CANTLON: PACK DOWN DEVILS 6-2 IN SUNDAY MATINEE 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The Hartford Wolf Pack scored three goals in the second period and five unanswered goals overall to help them overtake and defeat the Binghamton Devils, 6-2, snapping a six-game losing streak in a Sunday afternoon matinee at the XL Center.

Steven Fogarty tallied two goals and an assist. Ryan Gropp scored a goal and had two assists while the four newly-minted rookies earned their first pro points and Lewis-Zerter Gossage, his first pro goal and game-winning goal paced the offense. This was the Pack’s first six-goal output since January 18th against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and only the fourth time this season they achieved that goal plateau.

The Pack pulled away in the third period with two goals to seal the win. They increased their record when leading after two periods this season to 19-3-3-2 and conversely when trailing after two periods is an atrocious 3-24-3-0.

The Wolf Pack record falls to 29-34-7-3 (67 pts) are off until Friday when they face the Hershey Bears in their regular season home finale before finishing the season with two more road games at Lehigh Valley (Allentown) and Hershey.

Nick Jones scored his second AHL goal, by winning a battle for position on the Devils’ Ryan Murphy and was able to push Darren Raddysh’s rebound past the Devils goalie Evan Cormier to make it 5-2 at 10:09.

Jake Elmer picked up the assist for his first pro point.

“Once our lines got a feel for each other we started to generate a little bit of chemistry. We finally started to capitalize on our chances,” said Pack head coach, Keith McCambridge.

The scoring closed out an empty-netter which is usually nothing big to celebrate, but Steven Fogarty passed up getting a hat trick and dished the puck to Gropp to finish off his three-point effort. Plays like that don’t go unnoticed by a head coach.

“To pass up a hat trick with the pass to Ryan, it speaks volumes about a player. Steven Fogarty is a high quality, young man.”

The gesture also wasn’t ignored by his linemate, Gropp, the recipient of the play.

“That’s the kind of guy he is. He plays the right way every night. I’m lucky to have a teammate like that. I really didn’t expect the pass.”

The Wolf Pack had two penalty kills, a short five-on-three and a longer four-on-three that was a catalyst that got the team moving.

“We got a lot of momentum out of those kills, and we finally found our legs and got going after that,” Gropp stated.

The second period seemed to be a ref’s contest to see how many penalties they could call in a 20 minute period the Pack used one of their powerplays to tie the game at two.

Fresh back from his NHL recall, John Gilmour started the whole scoring sequence with a sharp pass from the left point to Gropp in the right wing circle. He ripped a shot that Fogarty redirected by a completely screened Devils goalie, Evan Cormier, by the Pack’s Tim Gettinger. It sailed over his shoulder into the top shelf on the stick-side at 9:12.

It was Fogarty’s 20th of the year making him the third Wolf Pack player to cross the twenty goal plateau this season.

“We found some chemistry when we have been together and Keith put us together tonight with Vinni (Lettieri) back (from New York) and those two guys are very reliable and it was a fun game for the three of us,” remarked Gropp.

McCambridge was pleased with the efforts of putting his number one line back together.

“They all complement each other well, and Ryan has a strong shot. He kept good possession of the puck. Steven created the separation that we needed on his first goal and Vinni has been an offensive catalyst all year. It was just what we needed. That line and the Fontaine line were able to lead for our other two lines to see how they were playing, as they followed them and took the pressure off them,” McCambridge said of his first line that had a combined seven points.

For Fogarty familiarity breeds success.

“We missed him (Lettieri). He was up there where he should be (in New York) and it was nice to have him back. We have worked well together… the three of us. We had just four shots to start, but once we got those, we two kills. We started to pick up the pace, got a few and that helped us turn this (game) around.”

The Wolf Pack exploded offensively with two goals in thirty seconds to stake out a two-goal lead.

The first came as rookie Shawn McBride worked the puck to fellow first-timer Ryan Dmowski, who got the puck in the left wing circle, corralled the biscuit, turned, and fired a shot with a screen provided by the Binghamton forward checking him and goalie Evan Cormier, who was screened in front by traffic from Lewis Zerter-Gossage, who redirected the puck for his first professional goal. It was the eventual game-winner as Dmowski and Shawn McBride tallied their first pro points with assists.

The redirect was so deftly done it took the upstairs off-ice officials to catch it. They did a great job. Zerter-Gossage knew right away it was his, but he was doing the honorable thing when Dmowski was initially given credit for the goal.

“I knew right away that I got it. I don’t think Ryan did though,” Gossage said with a big, bright smile. “I tried not to make a big scene about it. First was a great play by everybody. Shawn did some hard work and Ryan made a really smart play and we’re just trying to simplify things and get pucks deep and we got rewarded for it. I was just coming here to learn from the older guys to get my first pro goal in my second game, that was the cherry on top.”

Fogarty showed the offensive harmony that was missing for the team in the first period, playing catch and go as he sent a quick pass over to Lettieri on the right. He quickly sent it back and while on the left wing, Fogarty buried his second goal in a row for the 4-2 lead at 17:52.

Even with three big pieces of the team playing in New York, the Wolf Pack got off to another laisse-faire start to the game.

For the ninth time in the last ten games surrendered the game’s first goal.

The Devils won a right corner battle among four players and the puck came out to Brandon Gignac. He sent it over from the right wing to defenseman Colton White who was wide-open and he zipped a pass to ex-Pack, Alex Krushelnyski, alone at the right side of the net with an open side to easily deposit his second goal of the season at 2:21.

The Wolf Pack offense was at very least, anemic. They didn’t register a quality shot until they scored a goal at 13:09 for the entire period.

The Pack got a break when Binghamton’s Nick Lappin’s pass to the left point found nobody and allowed the Pack to break out on an odd-man rush.

Gabriel Fontaine on the right wing was on a two-on-one shorthanded break with Tim Gettinger on the right wing was his decoy and as a lefty shot zipped a wrister over the glove of Devils goalie Evan Cormier for his 11^th goal and the Pack had some life tied at one.

It didn’t last long as the Devils cashed in on their next powerplay with a Charlotte Checkersesque four of five players touching the puck inside the Wolf Pack zone by the AHL’s second-worst team record wise.

Nick Lappin was able to feed Ryan Schmelzer who curled and peeled down into the right wing circle sent a short pass to Eric Tangredi at the goal line who sent it right back out to Blake Pietila who snapped his 19^th into the net at  14:54 and a 2-1 lead.

Pietila now has seven points in his last eight games.

NOTES:

Gilmour’s assist gives him 54 points, four ahead of Rochester’s Zach Redmond for the top spot among defensemen’s scoring, which is ten shy of the Wolf Pack team record of 64, held by Andrew Hutchison set in 2007-2008 where he was third in team scoring behind PA Parenteau and Greg Moore.

Wolf Pack fan jersey of the night a pair of ex-CT Whale, players Michael Del Zotto’s number 2 who is on his third NHL team this season with St. Louis. #10 Tommy Grant who played senior league hockey in British Columbia with Quesnel (CIHL). The Wolf Pack jerseys were #17 Brandon Dubinsky and #15, Greg Moore.

SCRATCHES:

Matt Beleskey (lower body, out)
Dawson Leedahl (lower body, out)
Rob O’Gara (lower body, out)
Bobby Butler (healthy)
Matt Register (healthy)
Julius Bergman (healthy)
Shawn St. Amant (healthy)
Shawn O’Donnell (healthy)

LINES

Fogarty-Lettieri-Gropp
Fontaine-Meskanen-Gettinger
Ryan Dmowski-Shawn McBride-Zerter-Gossage
Jake Elmer-Patrick Newell-Nick Jones

Gilmour-Lindgren
Day-Raddysh
Wesley-Crawley