Crawford's Pack Report: Two Out of Three
Monday, November 12, 2007 - 5:22 AM
Two out of three for the Wolf Pack this weekend, including their most complete effort of the season and one of the more wide-open and helter-skelter affairs we have seen to date.
Friday night brought the Pack to Manchester for the third time already on the season, and the second in a span of six days. The previous Sunday’s game was a tightly-played contest, with Monarch goaltender Erik Ersberg turning in a top-shelf effort, but by Friday night the Swede had lost some of his mojo and the two teams’ attention to defense seemed to desert them.
The Monarchs had good jump at the start, and the Wolf Pack seemed to be standing around. Rookie tough guy Kevin Westgarth beat Al Montoya with an off-wing-side flip over the glove just 3:15 in, and then fellow freshman Teddy Purcell outraced a couple of Wolf Pack players to a loose puck and stuck a backhander under the crossbar at 8:01. It was Purcell’s fourth goal in three games against the Wolf Pack, and it appeared that a blowout might be in the offing.
The Wolf Pack power play, 6/43 in the season’s first 11 games, would go on to rescue the evening, though, starting with an Andrew Hutchinson goal, his first of the year, at 9:54. After a great save by Montoya on a shorthanded bid by Matt Ryan at about the 15:00 mark, the power play connected again at 15:49, with Greg Moore tipping home a Thomas Pöck shot. Hutchinson scored again on the PP at 8:00 of the second, on a perfectly-placed slapshot, and Frankie Lessard made it four straight goals by the Wolf Pack by deflecting a Hutchinson shot past Ersberg 5:13 later, for Lessard’s first goal of the year.
Rock-solid against the Pack the first time he saw them, Ersberg was going down awfully early on shots in Friday’s game, and seemed to have trouble picking up the puck. Of course, a lot of credit for that has to go to the Wolf Pack forwards, who were creating excellent traffic in front of Ersberg throughout the final 50 minutes of the game. That was in evidence again at 5:17 of the third, when Hugh Jessiman deflected home his first goal of the season, a score that would eventually turn into the game-winner. It was poetic justice for Jessiman, who had originally been credited with the earlier goal that was changed to Moore. Jessiman had selflessly gone to the officials and told them that he had not touched the puck and that it should be Moore’s goal.
It was 5-3 when Jessiman tallied, and the Monarchs would get it back to 5-4 with 3:55 left, but Montoya and the Pack held them off from there. Montoya had a good battling game, despite some goals-against that he might have wanted to have back. He came up with several key saves at times when a Monarch goal might have swung the momentum decisively back in favor of the home side.
On Saturday evening the Wolf Pack were back home, hosting the Carolina Hurricanes’ affiliate, the Albany River Rats, a club whose goaltender, Michael Leighton, had pitched shutouts in three of his previous five starts. Leighton remained sharp through a first period that saw his club grab a 1-0 lead despite being outshot by a margin of 10-5.
The Pack began to turn their shots and territorial edge into success on the scoreboard in the second period, as goals by Brodie Dupont and Jake Taylor turned that 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead. Taylor’s tally, on a seeing-eye shot from the right point, was only his second in 135 career AHL games-played, and a good reward for plenty of high-effort, lunch-bucket play.
The shots were 9-4 for the Wolf Pack in the second, and they really threw a blanket over the River Rats for most of the third frame. The Pack upped their lead to 3-1 at 6:51 on a power-play goal by Lauri Korpikoski, and were so effective keeping the Rats from getting any flow going that the visitors didn’t register their first shot of the period until past the halfway point. The shots ended up 32-16 in the Wolf Pack’s favor, and a late goal by Jessiman created the final margin of 4-1.
Chris Holt, quietly fashioning a pretty solid run as Montoya’s stablemate since Holt’s recall from Charlotte, managed to keep himself sharp while not seeing much action for significant segments of that game, and posted his fourth win in a span of five decisions.
The Pack would be the more aggressive team in terms of shots on goal in Sunday’s trip to Portland too, but this time the edge in shots taken would not translate into a better finishing touch.
The Wolf Pack made Leighton, a familiar veteran adversary, look fairly ordinary after the first period Saturday, but they would be flummoxed in Sunday’s game by a backstop they had never seen before, Swiss-born Pirate ‘tender Jonas Hiller. The Pack would test Hiller with 42 tries before the game was over, and allow only 27 on their net, but the only one to get by him was a power-play rebound by Maine native Moore at 15:30 of the second period.
The Wolf Pack took too many penalties in the game, shorthanded eight times, and although they allowed only one goal on those eight Portland power plays, the one that found its way in was the game-winner by Brian Salcido, with 0:43 left in the second.
Like Friday’s game, Montoya battled hard to keep the Pack within one, with inevitable Portland counterattacks coming after periods of Wolf Pack pressure, but this time the Wolf Pack couldn’t take advantage and ended up on the short end of a 2-1 score. Too bad, especially since the Pack and Montoya did a real good job against a dangerous Portland line of Andrew Ebbett, Jason King and Ryan Carter, holding that threesome off the scoresheet. Seven more battles are on tap this year against Kevin Dineen’s Pirates, and if Sunday’s game is any indication, it should be another hotly-contested season series.
And now, a couple of thoughts from readers…
Trevor from Rocky Hill, CT writes, “The $10 kids' tickets and Family Value Packs really caught my eye, as I've been itching to take my two boys to a game. But they're still only three and four years old. I never thought I'd be asking this, but what kinds of things do the Marketing and Sales folks have going on in/around/before/during the game to help keep their interest (in something Dad enjoys so much)?”
Trevor, there is certainly plenty of extra hoopla going around the Wolf Pack games that will hopefully occupy a lot of your little guys' attention. It starts when you go through the gates and enter into the Atrium area outside the box office. There are inflatable games there that will definitely catch their eye, and Pack players who are not playing that particular night sign autographs in the Atrium during the second intermission.
Further inside, they can sign up for the Wolf Pack Kids' Club at the Kids' Club table on the concourse, and enjoy the antics of kid-friendly Sonar, the Pack's cuddly mascot.
Other extra entertainment is provided by the “Pack Attack” promotional team, which throws T-shirts into the stands and walks around the arena, handing out promotional items to kids.
And there are also the cheerleaders and “Jersey Girl”, who makes the rounds of the stands raffling off a jersey signed by the Wolf Pack team, on behalf of the Wolf Pack Community Foundation.
Hopefully things like that, and much more, will provide enough of an experience for the boys that you can enjoy at least some of the great action on the ice!
Blaine Demmans of Nipawin, Saskatchewan asks, “Do you think Dane Byers is close to getting called up this year or do you think they want to let him gain some more experience? I've been following the Rangers pretty closely and it looks like they could use his grit and intensity on the wing, not to mention in front of the net.”
I think he's very close, Blaine, in fact he got his first official callup to the big club the week before last, although he was sent back the same day, when the Rangers determined that a couple of their wounded warriors were not going to miss any time. The fine Nipawin product is making very good use of his time in the AHL, and I know the organization has taken notice. We've all seen what Sean Avery's contentiousness brought to the Ranger club after he was acquired last year, and I think every team in the NHL can use a healthy dose of a desire to go to the net hard and get the opposition off their game. Dane certainly brings that, and best of all he brings it every night, with a consistency that is missing from a lot of young players in the AHL.
And Rich from Croton, NY writes, “I was wondering what are the advantages of having a player play the off-wing (e.g., left-handed shooter playing right wing)? Good to see more flexibility in the AHL schedule this year, with the Pack playing the Marlies and Bulldogs. Perhaps they should organize the schedule to include road trips more frequently, like a Northwest New York trip that would include games against the Amerks, Crunch, Baby Sens. Think that will ever happen?”
The schedule-makers definitely did tend toward more variety in the format this year, Rich, and hopefully they will continue to vary it up in the years to come. It has been a while since the Wolf Pack saw Rochester, the team they vanquished in the Calder Cup Final in 2000, and there are several other teams that the Pack have rarely, if ever, gotten a chance to play. I personally enjoyed getting a look at the Maple Leafs' and Canadiens' prospects, and it would be nice if the AHL does make it a point to switch the matchups around on a yearly basis, so we don't go another six years with out seeing the likes of Hamilton on the Wolf Pack schedule.
As for the advantage of a winger playing his off-side, I think it comes down to having the stick positioned more toward the front of the net. So, when the player is looking to one-time a pass, his stick is theoretically coming through the puck more in a straight line toward the net, as opposed to on an angle, when he is winding up on his forehand side. Whether that is truly an advantage I don't know, but clearly some players are more comfortable with it.
Thanks for the questions and I’ll continue to poke my pen into this space whenever I can cobble together enough material.
