Crawford's Pack Report: First Taste of the Road
Tuesday, October 15, 2007 - 2:41 PM
The Wolf Pack got their first taste of road action this past weekend, and although it wasn’t all positives, the club certainly came out of their two-game trip with lots to feel good about.
It sure didn’t start out very well, with the Pack falling behind Friday in Manchester 3-0 before the end of the first period. Finnish product Miika Wiikman had a rough debut in net, although none of the three goals-against could really be termed soft. Al Montoya took over for the second period, and the Wolf Pack started to turn what could have been a real ugly night into one that would leave them feeling at least a reasonable degree of self-satisfaction.
The Pack closed the gap to 4-2 by the end of the second, with Greg Moore and Artem Anisimov both getting his first goal of the campaign, and Moore tallied again on a five-on-three power play at 7:42 of the third to bring the Wolf Pack to within one. Not satisfied with making a potential blowout into a close loss, the Pack pressed the attack as the clock ticked down. With Montoya on the bench for a sixth attacker, Nigel Dawes and Alex Bourret worked to puck off the boards and toward the front of the net and Anisimov, who has certainly showed plenty of finesse in his early action with the Pack, showed some grit as well, wading into traffic and deftly poking the puck in behind Manchester goaltender Dan Cloutier. Yes, that’s the same Dan Cloutier who wore Wolf Pack colors for the franchise’s first season of existence, 1997-98, while he was on the way up. Now he’s trying to work his way back to the NHL and shake off the injury problems that have dogged his career.
Having thus pulled out a point in a game they seemed out of, the Pack weren’t able to put the cherry on top. Overtime passed seemingly in the blink of an eye, and the shootout that treated the Wolf Pack so well last year kicked them in the shins in their first try of this season. Manchester’s first three shooters solved Montoya (6-0 in shootouts in 2006-07), and only Anisimov among the four Pack shooters was able to find the back of the net. Kind of a downer after a nice comeback, but in the long view, a pretty good standings point to gut out after a real bad start.
I was interested to see how the Wolf Pack would respond the next night in Syracuse, after about a five-hour bus ride from Manchester and the mixed success the night before. And the team made a big statement in that regard on Saturday evening.
In stark contrast to Friday, the Wolf Pack were jumping from the start against the Crunch, fresh off a 4-1 win the night before against Ray Emery and the Binghamton Senators. Anisimov bagged his third in two games only 3:22 in, and Dawes and Darius Kasparaitis also scored first-period tallies, the Pack outshooting their hosts 16-8. Dawes finished the period with three points, assisting on the two goals he didn’t score and looking every bit like a guy who is going to give himself every chance to get back to the NHL in very short order.
Although the penalty-kill had its second consecutive messy night, surrendering three goals in four times-short (Manchester was 3/7 on Friday), the Wolf Pack totally controlled the game at even strength. An Alex Bourret goal, giving him four points in the two road games, midway through the second made it 4-1, and though the Crunch man-advantage unit came back with a couple of scores to make things interesting, the outcome never really seemed in doubt. Lauri Korpikoski got in the scoring column with an empty-net goal to create the final margin of 5-3, and the final shots were 46-23 in favor of the Pack. That created an upbeat and festive atmosphere on the ride back to Connecticut, with new head coach Kenny Gernander notching what I’m sure will be the first of a long career of bench triumphs and along with first-year assistant coach Pat Boller, accepting congratulations all around.
So the Pack have that first win out of the way, and will hit the road again this coming weekend, with the franchise’s first venture across the Canadian border in five seasons.
Now to turn things over to the readers…
Rich from Croton, NY writes, “I'm really excited about seeing Brodie Dupont this season and what he can bring to the Pack. Was wondering what the scouting report on him is and what can we expect from him this upcoming season.”
Rich, I think that the organization is expecting Dupont to be a good hard-working forechecker who can create some offense by playing the body and going hard to the net. It’s interesting, he seemed to be pretty well down the depth chart of the Wolf Pack forwards going into the first game, and it didn’t seem to me that he played very much in the opener, but in the two road games this week it felt like I was saying his name a lot and he was really getting a regular turn. I haven’t asked the coaches directly about him, but I get the impression that they like his effort level and the fact that he really likes to play the body, and are becoming more confident that not only will he not hurt the team out there, but that he can be a real effective player.
Anna from Point Pleasant, NJ asks, “Why hasn't Ivan Baranka or Jake Taylor been given a chance to play on Broadway? Is it because of skill or more because of injuries?”
Injuries have certainly been a factor for both of those guys, Anna. Jake in particular has had a terrible run of luck, and I think the organization feels it has never been able to get a really good read on him over a full season. Ivan has missed the ends of the last two seasons, so he has never been able to be evaluated in the environment of a playoff situation, but at least he has made it through most of his first two campaigns. He is still very young and has a tantalizing skill set, but I think he needs to take a big step forward this year. As for Taylor, his good size and aggressiveness make him still a definite prospect. Assuming he can stay healthy, I look for him to play a big role in lots of different ways for this young Pack team and hopefully give the Rangers a chance to get a good idea of what his potential is.
Alan from Wethersfield, CT asks, “What happened with Craig Weller? I thought he was going to be playing overseas, but now I see him with the Coyotes.”
Alan, Craig had agreed to a deal with a European club, but almost all of those agreements have escape clauses in them in case the player gets offered a North American contract after he has already signed to go to Europe.
Once Don Maloney was hired as Phoenix’ general manager, he clearly identified Craig as one of the players he wanted to go after, and give Craig credit, he took full advantage of the opportunity and has had some success in his first taste of the NHL.
Cathy, from Torrington, CT writes, “What do the Pack and NY Rangers organization see in this guy Anisimov? I went to the game on Saturday night and I thought that he was just awful, losing face-offs, not battling for the puck, no real effort.”
Too bad you didn’t see the two road games, Cathy. I grant you, Anisimov didn’t make much of an impact in the opener, but his skills were on pretty good display this past weekend. He had the puck on a string a lot of the time, and was making some sharp plays in really tight quarters. He scored a huge goal to tie Friday’s game in the dying seconds, and then got Saturday’s win going with an early goal in the first. He’s only 19 years old, so I would imagine he will struggle with his consistency from time to time here in his first year of North American pro hockey, but with his size and soft hands, I would be surprised if he isn’t a pretty significant offensive force most of the time for the Wolf Pack.
Steve Taylor from Charlotte, NC writes, “Thanks for all the good information throughout the season! Do you know what happened to Zdenek Bahensky? I thought he was signed by Hartford with a AHL contract? Matt Zaba has looked good in Checkers training camp. Do you think he and Miika Wiikman will trade spots during the year?”
Steve, Zdenek has gone back over to his native Czech Republic and is playing with Litvinov. He did have an AHL deal with the Wolf Pack for last year, but it was only a one-year contract.
It will be interesting to see what they do with the young goaltenders, especially if Al Montoya holds fast to the number-one role with the Wolf Pack. I imagine that they wouldn’t want any of the goalies to go too long without playing regularly, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they flip-flop guys back and forth between the Wolf Pack and Charlotte.
Matt from Oakville, CT writes, “In your last column you stated that the Pack is actively seeking more high school hockey jerseys for the wall in the atrium. How does one go about contributing to the cause?”
Matt, the school can send a jersey to the Wolf Pack (196 Trumbull St., 3rd floor, Hartford, CT 06103), attention Anne Valihura, or call the Pack office at 860-246-7825.
Kim Geikie of Saint John, New Brunswick asks, “What is the status of Bruce Graham's career? Not in Hartford again this year?”
I thought Bruce put on a stronger performance in training camp this year than last year, Kim, but he still ended up being assigned to the ECHL. It’s such a deep group of forwards in the Ranger organization, there is not much room for error. It’s Bruce’s third year of pro now, so even though he is still not yet 22, the clock is ticking on his making a move forward here and getting back on track to legitimate prospect status. Hopefully for him he will get off to a strong start with Charlotte, where he had a great year last year, and push the Wolf Pack to call him back up.
Ben from Montreal, Quebec asks, “What kind of impact do you think Pierre Parenteau will have on the team? Do you think there's room for him on a team like the Rangers?”
Ben, I’ve always been impressed with Pierre when he has played against the Wolf Pack. He has struck me as a quality offensive player who not only scores a lot of goals, he scores big goals in big spots. He’s a real weapon at the AHL level, and as I said in the answer to the last question, the Ranger organization is really deep at forward, so he is not exactly stepping into a situation where his road is paved to the NHL, but having said that, the Rangers haven’t been in the habit in recent seasons of making trades just for the sake of the Wolf Pack. Given what I know about the organizational philosophy as far as player development goes, I don’t think they would have traded for him if they didn’t think he was enough of a quality player to push for a spot with the big club.
Thanks for the questions and I’ll continue to poke my pen into this space whenever I can cobble together enough material.
