CANTLON: PACK BEGIN TO MARCH TOWARD THE POSTSEASON 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

CROMWELL, CT – The trade deadline has come and gone. The roster of the Hartford Wolf Pack is intact and now the next goal for the New York Rangers’ AHL affiliates is making the Calder Cup playoffs.

“We have 21 games left before the playoffs. 12 of them are on the road. We still have our work cut out for us,” remarked Pack Head Coach, Kris Knoblauch.

The lineup he has, with few exceptions, will be the one the team will have when they head into the playoffs for the first time in five years.

“This is our group. We have had a few changes, but will have some more, maybe later on, but this group will have,”  Knoblauch said stoically.

“Our goal is always to have Hartford Wolf Pack players play for the Rangers whether it was Phil (Di Giuseppe), Lindy (Ryan Lindgren), Igor (Shesterkin) or (Filip) Chytil that’s our job here. Make the best environment for them to play in. One of the reasons (for the development success) is the veterans brought in here such as Danny O’Regan, Phil Di Guiseppe, Mason (Geersten), and Vincent LoVerde. Can’t say enough how well he has played. They all have made their mark with this team.”

Knoblauch loves to talk about O’Regan.

“He’s not a loud guy, but a quiet, effective leader. He works very well with a player like Patrick Newell. On the ice or just hanging out together. He’s a natural person to gravitate toward. There is an extra step when he is paired with Danny.”

The Pack begins a second three-games-in-three-days with two on the road. They visit Binghamton to play the Devils on Friday, then travel to Bridgeport on Saturday against the Sound Tigers, and then Sunday afternoon they’ll have a crucial meeting with the Providence Bruins at 3 PM at the XL Center.

From the good news department comes word that centerman, Boo Nieves, is close to returning to the lineup. He was in practice for a third straight day sporting a green jersey, not the non-contact yellow he’d been wearing lately.

“Right now, he is day-to-day, (but) questionable for the weekend. He looks fantastic. Our best player the last three practices. We’re very eager to get him back. However, it has to remain day-to-day until he gets (medical) clearance.”

For team captain, Steven Fogarty, he can jokingly celebrate that he was not traded at the deadline. Fogarty staying breaks the “Captain Trade Jinx” which saw the team’s captain being traded the last five consecutive years.

“I wasn’t too worried about it,” Fogarty said with a laugh.

Now, with all the distractions behind them, for the team, the march to the postseason is everything.

“We put ourselves in a good spot. We like who we have, so it’s a matter of doing what we have been doing and clean up the things we need to.”

The strong finish on Sunday in the solid effort in the 4-1 win over Bridgeport is what they want to carry into the start of the weekend in Binghamton.

“Two points is all we got out of it last week. We didn’t play well Friday. We did well, but not enough on Saturday. We want to help ourselves down the road. We’re still in a battle.“

Fogarty has been just as effective in getting offense while the team is shorthanded as he has been while playing five-on-five. There is an art form to playing shorthanded.

He has a very quick stick, but a player needs to know when to be careful and when to use it.

“You gotta know when the right time to jump on it to make the play is. I got a long stick and it helps sometimes. You can get too deep trying to fish one on a play and use your body more sometimes. So, we’ve got important meaningful games in the last ten. It’s something we haven’t had in the last few years looking forward to it.”

His linemates have changed throughout the year, which happens, but nothing tends to change,

“You start to hunker down a bit, get all four lines going. That’s gonna be important to us.”

Playing for something after several miserable years is certainly something Fogarty relishes.

“The last few years certainly didn’t end the way anyone wanted. Playing for something this year is something we’ve worked for all year.”

The chase for the Calder Cup is fully under way and picks up in earnest this weekend.

NOTES:

On the Rangers “paper” assignments of Julien Gauthier and Brett Howden for the postseason, Knoblauch steered clear of that one.

“That’s way off in the future. I don’t have control of those decisions. Till the playoffs are here, and those players are sent here, I can’t really think that far ahead. We’ll have some bodies here and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

No decision has been made, publicly anyway, on the weekend’s goaltending rotation between Adam Huska and J.F. Berube.

Congrats to Fogarty who’s heading to the Hall of Fame….the BC (British Columbia) Hall of Fame.

The 2011-12 BCHL Penticton Vees team is among inductees. The team went 54-4-2 and won the BCHL Fred Page Cup, the regional Junior A Doyle Cup, and the national Junior A RBC Cup.

“That was a special team. I haven’t been back there since. Several of us will be going with the ceremony in the summer. I’m very much looking forward to it. That was a special year and I’m very honored that our team was selected.”

With 81 points, Fogarty was the sixth-leading scorer on the team. His teammates included current Sound Tiger, and former Quinnipiac University Bobcat, Travis St. Denis. The other player of local note was one of St. Denis’s collegiate teammates at QU, goalie Michael Garteig, who’s now playing in Finland.

“It’s been something playing him (St. Denis) the last four years,” Fogarty said.

Fogarty explained how he wound up in Penticton, BC, saying, “I knew a couple of guys I played with who were going up there to play. Why would anyone go there to play? Usually, kids from Minnesota. You’re off to the USHL and then college. The USHL draft didn’t go as planned. Notre Dame wanted me to go there, get a little seasoning. It looked like a good opportunity. So, I went for a visit and fell in love with the place. Penticton is one of the most beautiful spots in Canada, just gorgeous. It was first-class. They treated us very well. Fans were out every night, cheering us and made it great every night. It was one of the best years of my life. We won 42 games in a row. We had everyone following us around like TSN. It was a wild, fun time.”

They almost lost everything.

“We lost our first two games in the RBC Cup (National Junior A Championships) and we’re down in the third. We’re almost eliminated. We tied it and won in overtime. We won the rest of the games. It wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t what looks it on paper, but we had our moments.”

Interestingly, current Wolf Pack, Ryan Gropp, played his first two Junior A games that same year with Penticton where he notched a goal.

The BCHL announced it’s reducing its schedule starting next season from 58 to 54 games, plus they’re starting later in September. The league will go now to two nine-team conferences based on BC geography for teams on the mainland and Inland locations.

In Montreal, not only was Pack radio voice, Bob Crawford, in the Bell Centre. For the second time, Lindgren got to be on the same ice with his brother Charles, but this time in the NHL. The two met earlier in the season in Hartford with both brothers still playing in the American League. Charles was in goal for the Laval Rocket. The two brothers got their pictures taken at center ice before the game.

Gauthier, a Montreal native from the east end of the city in Pointe-aux-Trembles, had plenty of family and friends in attendance. He was interviewed by his uncle Denis Gauthier, a former NHL defenseman, who is now an analyst on RDS (the French language sports station).

It was also the 30th anniversary of the last NHL hat trick by Canadiens’ legend, Guy Lafluer. The “Hattie” wasn’t tallied for the Habs. It came while Lafleur played with the Rangers against the LA Kings.

A few more names have been added to the Wolf Pack Calder Cup championship reunion that will take place on Friday, April 10th. Daniel Goneau and Jason Dawe will also be on the ice.