by Fogarty that was redirected by Dawson Leedahl. Gabriel Fontaine, the winner of the team’s Seventh Player Award, was on the third line. He too had a solid opportunity denied by Johnson.

The Wolf Pack used their first power play to score the game’s first goal.

Bigras got the shot off from the right point. The puck made it through to Fogarty. He won a one-on-one battle and out-positioned and got in-between and behind Devils defenseman Brian Strait, and Tariq Hammond who had lost his stick for a shot that was stopped.

Ryan Gropp followed that up with being in a perfect support position behind Fogarty and chipped in his thirteenth of the season at 12:48.

This came just after Dan DeSalvo’s shot from the right point was nearly put in by the stick of Devils defenseman, Jagger Dirk.

WOLF PACK TEAM AWARD WINNERS:

MVP: Cole Schneider
7the Player Award: Gabriel Fontaine
Team Character Award: Steven Fogarty
Man of the Year: Chris Nell
Fan Favorite: Vinni Lettieri

WOLF PACK LINES:

Albert-Leedahl-Jaspar
Schneider-Fogarty-DeSalvo
Tambellini-Lettieri-Ronning
Fontaine-Gropp-Salvaggio

Bigras-Helgesen
Lindgren-Labrie
Pedrie-Crawley

SCRATCHES:

Scott Kosmachuk (foot injury)
Brendan Smith (broken hand)
Boo Nieves (healthy)
Dan Catenacci (veteran)
Drew Melanson (healthy)

Rangers unofficially assigned forward Lias Andersson (Sweden) and Filip Chytil (Czech Republic) to their respective World Championship teams that begin play in Denmark in two weeks on May 4.

The Wolf Pack announced the date of the home opener for 2018-19. The date will be October 5th.

Dirk is the son of former NHL defenseman Robert Dirk.

A whole host of scouts on hand for the home finale. Among them were Anaheim, Detroit, Ottawa, and Winnipeg.

Earlier in the week, defenseman Alexei Bereglazov, who played 13 games at the start of the season before returning to Russia, was put on unconditional waivers and cleared. This ends his contract with the Rangers and he will not be returning to Hartford in the fall and will remain in Russia to play in the KHL.

Wolf Pack Fan Jersey of the Night:

Old school night for sure; #7 Joe Rullier (still remember the banner from the home crowd, “Rullier is French for Loser!” He’s since retired), #14 Jack Combs (Iserlohn Germany-DEL), #15 Hugh Jessiman (retired), #18 (CT Whale) Jonathan Audy-Marchessault (Las Vegas-NHL), #20 P.J. Stock (assistant coach St. Lazare QJAAAHL), #23 Jayson Megna (Vancouver-NHL/Utica-AHL), #27 Martin Grenier (retired), #34 Dane Byers (Manchester England-EIHL), #46 Jordan Owens (Fischtown Germany-DEL) and #48 Peter Ferraro (retired).

Bonus: A pair of Ronnings were in the house, a #7 Cliff Ronning (Arizona) and Ty Ronning #14 (from last year).

The post CANTLON: PACK KNOCK OFF DEVILS IN FINAL HOME GAME OF THE SEASON first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The eyes of the hockey world are now focused on Humboldt, Saskatchewan, whose population of 6,000 was stunned by the frightening tragedy of the horrible bus crash that happened on Friday afternoon. The crash came 30 miles north of Tisdale, SK on Highway 35, in the Northeast corner of the province, closer to Manitoba.

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and their Saskatchewan office out of Regina, around 5 pm local time, a semi-tractor-trailer barreled into the team bus of the Humboldt Broncos. The team was en route to play Game 5 of their Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) semi-final playoff game against the Nipawin Hawks. The SJHL is one of ten Canadian Junior A leagues. That level is just a step below the Canadian major juniors that see so many get picked up to play and study at US colleges while some others go to Canadian college hockey.

15 people were killed, but the RCMP did not release the names of the victims pending family notification. The vast majority of the injured and dead are minors among the players, coaches, and staff of the team. 14 were transported to several hospitals with various injuries with three people in critical condition.

The photos of the crash site are truly horrifying. They show the explosive nature of the impact of the crash. AAmong those who perished are 10 players, the head coach, the assistant coach, the team statistician and its longtime radio announcer. The hockey community from the NHL, AHL and all around the world have shown support and solidarity to the awful nature of this tragedy. These were mostly just kids ranging from 16-21 years of age.

It is bound to be a long road to recovery for those affected by the experience from those who survived to those first responders who came on the scene.

For the province, the accident harkens back to another horrible junior hockey bus crash that happened on December 30, 1986. That crash killed four players for the Western Hockey League (WHL) and the Swift Current Broncos who were in their first season of Canadian major junior. That team featured NHL Hall of Famer Joe Sakic, former NHL’er Sheldon Kennedy, and former Wolf Pack head coach and current Las Vegas Golden Knights assistant coach, Ryan McGill.

The Humboldt Broncos have an affiliation with Swift Current.

Pack head coach Keith McCambridge played four years for the WHL Swift Current team. He started with them five years after the crash. It’s something everybody remembers and having been in Saskatchewan he understands the community better than the most.

“Those small towns in that province and throughout Canada that’s your weekend. You go to your local community rink and cheer for your hometown junior team. You’re going to watch your son or daughter and their friends, your neighbor’s kids play hockey.

“As a Dad, I can’t imagine what the families and the billet families are going through. It’s unbelievable and unimaginable to me, and of course, the thoughts and prayers of myself, the coaching staff and the players here and the entire organization are with them.”

The awful legacy of the Swift Current, SK bus crash must be exceptionally challenging for McCambridge having been part of the organization’s history.

“That is a major part of the team. They wear a four leaf clover patch on their uniform (for the four players who perished). In fact, one of Lindy Ruff’s brothers (Brent Ruff) was one of the four. Anytime you pass the bridge outside of Swift Current where the accident happened, you are very aware of it. In this tragedy, it is very, very hard to put into words the magnitude of it.”

There was another tragic junior hockey bus crash in Quebec in the early 1970’s. Read about that HERE.

It also is a reminder of the awful bus crash back on February 19, 2009, when a former AHL team, the Albany River Rats, who were coming back from a game in Lowell, MA, another former AHL city got into an accident.

The River Rats second team bus, a replacement bus used in the place of the first one that conked out across the Mass Pike near Pittsfield, MA (a 40-minute distance from Albany) saw two players seriously injured.

Nicolas Blanchard suffered a life-threatening stomach injury when the guardrail they hit crashed through his window. Forward Casey Borer suffered a fractured neck and team broadcaster, Gavin Newkirk, (now with Texas Stars), had glass shards in his back. Ex-Pack forward Dwight Helminen had foot lacerations from broken window glass.

Albany’s first game back was in Bridgeport against the Sound Tigers. The team received an extended standing ovation from the crowd that Sunday afternoon.

“It was so surreal. I went from the back of the bus to the front. I wasn’t wearing my shoes trying to help my feet. They always bother me after a game,” Helminen said at the time. “I didn’t realize until we were out of the bus and on the median grass area what had happened to me. The doctors said I was very lucky that no major arteries got cut. It’s not pretty, but what Blanch (Blanchard) and Casey had happened, it really is a miracle none of us died.

“Thankfully, Geordie Kinnear (Albany’s assistant coach) got us the hell off the bus and away from it. We saw a semi-fly past our bus which was sideways across part of the road….way too close for comfort.”

Current Wolf Pack Dawson Leedahl (Saskatoon) and Brendan Kotyk (Regina) are Saskatchewan natives.

Four former Pack players hailed from the province in Steve MacIntyre (retired), Dane Byers (played with Manchester England-EIHL this year), Wade Redden (retired and current Assistant Director of Player Development-Nashville) and Tanner Glass currently playing with Calgary. 18 players from Saskatchewan in total have played with the Wolf Pack/CT Whale in 21 years.

The post CANTLON’S CORNER: THE HUMBOLDT TRAGEDY first appeared on Howlings.

BY: Bruce Berlet

When the Connecticut Whale gathered for a team meal Saturday night in Manchester, N.H., coach Ken Gernander had a surprise, especially for veteran defenseman Wade Redden.

After the Whale had been without a captain for nearly 16 months, Gernander announced he and assistants J.J. Daigneault and Pat Boller had decided the man affectionately known as “Papa” would be wearing the “C” for the first time in his illustrious career. Redden had been an assistant captain several times, including since he arrived in Hartford last season, but never was the official leader of the pack.

“He kind of announced it unexpectedly, but it was all good,” Redden said Tuesday. “It’s a nice honor, for sure, but it was a bit surprising. It’s been awhile since Dane has been traded, and no one had been named captain, though that’s not a huge deal for the team not to have one. There’s obviously a good group of guys here who are great leaders, but it’s an honor for me to get it, and we’ll try to do our best to do as good as we can down the stretch.”

Gernander said there were a few candidates for the captaincy, which has been vacant since Dane Byers were traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets for right wing Chad Kolarik on Nov. 10, 2010. But while fellow assistant captain Kris Newbury was another high on the list, Redden seemed a natural after he returned Feb. 18 after missing two months because of an injury sustained in a 2-1 shootout loss to Providence on Dec. 17.

“He has a lot of real good qualities from the way he handles himself both on and off the ice and the way he interacts with his teammates and what he shows as far as leadership on the ice and the way the other guys look to him at times,” Gernander said. “We haven’t had a captain for a while, but there had been a lot of movement and transactions early on in the season, and he missed a lot of time because of injury, so now that he’s back and healthy, we thought it was time to name him.

“Even while he was out injured, I think you could see he was a guy who knew how to handle himself, carry himself, and was a very good professional. I think guys responded to that, so when we were comfortable that he was back and healthy and playing, it’s going to be important that we have some leadership going down the stretch and into the playoffs.”

Appropriately, Redden’s first home game as captain will be Friday night against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, who reclaimed the Northeast Division lead Tuesday night with a 3-2 victory at Worcester thanks to two power-play goals by Rhett Rakhshani and one by Tomas Marcinko to back the 32-save effort of Kevin Poulin. The Sound Tigers (32-19-3-3) are on a 9-1-0-1 run and have a staggering 20-2-0-2 record in 2012 after a 2-10-1-1 slide from Thanksgiving to the end of the year dropped them into the division cellar. Meanwhile, the Whale (29-19-5-5) is on a 10-3-1-0 run and have won six in a row at the XL Center and have the AHL’s best home winning percentage of .731 (16-4-2-4). But the Sound Tigers, coached by former Hartford Wolf Pack defenseman Brent Thompson, have won five of the first seven meetings with the Whale.

Despite his first go-round as a captain and the importance of this time of the season, Redden said he isn’t about to alter his personality or what he has done for 15 pro seasons after being the second overall pick of the New York Islanders in 1995.

“I don’t think anything changes,” said Redden, who has one goal and 11 assists in 32 games. “I think I’ve always been looked to to be a leader on the team, and that’s not going to change anything. I’m not going to try to be overly vocal or anything. I’m not going to try to do too much that way just because they appointed me the captain. I’ve always tried to lead and help out where I could, and that’s going to say the same.”

Redden has exuded nothing but class since being sent to the Wolf Pack in September 2010, helping youngsters such as Ryan McDonagh, Tomas Kundratek, Pavel Valentenko, Michael Del Zotto, Stu Bickel and Jyri Niemi, who idolized Redden growing up in Finland, improve.

“We, as a staff, are proud of Reds and everything he has done,” Gernander said.

As fate would have it, Redden, who is three months shy of his 35^th birthday, feels he was helped by a knee injury that sidelined him from Dec. 17 to Feb. 18.

“I obviously didn’t play there for a while, and the rest of the body also had time off, not just the knee was healing,” said Redden, who helped the Whale rally for a 3-2 victory over Manchester on Sunday in his debut as captain. “It’s a long grind, and I used that time to keep myself ready and did everything I could to heal up and stay ready to go, so I’m feeling good right now.

“And when you get to March, everyone gets that excitement back when you see the playoffs are near. Every game means so much now, so it’s a fun time of year to be playing. We’ve got a lot to play for, and for me, it’s always exciting coming to the rink at this time of year. Playoffs are around, and I think everyone likes playing in that atmosphere.”

Redden hopes his refreshed state will allow him to help the Whale even more than usual in the most important part of the season.

“We’ve worked hard to get where we are, and there’s a lot of big games left so we want to do the things that make us successful and do them real hard,” Redden said. “We don’t want to change much at this time because we’ve worked hard to build ourselves into the team we want to be. Now we just have to trust in each other and have some fun out there.”

Fun is something a few of Redden’s teammates have already had at the expense of their captain. After Gernander made the announcement, Kelsey Tessier and Scott Tanski twittered the news to the world, congratulating “Papa” on his new position. It was a friendly reference to Redden nearly being old enough to be the father of teammates such as Tessier, Tanski, Tim Erixon, Jonathan Audy-Marchessault and Ryan Bourque. But it also was a serious sign of respect for someone following in the footsteps of Gernander, who captained the team for its first eight seasons, Craig Weller, Andrew Hutchinson, Greg Moore and Byers.

“I actually got that nickname from (defenseman) Paul Mara when I was in New York,” Redden said with a chuckle. “He’s a good guy, and I don’t know how it kind of stuck. He was ‘Uncle Paulie’ and I was ‘Papa Reds.’ The (Whale) guys picked up on it, and I just think it comes with the territory being an older guy. But it’s all in fun, and I still have lots to play for and hopefully still get another run at (the NHL), so I’ve always tried to continue as I have been.”

CLEAR-DAY ROSTERS ANNOUNCED

The Whale’s 22-man “Clear Day” roster announced Tuesday is goalies Chad Johnson and Cam Talbot, defensemen Redden, Erixon, Brendan Bell, Sam Klassen, Jared Nightingale, Blake Parlett, Pavel Valentenko and Mike Vernace and forwards Tessier, Audy-Marchessault, Bourque, Tanski, Andre Deveaux, Tommy Grant, Kris Newbury, Jordan Owens, Jeff Prough, Andreas Thuresson, Casey Wellman and Mats Zuccarello. Kolarik would have been on the list, but can’t play this season because he wasn’t on an AHL roster on Feb. 27.

“My next goal is to be ready for training camp,” Kolarik wrote in his Twitter account.

“It’s unfortunate because Chad has worked so hard to recover from the injury,” Gernander said, alluding to Kolarik’s extensive rehab with athletic trainer Damien Hess and strength and conditioning coach/trainer Mark Cesari. “He would have been a big boost in our lineup offensively and a little bit more experienced and skilled guy. But unfortunately the rules prohibit him from being allowed to participate for us.”

Another player not on the Whale list is veteran left wing Sean Avery. In two stints with the Whale after being waived by the Rangers, Avery had two goals, one assist and 39 penalty minutes in seven games but has been a healthy scratch for the last 15 games since Jan. 27.

According to AHL-by-laws, only these players are eligible to compete in the remainder of the regular season and playoff games unless emergency conditions arise as a result of recall, injury or suspension. Teams also can add signed junior players or players on amateur tryout contracts after their respective junior or college seasons are complete.

GERNANDER, LEETCH AMONG 7 NEW HALL OF FAME MEMBERS

Gernander and Hockey Hall of Famer Brian Leetch, who was raised in Cheshire and spent most of his 16-year NHL career with the New York Rangers, will be among the seven new inductees into the Connecticut Hockey Hall of Fame during the first intermission of the Whale-Norfolk Admirals game on “Connecticut Hockey Hall of Fame Night” at the XL Center on Saturday night. The Whale is 0-2-0-1 against the East Division-leading Admirals (39-18-1-2), who have won 12 in a row that given them the best record in the league. That’s largely thanks to All-Star left wing Corey Conacher, who is third overall in the AHL in scoring and first among rookies in goals (31), assists (35) and points (66), veteran center Trevor Smith (21, 36, plus-26) and All-Star goalie Dustin Tokarski (27-11-0, 2.34 goals-against average, .907 save percentage, four shutouts).

The other Hall of Fame inductees will be former Whalers goalie Mike Liut and right wings Blaine Stoughton and Pat Verbeek, three-time Olympian and all-time NCAA women’s leading scorer Julie Chu, a native of Fairfield, and the late William E. Barnes, one of the founders of the New England Whalers.

“Obviously it’s nice to be recognized, and it’s a little different that some of those players are NHL guys,” said Gernander, whose No. 12 is the only number in Wolf Pack/Whale history to be retired to the XL Center rafters. “I’ve spent more time in Connecticut than anywhere else, so I’m pretty fortunate in that regard. Any time that you get recognized I don’t think it’s so much the individual as it’s the people he has been fortunate enough to be associated with. It’s been a first-class organization for a parent club as far as the New York Rangers go. We’re always given every opportunity to succeed and excel here, and I’ve been fortunate enough to play with so many good players and to coach so many good players that I just feel very fortunate. I think it’s just more or less a byproduct of all the great people that I’ve been able to work with.”

Gernander has been with the Wolf Pack/Whale franchise since 1997, when the Rangers moved their top affiliate to Hartford from Binghamton, N.Y., where he played for three seasons. After retiring in 2005 as the AHL’s all-time leader with 123 playoff games and the league’s career scoring leader among American-born players with 624 points in 973 games, Gernander had his number retired on Oct. 8, 2005 as he began two seasons as an assistant coach under Rangers assistant general manager/assistant coach/Whale GM Jim Schoenfeld. Gernander took over as head coach on July 23, 2007 and is trying to lead the Whale to the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.

On her Twitter account, Chu, an assistant coach for the Union College women’s hockey team who also plays for the Montreal Stars in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, said, “Greatly honored to be a part of the 2012 CT Hockey Hall of Fame class. What a privilege.” Next Saturday, Chu will be the keynote speaker at the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award ceremony in Duluth, Minn., where the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four will be played Friday and Sunday. Chu won the award in 2007 as a senior at Harvard University, where she played with fellow Olympians Angela Ruggerio, a standout at Choate School in Wallingford, and Branford native Caitlin Cahow, who is playing for the CWHL’s Boston Blades. The Kazmaier Award is annually given by the USA Hockey Foundation to the top player in NCAA Division I women’s hockey.

The Class of 2012, the first inductees since 1990, will join the eight members of the storied Hartford Whalers Hall of Fame that have been adopted by the Connecticut Hockey Hall of Fame. Fans will receive a special souvenir of the night as 5,000 Hall of Fame posters will be given away, courtesy of SuperCuts. Whale players will wear commemorative uniforms celebrating the career of one of the inductees in warm-ups that will be auctioned at the XL Center and on-line, and there will be a special meet-and-greet event during the second intermission with Leetch, Liut, Verbeek, Stoughton and Chu for 250 people who purchased autograph passes for $20 ($15 for season ticket holders). For more information, visit CTHockeyHOF.org.

Fans also can sponsor a local youth to attend the game on Faith and Family Night by making a $12 donation to Hockey Ministries International Northeast that support chapel programs through the AHL, including with the Whale, and Christian hockey camps for boys and girls. Music will be provided by Scarlet Fade. For more information, contact Rick Mitera, AHL chapel coordinator of Hockey Ministries Northeast at 860-817-6440 or rmitera@hockeyministries.org.

ODDS AND ENDBOARDS

Erixon, Chris Kreider and center J.T. Miller, the Rangers’ first-round pick (15^th overall) in 2011 who has 23 goals and 37 assists in 56 games with Plymouth of the Ontario Hockey League, are on The Hockey News’ upcoming Top 75 Future Watch list.

Forward Jared Staal, the youngest of the four professional Staal brothers, has been loaned to the Providence Bruins by the Carolina Hurricanes and is on the Bruins’ Clear Day list. Staal, whose brothers include Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, had three goals and three assists in 37 games with the Charlotte Checkers.

Jason Missiaen of the Greenville Road Warriors, who was with the Whale at the end of last season and in training camp last fall, was named Reebok/ECHL Goaltender of the Week on Tuesday for the second time this season after going 3-0-0 with a 1.62 goals-against average and .948 save percentage. He had 29 saves Tuesday night, but the Road Warriors lost 3-1 to Gwinnett, which scored three goals in the third period to increase their South Division to three points. Parlett scored Greenville’s lone goal on a first-period power play. Missiaen is 18-13-2 with a 2.91 GAA, .910 save percentage and three shutouts in 34 games this season

College students can get discounted Whale tickets to weekday games with a “Ditch the Dorms” deal. For Monday through Friday games, students who show a valid student ID at the Public Power Ticket office can get $2 off upper-level tickets and $5 off lower-level seats.

Fans can bid on AHL All-Star Classic jerseys, helmets, gloves and pucks at TheAHL.com. The Whale’s Zuccarello and Audy-Marchessault and the Falcons’ Cam Atkinson, a Greenwich native, were on the Eastern Conference team, which was captained by former Wolf Pack left wing Boyd Kane, captain of the Hershey Bears. Atkinson was recalled by the Columbus Blue Jackets last Friday.

FALCONS FANS GO FOR THE SWEEP

Falcons fans will go for a series sweep in their seventh and final meeting with their Whale counterparts on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, at 4 p.m. at the XL Center. Tickets ($16) and more information are available at facebook.com/whalefalconsfangame.

The series was originated by Seth Dussault of Easthampton, Mass. Matt Marychuk of Glastonbury created a Facebook page to see if there were any interested players, and he and Dussault managed the social media page as interest grew. They used the page to sign up fans to play and communicate between the players and managed to fill rosters for each fan team. The idea caught the attention of the Falcons and then Whale front office, leading to players of all ages and skill levels participating in the series. A portion of ticket sales benefits Defending the Blue Line, an organization that helps children of military families play hockey. The first five games raised $850 for DBL.

The post SPOTLIGHT: “PAPA” REDDEN, THE CAPTAIN first appeared on Howlings.