CANTLON: WOLF PACK EDGE SOUND TIGERS 3-1 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

BRIDGEPORT, CT – Tim Gettinger’s two powerplay goals paced the Hartford Wolf Pack to clip the Bridgeport Sound Tigers 3-1 on Saturday night at the Webster Bank Arena.

After starting slow, the Wolf Pack fired a season-high 43 shots on goal in gaining their 31st win of the season. The Pack will play the Providence Bruins Sunday at 3 PM at the XL Center.

After trying all manners of combinations, Head Coach Kris Knoblauch has finally found a grouping on the power play that is finding the back of the net consistently.

Along the half-wall, Vinni Lettieri had the puck and found Danny O’Regan open in the right-wing circle. Lettieri sent a pass through the seam over to O’Regan, who whistled a wrist shot on Bridgeport’s starting goalie, Jason Coreau, who made the save but gave up a rebound. The puck went right to Gettinger, who banged in his second of the game and 15th of the season.

“He’s a special team dream for a coach. (He had a) shorthanded goal last time, two power play goals tonight. He’s not 100%. He’s battling through an injury. Good for him. He’s persevering through it and contributing still,” Knoblauch stated.

Gettinger was focused on wins, and not on personal achievements. “We weren’t happy at all with our power play last night. It helped us get it done tonight. Vinni did a great job coming off the wall, and Danny got it right on net. It made it easy for me.”

Coreau left the game with a lower-body just after the only scrum of the game with all four players penalized at 10:54, forcing Christopher Gibson (five shots) into the game with no warm-up or prep time.

Steven Fogarty scored an empty enter with 38.7 seconds left to clinch the road win for the Wolf Pack.

As for the game’s scoring, the Wolf Pack drew first blood in the second period on the power play at 1:09.

Darren Radduysh and Lettieri played catch before they got the setup they wanted.

Raddysh was at the right point and sent his shot on goal. All 6’6 of Gettinger was in front, and he deflected his 14th of the season past Coreau for a 1-0 lead.

“Raddy has got that shot, and all I had to do was just lay my stick out there to put it in.”

It was a minor part of a change in the power play setup that helped create the goal.

“We put Raddysh on the number one unit and Nick Ebert on the number two. It helped Raddy with shooting a one-timer on his natural side, and it helped him there. Vinni helped set things up twice tonight,” said Knoblauch.

Bridgeport remained persistent and tied the game at one.

Matt Jobst missed on a backhander that went wide, but Seth Helgeson came up with the puck and got it back to Jobst, who went behind the net.  Ebert went to check him, but Jobst flipped the puck out in front to a wide-open Nick Schilkey, who wired his ninth of the season at 6:11.

As they did in the first period, the Wolf Pack got better chances as the period waned on.

Adam Huska (26 saves) was solid in net. He stopped Oliver Wahlstrom (six shots on goal) and Schilkey in the final two-minutes on quality chances.

In a fairly even, nondescript period, the Sound Tigers had the advantage for the first half of the period, and the Wolf Pack the second half.

On a late powerplay with Vitali Kravtsov, the forward at the left point had a miscommunication with Raddysh that led to a near shorthanded bid by Jeff Kubiak, who lost control on his shorthanded attempt that ended the opportunity.

LINES:

O’Regan – Kravtsov – Fogarty
Jones – Newell – Gropp
Beleskey – Lettieri – Gettinger
McBride – Dmowski – Ronning

Hajek – Raddysh
LoVerde – Geersten
Ebert – Rykov

SCRATCHES:

Boo Nieves – Upper body injury – Day-to-Day
Brandon Crawley – Healthy
Jake Elmer – Healthy
Gabriel Fontaine – Shoulder surgery – Season-ending.

NOTES:

Raddysh bit his tongue during the game that required stitches.

Vincent LoVerde played with Mason Geersten, so the veteran has played with every defenseman this season in Hartford.

Geersten is now sporting his new spring hairstyle shedding his very ample mullet. “It was too much; too crazy to get the bucket on was getting tough.”

The Wolf Pack trail the idle Hershey Bears by three points and are off until tomorrow against the Charlotte Checkers. They’re behind the Providence Bruins just one point behind the Pack. They play at Springfield tonight, and the two teams play each other tomorrow at 3 PM.

The Wolf Pack power play has slipped to 28th overall at 13.8%. The Sound Tigers are 30th at 11.4%, with only the Lehigh Valley Phantoms being worse.

On the PK, the Wolf Pack is 5th overall at 85.6 %. The Sound Tigers are at 82.9%.

Igor Shesterkin still leads the AHL in GAA at 1.90. Only Dan Vladar of the Providence Bruins, who played 21 games, while Shesterkin played 25. Connor Ingram of the Milwaukee Admirals is at 1.98, but he’s played 30 games.

With 44 points, Lettieri ranks 15th in the AHL. Former QU Bobcat, Sam Anas is tied in points with Reid Boucher of Utica with 63 points. Anas leads the AHL with 45 assists. Kenny Agostino (Yale University), who has spent time with the Maple Leafs, has 44 points in 47 games. Brogan Rafferty (Quinnipiac University) 41 points in 52 games with Utica is 5th among rookies in scoring and second in plus/minus with a plus 17. Former fellow Bobcat teammate Chase Priskies just traded from Charlotte to Springfield is 14th with 31 points in 52 games.

Sound Tigers recalled Nic Pierog (Canterbury Prep) and RW Ben Thomson from Worcester (ECHL) after the Josh Ho-Sang era in Bridgeport came to an end after being assigned to the San Antonio Rampage for the rest of the year. It’s the southern-most AHL team. They are leaving the area after having been purchased by the Las Vegas Golden Knights and being moved to Nevada, which the AHL made official in a release after being approved by the BOG. The new team will play in the Orleans Arena as the new Lifeguard Arena in Henderson, Nevada, which is still under construction.

The least likely name would be, “The Las Vegas Silver Knights.”