After Wednesday night’s game, in which the Pack allowed 39 shots against goaltender Miika Wiikman, coach Ken Gernander challenged his team to start providing Wiikman with better support. Tonight they responded, limiting the Springfield Falcons to only 16 shots while firing off 45 of their own as they clinched a playoff berth for the 11th consecutive season with a dominant 4-1 win over the Springfield Falcons.

The game got off to a rocky start when just 7 seconds in Lauri Korpikoski hit Springfield’s Mike Gabinet from behind along the boards near the penalty boxes. Gabinet had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher, and Korpikoski was given a five minute boarding major and a game misconduct, two minutes of which were canceled out by an instigator penalty taken by the Falcon’s Tim Sestito, who challenged Korpikoski immediately after the hit. Both players also received 5 minute fighting majors. The Pack provided a glimpse of what was to come when they dominated the two minutes of 4-on-4 play and killed the remaining three minute power play off with relative ease. It took them until 16.36 of the period to get on the board, after defenseman Ivan Baranka fired a shot from the center point which was initially blocked, but P.A. Parenteau found the rebound on his backhand to put home his 30th goal of the season on a power play. But it took the Falcons only 1:50 to tie things up with a power play goal of their own, the result of some really nice passing that ended with a cross-slot feed to Springfield’s Rob Schremp for a one-timer from the right circle. The period ended with the two teams knotted at one, and the Pack having the slight edge in shots at 10-8.

The second period had a lot more flow to it, as referee Kyle Rehman swallowed his whistle after a penalty-filled first. The score didn’t change, but by the final third of the period the Pack had complete control of the game, spending the majority of time in the Springfield zone and firing shots on Falcon goalie Devan Dubnyk at will. But Dubnyk was equal to the challenge, stopping all 14 shots the Pack put on net. At the other end, Wiikman had only two shots to contend with all period.

The Falcons came out strong in the 3rd, and it looked like they might make a game of it through the first two minutes or so, but the Pack soon re-established their territorial dominance. But Dunbnyk came up with save after save, with some of his best coming off chances by Artem Anisimov and Bruce Graham, who finished with 6 and 5 shots on goal, respectively. Finally, with just under two minutes left to play, Parenteau fired a hard, low slapper from the top of the right circle. Dubnyk stopped the initial shot, but the rebound trickled away from him. Center Tim Selsito missed the puck as he attempted to clear it from the crease, allowing Dane Byers to sneak in and backhand it into the empty side of the net for the 2-1 lead.

Since there was less than two minutes to play in the game, the Falcons pulled Dubnyk as soon as they got the puck into the Pack zone after the ensuing faceoff. But even with the extra skater they were unable to control the puck in the Pack zone and at the 19.00 minute mark, after Mike Ouellette won a defensive zone draw, Josh Gratton controlled the puck and fed Mark Lee in the neutral zone for the easy empty netter and his first AHL goal of the season. Yet Springfield didn’t learn their lesson, opting to pull Dubnyk again for an offensive zone faceoff, and once again Ouellette, the Pack’s leading faceoff man, won the draw, feeding Gratton for an empty netter of his own. By the final buzzer the Pack had outshot the Falcons 45 to 16 (21-6 in the 3rd), with Dubnyk being the only reason the game didn’t turn into a blowout.

Notes
- Bruce Graham was called up from Charlotte to sub for Brodie Dupont, who suffered what was described as a “facial cut” in a fight in Friday night’s game.
- Hugh Jessiman missed his second game with a groin injury.
- Wiikman moved from 10th up to 7th in the league in goals against average with the win. He’s currently 6th in save percentage.
- Parenteau has 7 points in his last 4 games and is 5th place over all in league scoring

Pack Scoring
1. Parenteau (30) (Baranka, Moore) 16.46 (PP)
3. Byers (21) (Parenteau, Moore) 18:06
3. Lee (1) (Gratton) 19:00 (EN)
3. Gratton (9) (Ouellette) 19:29 (EN)

Lines
Byers – Moore – Parenteau
Lee – Anisimov – Gratton
Owens – Ouellette – Pock
Graham – Korpikoski

Potter – Hutchinson
Baranka – Brown
Taylor – Sauer

Wiikman / LeNeveu

Three Stars
1. Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
2. Devan Dubnyk
3. Dane Byers

It looked like the Pack just might pull another rabbit out of their hat after coming back from their second 3-1 deficit against the Philadelphia Phantoms this week to push the game to overtime, but this time they couldn’t get the goal in OT and ended up losing in the shootout for the 7th time this season.

For the second game running the Pack gave up an early goal, this time after P.A. Parenteau took a tripping penalty only 33 seconds in and Pete Zingoni scored on the power play. At 7:17, with Artem Anisimov in the box for hooking, Greg Moore took a pass in the neutral zone and skated in on goaltender Martin Houle shorthanded, but was hooked from behind and prevented from getting off a good shot. He was awarded a penalty shot, on which he scored on a pretty deke to his backhand at 8:29.

As you’d expect with teams that are playing back-to-back games late in the season, the two teams proved they didn’t really like each other with three fights on the night, the first of which came at 12:35 of the first period when Brodie Dupont faced off against Josh Beaulieu. A willing, but not always able combatant, Dupont unfortunately got tagged with a hard right to the left eye/cheekbone, and left the ice battered and bloody. He didn’t return. Philly goaltender Houle also left the game due to injury, at the 12:33 mark, but I missed the play and didn’t see how he was hurt.

Like in Wednesday’s game, the Phantoms scored early in the 2nd, in this case just after a carry-over penalty to Jesse Boulerice expired. Six minutes and 15 seconds later, Darroll Powe scored shorthanded after a comedy of errors by the Pack lead to players falling down everywhere and Powe skating out of his zone alone and in on goalie David LeNeveu for a shorthanded goal. A minute and a half later, Josh Beaulieu boarded Mike Sauer, leading Anisimov to chase after Beaulieu before Josh Gratton and former Pack player Martin Grenier squared off, dropped the gloves, and drew everyone’s attention. Gratton, coming back after missing Wednesday’s game with the flu, looked winded from the start, and after getting in a couple early shots in basically held on and tried to protect himself as best he could until the linesmen finally intervened. Nine minutes later Dane Byers would exact revenge for an un-called high stick when he challenged Powe and buckled his knees with an early, hard right.

Despite having nothing to show for it, the Pack actually played better in the second than they had on Wednesday, maintaining good puck possession, ending the period with 8-6 advantage for the period and a 18-15 advantage for the game.

The Pack started the 3rd still down by two, but that changed only 23 seconds in when Greg Moore and Lauri Korpikoski skated in on backup goalie Scott Munroe on a 2-on-1. Moore fed Korpikoski in the left faceoff circle for a quick wrist shot that beat Munroe up high. At the 7:36 mark Gratton got his 8th of the season and 3rd with the Wolf Pack with a backhander after some good work by Anisimov behind the net, knotting the score at three. At 13:46 Zingoni took a tripping penalty, allowing the Pack’s power play to go to work. And once again it looked like the Parenteau and the power play would give the Pack a come-from-behind win when he scored off the rebound of a Hutchinson bomb from the left point. But less than two minutes later the Phantoms were able to tie it up after crashing the net (and possibly interfering with LeNeveu), scoring off the goalmouth scramble. So once again the two teams were headed to overtime, after a strong final 20 minutes by the Pack in which they clearly had the momentum, outshooting the East Division leaders 14-4.

Unlike Wednesday, when the Phantoms took an early penalty on which the Pack scored, this time it was the Pack that took the overtime penalty, at 2:41 of the extra frame. But the Pack were able to kill it off and take the game to the shootout. But as has often been the case this season, they came up short when only Korpikoski could score while Stefan Ruzicka and Ryan Potulny were able to put the puck past LeNeveu.

Notes
- Hugh Jessiman missed the game, but I didn’t catch why.
- For some reason, there were two referees tonight. The AHL usually plays with one. The refs? Chris Ciamaga and Mike McGeough.
- B2 Networks have completely revamped their feeds and are now offering much, much higher quality broadcasts online.

Pack Scoring
1. Moore, (23) 8:29 (SH/PS)
3. Korpikoski (19) (Moore, Hutchinson) :23
3. Gratton (8) (Anisimov, Lee) 7:36
3. Parenteau (29) (Hutchinson, Baranka) 14:43 (PP)

Pack Shooters
Greg Moore No Goal
Lauri Korpikoski Goal
Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau No Goal
Dane Byers No Goal
Andrew Hutchinson No Goal

Lines (they changed when Dupont went down)
Korpikoski – Moore – Parenteau
Byers – Anisimov – Pock
Dupont – Ouellette – Gratton
Owens – Lee

Hutchinson – Potter
Baranka – Brown
Taylor – Sauer

LeNeveu / Wiikman

Three Stars
1. Ryan Potulny
2. Jared Ross
3. Greg Moore

After being thoroughly dominated through two and a half periods of play, the Wolf Pack managed to gut out an impressive come-from-behind overtime win against the Philadelphia Phantoms tonight in Hartford.

The Phantoms came out fast and physical from the first drop of the puck, forcing a turnover deep in the Pack zone only 60 seconds in for a shot by Phantom’s center Pete Zingoni. Wiikman made a sprawling first save to the left side of the net, but the rebound went out to the right side, where Triston Grant was standing all alone for the open net goal to give the Phantoms the early 1-0 lead. The Phantoms took it to the Pack the rest of the period, but as they’ve managed to do many times this season, the Pack somehow redeemed a seemingly lost period with a late goal when Corey Potter fired a hard low shot from the right point that Phantom’s goalie Martin Houle stopped. But P.A. Parenteau and Mark Lee both got sticks on the rebound before Lee was able shuffle it across the crease to Lauri Korpikoski, who put the puck in the open side of the net. So the Pack escaped the period with an unlikely 1-1 tie, despite getting outshot 15-9.

The seconds period brought more of the same from the Phantoms, but less good fortune for the Pack. Only a two minutes in Wiikman stopped Zingoni on a breakaway, but Grant crashed the net behind him and was able to one-time the rebound home. Less than three and a half minutes later Hugh Jessiman took a lazy hooking penalty in the offensive zone to give the Phantoms their first power play of the game, which they converted on with a deflected point shot only 13 seconds in. The Phantoms continued to dominate the play for the remainder of the period, outshooting the Pack 15-7. Had it not been for the strong play of Wiikman, who faced 39 shots by the end of the game, the score could have been much worse.

A Phantom win looked just about assured through the first half of the third, with the Pack unable to generate anything offensively and the Phantoms controlling play, winning physical battles and getting in passing lanes in all three zones. But when Denis Gauthier took a hooking penalty at 11:02 to cancel out the final 28 seconds of a Jake Taylor high sticking penalty, the Pack’s 3rd-ranked power play got a chance to go to work for the 5th time in the game. And the 5th time was a charm thanks to some nice puck movement in the Phantom’s zone. Corey Potter, on the left point, got the puck across to Korpikoski in the right circle, who one-touched it across the slot to Parenteau in the left circle for the one-timer to cut the Phantom’s lead to one.

The goal energized the Pack and just over 3 minutes later Jessiman redeemed himself for his offensive zone penalty with a strong rush up ice, crashing in on net and getting an initial shot off which Houle stopped. But Dane Byers was right behind him and backhanded the rebound past Houle to tie it up at the 16:22 mark. The Pack continued their strong play after they tied it up, and it looked like the two teams would be headed to overtime until Byers took a ill-advised hooking penalty with only 1:43 left in the game. Only 18 seconds in it seemed the Pack’s late-game efforts would be for naught, as Phantoms defensman Lars Jonsson got the puck in the high slot and fired it past Wiikman for the Phantom’s second power play goal of the game.

To the Pack’s credit, they didn’t let the goal deflate them, and after taking a time out to regroup they hit the ice and got the puck deep in the Phantom’s zone so they could get the extra skater on. In the final half minute of the period, Korpikoski and Parenteau cycled the puck deep in the right side corner before Korpikoski passed it out in front of the net, where a Phantom player intercepted it. But Byers was right there to take it back and dish it off to Greg Moore who swept it past Houle with only 15 seconds left in the regulation.

With momentum clearly in their favor, the Pack took the ice for overtime. And when Stephan Ruzicka got called for holding just 28 seconds in, the Pack got a chance to go back on the power play. It didn’t take them long to seal their unlikely comeback, when Andrew Hutchinson fed Parenteau in the high slot. With plenty of time and space Parenteau fired a perfect wrist shot past Houle as the Pack bench exploded off the bench to celebrate.

And as if that wasn’t good enough, just 30 seconds later, Chris Drury tied the Rangers up with the Devils, leading to what would be a great ending to what looked like it would be a bad night all around for the Rangers organization.

Notes
- Josh Gratton missed the game due to illness
- The two teams meet again on Friday in Philadelpha.
- The scoring on the first goal in the Pack’s game against Worcester on Sunday has been changed to take an assist away from Anisimov and give it to Hutchinson

Pack Scoring
1. Korpikoski (18) (Lee, Parenteau) 19.34
3. Parenteau (27) (Korpikoski, Potter) 13:05 (PP)
3. Byers (20) (Jessiman, Anisimov) 16:22
3. Moore (22) (Byers) 19:45
4. Parenteau (28) (Hutchinson, Pock) :37 (PP)

Lines (to start, they were shuffled in the 2nd)
Korpikoski – Moore – Parenteau
Byers – Ouellette – Owens
Dupont – Anisimov – Pock
Lee – Jessiman

Hutchinson – Potter
Brown – Baranka
Taylor – Sauer

Three Stars
1. Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
2. Triston Grant
3. Lauri Korpikoski