East is Beast for Pack

The Wolf Pack just finished off three straight games against the East Division, and the East has been a tough nut to crack for the Pack so far this year.

The Wolf Pack did get three out of a possible six points, but won only one of the three games, after entering the week winners of six of their previous seven and eight of their previous 10.

And except for the first period of Thursday’s 5-3 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, in which the Pack scored four goals, they only managed two tallies in the three games. Syracuse came into Saturday’s contest with the highest team goals-against average in the league, at 3.72, but all the Wolf Pack could manage against in a 2-1 loss to the Crunch was a shorthanded goal by Ilkka Heikkinen with only 1.2 seconds left.

Ken Gernander’s club is now 1-4-0-1 in six games against the East, compared to a glittering 10-4-0-0 against their divisional rivals in the Atlantic.

So, do these Atlantic Division clubs play a different style, do something that the Wolf Pack don’t see a lot of in their division? I would say no. Binghamton seemed pretty dedicated to the type of trapping style that seems to give the Wolf Pack trouble (see: Lowell Devils, 2008-09), and Syracuse had some of that kind of personality as well, but overall it just seemed that, in both of their losses this week at least, the Wolf Pack didn’t seem patient enough to do what they needed to do to generate chances, when those chances didn’t come easily.

In the 2-1 shootout loss to Binghamton Wednesday, the Senators clogged the middle and did a good job of taking away time and space, and the Pack seemed to want to make the fancy play all night, rather than get the puck in deep and forecheck. And at Syracuse, there didn’t seem to be much of a Wolf Pack net-front presence in the offensive zone, and second or third chances, at least in the first two periods, were few and far between.

At least the Pack are done with East-Division competition for a little bit. Starting Wednesday the next five games are all against the Atlantic.

On the positive side this weekend…

Corey Locke continues to cook along, as he was good for six points in the three games, including a two-goal, two-assist night in Thursday’s win. Locke has averaged exactly two points-per-game (5-15-20) now over a ten-game span, and, with 30 points in 20 games on the season, is on pace for a 120-point year, which would blow away Derek Armstrong’s 2000-01 franchise record of 101 points.

Chad Johnson was 0-1-1 on the week, despite allowing only three goals on 57 shots. The rookie out of Alaska-Fairbanks has extended his hot streak to nine games, during which he is 6-2-1, with a 1.21 goals-against average, a 95.7% save percentage and three shutouts, and in his last six outings, despite a 3-2-1 record, he has been beaten only six times on 174 shots. That translates to a microscopic 0.99 GAA and a 96.6% save percentage. His first venture to the shootout didn’t go so well Wednesday, as he surrendered two goals on three shots, but that’s a very small negative on what has been an excellent run, one which coincides almost exactly with the Wolf Pack’s recent good fortune as a team.