CANTLON: (FRI) PACK CRUSH BABY PENGUINS 

CANTLON: (FRI) PACK CRUSH BABY PENGUINS

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BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Maybe the Hartford Wolf Pack should take the Thursday off before every Friday night game?

The Wolf Pack sliced and diced the second best team in the division and third best team in the Eastern Conference in a 7-3 dismantling of the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins.

The New York Rangers’ top farm team was paced by solid performances and a three-point night from John Gilmour (2g, a), Scott Kosmachuk (1g, 2a), and Peter Holland (3a). Gabriel Fontaine had a two-goal night.

“I liked the pace and speed we played at,” a very happy Pack Head Coach Keith McCambridge said. “We had good-structure in all three zones. We thought we could we were gonna give ourselves a chance to score in some places and as a group, they did a good job of that. Wilkes Barre is a good team where they sit in the standings. When you look at the body of work in all three periods, we did some really intelligent reads of the puck they are a hard team to play against we had good breakouts, support in the neutral zone and we were faster and cleaner with our breakouts (all game). We’re not going to break our shoulders patting ourselves on the back we got a game to play tomorrow.”

The Pack in the third period kept their foot on the pedal outshooting the Penguins 19-6 as Fontaine scored his second of the night from the blue line as Gilmour set him with a nice short pass at 7:21. Then 50 seconds later the Pack struck again. Anthony DeAngelo scored his first cruising in front of the net jammed the rebound of Ryan Sproul’s left point shot for a 7-2 Pack lead.

“Maybe I’ll start playing defense,” said Fontaine with a laugh. His contributions increase every game the last three weeks.

The seven goals were a season-high as was the margin of victory and their 38 shots their second highest of the season.

The Penguins picked up their third goal at 9:26 as Daniel Sprong scored his AHL rookie best 15^th goal.

“We were fresh and that was the first time we have beaten Wilkes Barre and it was a great team effort and it was great to compete with a top team in the league like that,” Gilmour, deservedly earned first star honors.

The Wolf Pack broke things open with three goals in the second period including a pair 16 seconds apart.

At 1:05 Gilmour raced down the left wing took a Holland pass and wired it short side on Cassie DeSmith for a 3-1 lead.

Then Gilmour popped in his second in a row and fourth of the season. He engineered the whole scoring sequence on the powerplay.

From the Wolf Pack end of the ice, while on a four-on-three power play, he weaved beautifully through the neutral zone cut to the right wing curled back once he got to the right wing circle.

Gilmour made a pass then got to the right point position and Scott Kosmachuk fed a perfect lead pass on the ice to Gilmour and who then dropped a 50-foot slapshot with Steven Fogarty screening at 3:37.

“We have talked with John using his best asset which is his speed in our meetings and you saw the result of that tonight,” said McCambridge.

He was all smiles after the game.

“My legs felt good and seemed everything I put on net created something. I have more nights like this, I’ll be a happy man,” Gilmour said with a smile of his first three-point pro effort and his best game as a pro.

The Pack chased Penguins starting goalie Cassie DeSmith and saw Sean Maguire come into the game in relief. Ex-Pack defenseman Chris Summers summed up the game succinctly for the Penguins.

“We didn’t show up and they did.”

Before PA announcer, Jared Doyon could announce the Gilmour goal the Wolf Pack struck again.

A beautiful three-way touch-pass play saw Adam Chapie pass the puck right to Dawson Leedahl who in turn fired a perfect cross-ice shot/pass to Fontaine. He had excellent inside position on the Penguins’ Greg McKegg and tapped his second goal into the open right-wing side and there was dancing in the aisles at 5-1.

“We worked on that play a lot in practice. It was nice that I was able to get the puck come my way,” Fontaine laughed, “our line was able to bring energy and we all contributed.”

The earned the praise of the Pack’s bench boss.

“That was a really nice play that line provides a lot of energy and all three players got touches on the play that’s what you’re looking for.”

Mazanec (31 saves) did his best when the Penguins pushed backstopping Garret Wilson with a glove save after the first goal of the period by Hartford and then Adam Johnson and Colin Smith’s bids back to back shifts. Right after the Pack went up 5-1 Thomas DiPauli was all alone at the left of the net and Mazanec used his 6’4 frame to shut down the quality chance.

“He has that good frame and size he can look over guys on some of those screens that Wilkes Barre does a good job on. He did a good job at not giving up rebounds and second chances,” remarked McCambridge.

The Penguins did get one back on a delayed penalty as Frank Corrado’s shot caromed off the backboards to Teddy Blueger who shot the puck off the off Mazanec’s skate and into the net for the sixth goal at 10:08.

The Wolf Pack for a fourth straight game scored the games first goal.

The Pack gained territory in the Penguins offensive zone and Cole Schneider with a short pass to a hard skating trailing defenseman Ryan Graves who fired his second goal of the season five-hole on Cassie DeSmith at 6:52.

The Penguins got the equalizer as Thomas DiPauli took a pass from Blueger and motored down the right wing with inside position on defenseman Neal Pionk and slipped his ninth goal past Marek Mazanec at 13:29 on a strong amazing one-handed shot effort.

The Wolf Pack regained the lead they never relinquished with s pretty three-way play on the powerplay.

Steven Fogarty on the left wing chipped the puck over to a hard-charging Ryan Gropp just ahead of him who made a very difficult play look easy. Gropp was able to kick a bouncing puck with his skate to his stick in full flight and found a wide open Scott Kosmachuk bursting off the right wing who easily deposited his sixth goal into the back of the net at.

“That was a high skill play,” said McCambridge, “so well executed in a tight area it was a real key goal and everybody was where they were needed to be on the ice.”

The Pack nearly scored the very next shift with Adam Chapie with a nice snapshot in the left wing circle, but Penguins Cassie DeSmith made a strong glove save.

NOTES:

PACK LINES:

FORWARDS

Whitney-Lettieri-Tambellini
Holland-Kosmachuk-Schneider
Fogarty-Gropp-DeSalvo
Chapie-Fontaine-Leedahl

DEFENSE

Graves-DeAngelo
Gilmour-Pionk
Sproul-Crawley

Scratches were Dan Catenacci (lower body) Vince Pedrie, Eric Selleck and Filip Chytil is off to the Czech WJC camp.

Gilmour came close to getting the hat trick but was stopped by Maguire on three good chances. The last Wolf Pack defenseman hat trick was February 8, 2008, in Providence by Andrew Hutchison.

McCambridge was non-committal on his starting goalie tomorrow night in Springfield.

According to AHL VP of Communications Jason Chaimovitch, who was in the house on a search of current AHL records, said Steven Fogarty’s five-on-three shorthanded goal has been done previously.

Wade Megan, then playing with the Portland Pirates, accomplished the rare feat against the Springfield Falcons on February 28, 2016. It was the game’s first goal.

Megan currently plays with the Chicago Wolves and is with the St. Louis Blue organization.

Megan played his high school hockey at Salisbury Prep.

The league is collating its historical records to see if it was done in the early years of the league.

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