“I’M NOT DEAD!” 

       VERSUS      

Early in the film, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” a worker is collecting dead bodies. The Eric Idle, as the Cart-master is clanging a cow bell and shouting, “Bring out your dead!” [clang] “Bring out your dead!” With that, John Cleese comes out carrying an old sickly person on his shoulder and says to the Cart-man, “Here’s one.”

A loss by the New York Rangers American League team on Friday night and it could easily have been the Hartford Wolf Pack being thrown on the cart of teams dead to the post-season.

Adding to the Wolf Pack’s woes entering their do-or-die trio of weekend games, it was announced Friday morning that the Hartford’s best player, P.A. Parenteau, along with veteran defenseman Anders Eriksson were recalled by the New York Rangers to join them for their game against Toronto.

Fans everywhere would have said, like the Cleese character, “AH, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.”

But not the Wolf Pack locker room!

The sounds from there were more like “I’m not ‘dead…I’m getting better…I feel fine!”

Well, much as their parent club found a way to at least get to a shootout and rely on their netminder, their development team did the same. The Wolf Pack got a late goal by Captain Dane Byers midway through the third period, a solid performance between the pipes by Chad Johnson (21 saves, 18-16-2-3) and then shootout goals from Kris Newbury and Ilkka Heikkinen to win in the shootout, 3-2.

The win was capped by a cooperative night in the American League as all three teams they are battling for the final playoff spot all lost. Bridgeport lost to Manchester 4-1. Providence was shutout by Portland 2-0 and Norfolk lost to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 3-1.

Dale Weise, the game’s first star with his 24th goal of the season and an assist and just hitting everything that moved, recognized how serious the situation is for his hockey club. “We can’t afford to lose another game, and it’s big for us to come from behind like (this).”  He said to reporters afterwards. “We’ve had some trouble coming from behind and giving up leads and ties, but I thought we were strong all through the third period and kept on rolling. We had a couple of chances but didn’t capitalize on them.”

It was a “feeling-each-other-out” first period that seemed to drag on forever. The Pack had a great chance at 6:15, but rookie Evgeny Grachev missed a shot from just below the low slot as the young Russian was wide open in front and moments later Weise clanged a shot off the pipe. Adirondack could get nothing going offensively as the visiting Phantoms didn’t even get their first shot on goal until 10:45. But as has been the issue with this 2009-2010 edition of the Wolf Pack, they just couldn’t stay out of the penalty box. Referee, Ghislain Hebert, whistled the home team for three consecutive penalties and gave the Phantoms a chance to get the game’s first goal. But the AHL’s worst penalty killers rose to the occasion putting all three chances aside.

“We weren’t as disciplined tonight as we would have liked to have been.” Weise said. “Some guys took some penalties that they probably shouldn’t have taken, but I thought we kind of gained momentum off some big penalty kills. And a couple of the saves that Johnson made were huge, and we kind of rallied around that.”

But when the Pack took their fourth straight penalty just 54 seconds into the second period, a Kris Newbury double minor for a high stick, their luck ended and as they have all season long, the Pack would have to play from behind.

Terrible coverage down low by the Pack as all four penalty killers chased the puck to Johnson’s right and when David Laliberte got his stick on the puck, he looked up to find Jon Matsumoto all by himself in the slot. At 2:27, Matsumoto brought the puck in on the defenseless Johnson made a few dekes and got the Pack netminder to flinch and then through it under for his 26th tally of the season. Johnson would remember this and it would be key later in the game.

Just shy of six minutes later, the Phantoms would double their expanse over the home team when Corey Locke turned the puck over in the defensive zone. His pass hit defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti in the back of the leg. Jonathan Kalinski picked up the puck on the right wing side and fed Andreas Nodl who beat the defense back and redirected the pass past Johnson.

In games past, the Pack would have folded up shop and this game would have wound up in the “L” column. But not this night.

At 10:31, Weise, who’s had a standout season all year long, took a feed from Newbury and broke up the right wing boards. The Pack’s most vocal leader then put on a great move as he crossed into the offensive zone that faked defenseman Kevin Marshall completely out of his skates and crossed the crease and then lifted the puck over the shoulder of Phantoms starter Carter Hutton (34 saves, 1-1-1). The Pack had cut the lead in half.

The Pack entered the third frame trailing which for them had been doom all season long. Even though they had just come from behind and beaten Providence in their previous game, the Pack still had a record of just 3-26-1-2 when trailing entering the final period.

Adirondack got a huge chance at 2:57 on a partial breakaway by Stefan Legein that was masterfully handled by Johnson. The Phantoms would get another chance to put the game away at 6:55, but as earlier stated, goaltenders can have a good memory. Ask Mike Richter sometime about how he remembered that Pavel Bure had used the same move on him at the NHL All-Star game so that when he went for it again in the Stanley Cup final penalty shot he was ready. By the way, Richter stopped them both times. Well in this case, Johnson had a long memory in this case.

Matsumoto got a mini breakaway when he blew right past Newbury and came in alone on Johnson and made the same moves that he did earlier only this time, Johnson didn’t bite and threw out his leg and made the save. It was the turning point of the game.

“Those were really big saves, especially the second one, and something that’s really critical,” Head Coach Ken Gernander spoke of after the game to reporters. “Sometimes you need him to steal a game and sometimes you just need that big save to keep the game where it’s at and guys will feed off that or respond to that, just like a big hit or a couple of offensive chances or a good shift.”

2:42 later, Weise again made the key play to get his team back in the game. Weise was fed by Newbury in the offensive zone on the right wing side. Weise blasted a hard shot as Byers crossed the crease and redirected the shot perfectly past Hutton for the equalizer.

Weise said that, “We’ve been working on three-man attack rushes, and the play worked out with Dane.”

Johnson then made another terrific save. With 7:05 remaining, Johnson came from left to right and got his leg out to stop a Kalinski wraparound attempt that came inches from unlocking the deadlock.

So after the final 7:05 and one lest great chance that was missed by Byers with 1:48 left to go, the two teams went to the extended frame.

In the overtime the two teams battled back and forth with the best chance of the 5 minute stanza coming with just 38 ticks left as Locke had a great chance to put it away but the AHL’s third leading scorer missed the net.

Off to the shootout.

Johnson did his best Henrik Lundqvist impression and stoned the four shooters for the Phantoms and Newbury and Heikkinen sealed the deal for the home team setting up a huge showdown Saturday night between the Pack and the team they need to catch, their arch rivals, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

As fans left the building after another key victory, fans were probably saying the same things as the old man in Cleese’s hands… “I feel happy…I feel happy.” Here’s hoping that Saturday night’s result does not leave the team the same way as that character in the film.

For more from inside the locker room, Bruce Berlet has the “happy recap” at Hartfordwolfpack.com. For a little Adirondack perspective there’s always PostStar.com or the Phantom’s own site.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

SHOOTOUT: 

Hartford shoots first for each round.

Hartford

Total: 2

Adirondack

Total: 0