Photo: Hartford Wolf Pack

Wednesday’s trade of Jordan Owens to the Detroit Red Wings for veteran center Kris Newbury is a minor league deal, nothing more.

Since Tyler Arnason fled the country in early autumn and Patrick Rissmiller was excised like the cancerous tumor he was not long after, the Hartford Wolf Pack have been short on centermen.  To fill the hole, New York Rangers 2005 third round draft pick Brody Dupont was moved into the middle from his natural position at left wing.  The results have been so-so: while Dupont has performed admirably as a checking line center, his offensive production has suffered, stalling his development.

Newbury, a 28-year old center, gives the struggling Wolf Pack another option down the middle, while adding veteran experience and a player who’s not afraid to drop the gloves.

The cost, Owens, will be a tough pill for Wolf Pack fans to swallow.  The 23-year old Niagra native is a speedy, heart-and-soul player who initially signed an AHL deal with the Wolf Pack prior to the 2007-2008 campaign and worked his way up the development ladder from Charlotte of the ECHL to become a critical piece of the Wolf Pack’s checking line and penalty kill last season.  His hard work was rewarded with an NHL deal with the Rangers last summer.

This season, with last year’s linemates gone to greener pastures (Tommy Pyatt to Montreal in the Scott Gomez deal and Mike Ouellette to Europe), Owens has struggled to regain the level he attained last season. Never an offensive dynamo, Owens is well off last season’s 37-point pace, while the Pack penalty kill, of which he’s a major part, is second to last in the league. Owens’ struggles culminated in a seat in the press box on Saturday as a healthy scratch.  Yet despite all that, today’s move is likely to be unpopular among fans, as Owens, who won the Pack’s Fan Favorite award last season, remains well-liked for his scrappy style and never-say-die attitude.

This was written Tuesday, but appears to have gotten lost in the trade deadline shuffle over at SNY’s Rangers Blog, so I’m re-posting it over here.

The losses continued to pile up for the Hartford Wolf Pack last week, but there were a few silver linings to be found amidst the black clouds that have hovered over the franchise in recent weeks.

The Pack lost all three of the games it played, each by single goal, to fall below the .500 mark to 26-27-4, but two of the defeats came in overtime, earning the Pack two extremely valuable points. And so as the AHL enters its final full week before Clear Day rosters must be submitted, the Wolf Pack finds itself in the seventh spot in the eight team Atlantic Division, 11 points behind the fourth place Lowell Devils. Yet thanks to the lopsided division alignment in the AHL’s Eastern Conference this season, and the poor play of the bottom half teams in the East Division, the club remains only two points out of the final cross-over playoff position.

The week started on a high note, with the Wolf Pack welcoming veterans P.A. Parenteau and Mathieu Dandenault back from extended absences. Parenteau returned from a concussion — his second in less than a year — that had kept him out of the lineup for 16 games over a five week span. Without its top offensive producer, Hartford’s record was a dismal 4-10-2-0. Dandenault, meanwhile, had been missing since Thanksgiving weekend with a groin injury, an absence of 36 games.

With Parenteau and Dandenault back in the fold, the Wolf Pack started the week the closest they’ll be to full health for the remainder of the campaign. Only Michael Sauer (shoulder), Brent Henley (knee) and Mike Hoffman (shoulder) remain sidelined, but all three have undergone surgeries that have brought a premature end to their season.

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For Christmas this year my husband presented me with a certificate for one night’s deluxe accommodation at The Inn at the Fairgrounds in Syracuse, New York and a pair of tickets to the AHL’s first ever outdoor hockey game, the Mirabito Outdoor Classic, which was played between the Syracuse Crunch and Binghamton Senators at the New York State Fairgrounds this Saturday. A true romantic, you say?  I couldn’t agree more.

He also bought me a new camera for Christmas and I thought Saturday’s game would be the perfect opportunity to put it through its paces.  The only problem: I forgot to re-charge the battery before we left.  (Sigh.)  So what follows below are all nine of the photos I shot before the battery died completely and the single worthwhile shot I was able to take with my cell phone, along with my account of our day at the fair(grounds).  Enjoy!

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