Life prevented me from posting over the weekend, so my apologies for the lack of Wolf Pack recaps.  I did make the time to sit down and write my weekly Wolf Pack round-up for SNY’s Rangers Blog last night, however.  Normally I’d just link to it over there, but with everything else going on in Rangerland (Olli who?) it’s not scheduled to go live until sometime tomorrow.  So I’m making the executive decision to post it over here as well — in part because I’ve regularly neglected my own blog in order to write for SNY’s, but mostly to call attention to the fact that the Wolf Pack will be playing the baby Devils at the Prudential Center in Newark tomorrow night.   General admission tickets are only $15 for adults and $10 for kids, so Rangers fans really have no excuse not to head over to the Rock so we can outnumber the Devils fans like we usually do.  ;)

The full recap comes after the jump.

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The Hartford Wolf Pack gained a measure of revenge in Hartford on Friday night, defeating the Mancheser Monarchs 3-2 in overtime after having fallen to the Atlantic Division’s leaders 4-1 five nights earlier in Manchester.

Wolf Pack captain Dane Byers got the overtime winner, his second of the season, on a power play, with a perfect deflection of Paul Crowder’s pass at 2:20 of extra time.

The Pack got off to a much better start than they did in Sunday’s 4-1 loss in Manchester — where they gave up three goals in the first 11 minutes of the game — outshooting their guests 13-7 in the first period.  But it was still the Monarchs who scored first, shorthanded, during the Pack’s first power play of the night.  Former Rangers prospect Marc-Andre Cliche and teammate Gabe Gauthier managed to break in 2-on-1 on Wolf Pack goaltender Chad Johnson, who is with the team this weekend to get some playing time before returning to his backup role with the New York Rangers.  Johnson stopped Cliche’s initial shot, but Gauthier was there to pick up the rebound and put it in the net, giving Manchester the lead at 10:36 of the period.

The Pack drew even on the same power play.  Evgeny Grachev extended his points streak to three games when he fed Brodie Dupont from behind the net.  Dupont one-timed a shot short-side past Manchester netminder Jonathan Bernier from the right circle for his eighth goal of the season.

Hartford grabbed the lead just over three minutes later, just two seconds after their second power play opportunity of the night had expired.  All-Star Corey Locke, who set a record for career All-Star points at nine with an assist in Tuesday’s AHL All-Star Game, controlled the puck behind the net, skated out and dished it off to a crashing Nigel Williams, who snapped it past Bernier on the stick side from the top of the circles.

The two teams played a scoreless second period, with the Wolf Pack earning the territorial edge.  Bernier was extremely sharp in goal, stopping all 15 of the shots he faced.  Johnson matched him by stopping eight Monarch shots.  Hartford entered the third period with a 28-15 advantage in shots.

The Monarchs didn’t earn the third best record in the league by giving up easily, however, and it showed in the third period, when they poured on the pressure to outshoot the Pack 13-5.  Johnson held the visitors off until midway through period, when Corey Elkins deflected Alex Martinez’s slapshot from the top of the circles past Johnson’s glove at 9:36.

Hartford got an excellent opportunity to retake the lead when Richard Clune connected with a fly-by elbow on All-Star defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti with 4:22 to go in regulation, but were unable to capitalize, sending the two teams to the extra frame.  Sanguinetti was shaken up, but returned to man the point late in the power play.

Manchester once again got itself in penalty trouble in overtime, getting called for having too many men on the ice at 1:49.  This time the Wolf Pack made them pay, when Crowder feathered a perfect pass to Byers, who deflected the puck through his own legs and those of the goaltender to give the Wolf Pack their league-leading seventh overtime victory of the season and third in the club’s last four games.

The Pack are back in action on Saturday night when they travel to Springfield to face the Falcons, who are mired in a three-way tie for the worst record in the AHL.  They’ll get another shot at the division leaders on Sunday, when they travel back to Manchester for a 3:00pm start.

Notes:

• The Wolf Pack were without second leading scorer P.A. Parenteau, injured when he was hit awkwardly into the boards in Sunday’s game, and defenseman Corey Potter, who missed his fourth game with an undisclosed injury.
• Making matters worse, the Pack lost third leading scorer Dale Weise to what appeared to be a wrist injury midway through the second period. Weise did not return to the game and his status for Saturday night is unknown.
• The Wolf Pack have launched “Wolf Pack All Access: Road the the Show“, an ongoing, behind-the-scenes look at the life of the Pack’s players as their try to make their way to the NHL.  Clips are filmed by Wolf Pack players themselves and the project is produced by the Connecticut School of Broadcasting.  New episodes will be released after each Wolf Pack road trip.

Scoring:
1. MCH Gauthier, (6) (Cliche, Nolan), 10:36 (SH)
1. HFD Dupont, (8) (Grachev, Sanguinetti), 11:43 (PP)
1. HFD Williams, (2) (Locke), 14:53
3. MCH Elkins, (14) (Martinez, Walker), 9:36
OT. HFD Byers, (10) (Crowder, Heikkinen), 2:20 (PP)

Three Stars:
1. Dane Byers
2. Brodie Dupont
3. Alec Martinez

Evgeny Grachev scored a pair of goals, including the game-winner at 3:19 of extra time, giving the Hartford Wolf Pack their second consecutive overtime victory over the Providence Bruins, 3-2.

The goals were Grachev’s first since the pair he scored in a game against Bridgeport on January 2nd.  In fact, of the rookie forward’s eleven goals this season, six have come in a trio of two goal games.

P.A. Parenteau scored the other Wolf Pack tally, and Matt Zaba stopped 36 shots to earn his second win in three games since breaking back into Hartford’s goalie rotation earlier this month.

Grachev opened the scoring at 7:18 of the first period when he took a drop pass from Ryan Garlock and fired a laser beam over Providence netminder Dany Sabourin’s shoulder.

Providence forward Mikko Lehtonen has scored half of his twelve goals this season against the Wolf Pack, adding his sixth on Saturday night on the rebound of Andrew Bondarchuks‘ shot at 3:37 of the second period to knot the score at one.

Parenteau broke a rare six game goal drought at 15:20 of the period with a perfectly placed stick-side wrist shot from the hashmarks to once again give Hartford the lead.  He was fed by Dale Weise, the AHL’s Player of the Week, who extended a point-scoring streak to five games, but saw his four game goal-scoring streak brought to an end in the game.

The Bruins poured on the pressure in the final frame, outshooting the Wolf Pack 11-6.  It looked like Pack would be able to hold them off, but Guillaume Lefebvre scored on a delayed hooking call on sophomore defenseman Nigel Williams with 3:59 to go to send the game in overtime.

Both goaltenders got a workout in the contest, stopping 36 shots apiece — Zaba on 38 shots, while 30 year old journeyman Sabourin faced 39.

It was the final shot tha resulted in Grachev’s first career overtime goal at 3:19 of the extra period.  The 19-year old Russian deflected David Urquhart’s shot from the point to give the Wolf Pack their seventh victory in nine games.  Jordan Owens, returning to action for the first time since being struck in the face with a puck on December 19th, also assisted on the play.

The Pack are back in action Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm, when they travel to Manchester to face the Atlantic Division leading Monarchs.

Scoring:
1. HFD Grachev, (10) (Garlock), 7:18
2. PRO Lehtonen, (12) (Bodnarchuk, Larman), 3:37
2. HFD Parenteau, (13) (Weise), 15:20
3. PRO Lefebvre, (5) (Fata, Roche), 16:01
OT. HFD Grachev, (11) (Urquhart, Owens), 3:19

Three stars:
1. Evgeny Grachev
2. Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau
3. Jordan Owens