CANTLON: PACK AND BRUINS BATTLE TO OT 

      VERSUS     

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – A late bench minor penalty for Too Many Men cost the Hartford Wolf Pack dearly as it allowed the Providence Bruins to complete their comeback and earn a 4-3 win in overtime while sending the home team to their second straight loss.

The game-winning goal came as Karson Kuhlman came off the right point and spotted Cody Golobeuf in the lower left wing circle and hit him with the pass. The right-handed shooting Golobeuf one-timed it to the far side past the Pack’s starting goalie, Dustin Tokarski at 1:03.

The late game critical error came when John Gilmour hopped off the bench, but the puck came to Rob O’Gara who was still seeking to exit the ice.

“We talked about closing out games, and we did a good job of it early, but we sat back to play not to lose, rather than to play to win and you can’t do that in this league,” said assistant captain, Steven Fogarty.

Fogarty, who was skating off the bench, felt that regardless, it was an opportunity that shouldn’t have been there. “We shouldn’t have been in that position to kill (a penalty) in overtime. It comes back to the way we played in the third. We just need to clean it up and figure it.”

Head coach Keith McCambridge opted not to talk after the game.

The two teams will meet again Saturday night in Providence in the back end of their home-and-home at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. The puck drops at 7 pm.

Midway through the third period, the Pack looked like they might steal two points on Tokarski’s strong netminding (32 saves), but they couldn’t hold on to a two-goal lead that evaporated in a 36-second span as the Bruins clawed their way back to tie the game at three.

Austin Fyten outworked two Wolf Pack players in the right-wing corner and chipped the puck over to Colby Cave, who made a pretty between the legs, blind pass, that found Anton Blidh, who snapped it to the far side on a sharp angle, semi-screened shot past Tokarski at 12:16. It was Blidh’s first goal.

The Bruins tied the game at three when Trent Frederic got behind the defense and despite losing his edge and falling to the ice, was able to shovel Kuhlman’s rebound to tie the contest at three.

“It was a wasted effort by Tokarski. He played very big for us tonight, and he and (Marek Mazanec) have been keeping us in games. It feels bad not give get them the win,” Fogarty said.

The Pack got the all-important third goal on one of their few effective forechecking sessions of the game.

Ville Meskanen started the whole sequence in the Bruins’ zone and got a quality chance that was denied. He and Fogarty kept the pressure on the Bruins’ defense. The puck went up the boards where Chris Bigras, who was at the right point, was able to snare the puck from getting out of the zone. Bigras put it to the net where rookie Tim Gettinger and Fogarty were hovering like hawks in the high noon sun. Gettinger redirected the shot by Zane McIntyre at 7:01 for his third goal of the season.

McIntyre appealed to referees to look for what he thought was interference on the play, but the referees disagreed and the play stood.

“That’s how we have been playing. Punching it in, and pressuring, and that’s where we have our success. We have to get back to playing like that regularly. Biggie (Bigras) made the play there and we got to the net,” Fogarty, who has come out of the gate strong with four points in four games, remarked.

The Bruins had a jump in their game that the Pack didn’t on the opening shift of the second period as Fyten shot it wide. Jakub Zbrobil had a wide open net on the left wing but shot the puck wide by 10 feet.

The Wolf Pack however got the goal they needed.

Bobby Butler, an offseason free-agent signee, stopped on a first-period chance, didn’t miss his second break-in chance.

The Pack’s Peter Holland was at the blue line on the left wing side. Holland sent a perfect short pass that caught a Bruin flat-footed in a line change. Butler skated in, took the puck and snapped his first of the season to the far side past McIntyre at 5:41 and a 2-1 lead.

The Bruins maintained puck control on a five-on-three penalty kill and Colby Cave and then Jeremy Lauzon, both had better quality scoring chances than the Wolf Pack.

The Bruins came off the wing on Tokarski with chances by Karson Kuhlman, Mark McNeill, Cameron Hughes, Urho Vakkainen and then, Connor Clifton from the right point. Tokarski rejected them all.

With just over a minute to go the Wolf Pack had a chance at the right side of the net as Meskanen was stopped. He then dug for the loose puck from under McIntyre, but his backhand shot went through the crease.

The Bruins grabbed the early lead as Jacob-Forsbacka Karlsson tallied his first of the year taking a good, quick, short-pass from the Bruins early season scoring leader, Mark McNeill, and went in all alone past the Pack defensive tandem of Vince Pedrie and O’Gara on Tokarski. He went from the left to the right side with a nice forehand deke on Tokarski and slipped it behind him at 6:03.

The Pack were outshot 8-2 and had little offensive zone pressure, but still managed to tie the game at one.

Bigras, an early season rock on both sides of the defensive coin, used his good skating and stick skill and spotted Lias Andersson skating backwards at the left side of the Bruins net. Bigras slid a perfect pass to Andersson who redirected it perfectly at the center of the net at 10:58. For Andersson, it was his first of the season.

Shortly afterward, the Bruins got a power play, and after hitting three posts last week in the regular season opener, managed to ding another one off the stick of Ryan Fitzgerald.

The Bruins kept the pressure on the Wolf Pack. Tokarski was able to turn aside several strong chances by Vakkainen, a first-round draft pick who had three shots, as did Fitzgerald. The two defensemen combined for six of the Bruins 15 first period shots.

The Wolf Pack’s best chance came when Butler was on the right wing with a seemingly wide-open net and snapped it at the net. McIntyre stopped the shot that appeared to go in, as even the goal judge flicked on the red light, but was fooled.

NOTES:

The Pack had one injury scratches in Brendan Crawley who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Shawn St. Amant and defenseman Sean Day were both healthy scratches.

PACK LINES:

Butler-Holland-Gropp

Andersson-Lindqvist-Schneider

Fogarty-Gettinger-Meskanen

Fontaine-Ronning-O’Donnell

Gilmour-Lindgren

Bigras-Hajak

Pedrie-O’Gara

The Pack defensive duo of Bigras and rookie Libor Hajak are each a plus-five which is among the best in the league. They have played together since training camp in New York. Hajak is top among rookies

The Bruins have two players with CT ties. These are defenseman Connor Clifton (Quinnipiac University) and Wiley Sherman (Greenwich/Hotchkiss Prep). Clifton was in the opening lineup and Sherman was scratched.

Among the early AHL leaders are Sam Gagner, the son of former Nighthawk, Dave Gagner, who is with the Toronto Marlies. He had two goals and five points and current teammate ex-Pack, Chris Mueller, has two goals and four points and Brad Malone, nephew of former Hartford Whaler, Greg Malone with the Bakersfield Condors, has four points.

That team has a goalie with a familiar name, ex-Pack and New York Ranger, Al Montoya, also on Bakersfield and has a 1.45 GAA in two games.

Among rookies, Tim Gettinger is in the top 10 with three points in three games.

The Pack powerplay is 16th of the 31 teams scoring 16.7% of the time. Providence is 18th at 12.5%. On the PK, the Wolf Pack are 9th at a success rate of 92.9% and the Bruins are 20th at 75%, but they have only have had to kill off four minors so far.

The Rangers play Saturday afternoon at 1 pm at MSG against Edmonton.