Crawford's Pack Report: Week in Review
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - 1:13 PM
The Wolf Pack are officially in playoff-preparation mode, after a win, a regulation loss and a shootout loss last week determined that the Pack will finish second in the Atlantic Division (the 10th time in 11 years of Wolf Pack hockey that the team has finished no worse than second in its division…pretty impressive record), and will meet Kevin Dineen and the Portland Pirates in the first round of the postseason.
Now Ken Gernander and the boys can basically forget about the standings, and turn their focus completely towards ironing every possible kink out of their team game, and shuffling the cards around to find the most advantageous player combinations.
Last week's action was a good start to a postseason tune-up too, as the first two games of the three-game weekend very much resembled playoff tilts, with good pace and high intensity.
An eventful couple of days as far as the standings go started Friday, as the Pack paid a visit to Providence to finish up the season series with the league-leading Bruins. If the Wolf Pack lost that game in regulation, that would clinch first place for the P-Bruins, but the Wolf Pack also had a chance to ensure themselves of finishing ahead of the Pirates for second place.
The Wolf Pack had gotten off to a couple of bad starts in a row going into Friday's game, and they took it to a new level in that game in Providence, giving up a clean breakaway goal to Bruin captain Nate Thompson literally right off the opening faceoff. The scoring play took only eight seconds off the first-period clock, the fastest the Wolf Pack had ever given up a goal at the beginning of a period by a margin of four seconds.
With that beginning, you wondered if the Pack might be in for a repeat of the last time they played Providence, a 6-1 loss at the XL Center February 22nd. Like they did in the last game prior to Friday's, though, when they gave up two goals in the first 60 seconds in Bridgeport, they quickly righted the ship and got their legs under them, and it became a crisply-played, competitive game.
The Pack tied it at 6:45 of the second on a goal by Artem Anisimov, who tipped in a try by Dane Byers, and it stayed 1-1 going into the third.
The third frame was one of the more entertaining periods of the Wolf Pack season, as the Bruins worked hard to go ahead twice and the Pack came back quickly both times.
Byron Bitz buried a rebound only 2:05 in to put Providence back in front, 2-1, but a great hustle play by Andrew Hutchinson just 2:50 later evened it back up. Hutchinson beat the Bruin defense to a dump-in behind the net, on a play that would have been icing had the Bruins touched the puck first. Hutchinson then flipped the puck, from below the goal line, off of Providence goaltender Jordan Sigalet's right pad and inside the post.
Another blueliner, the Bruins' Matt Lashoff, came up with an outstanding individual effort at 12:38 to make it 3-2 Providence, flummoxing Michael Sauer with an outside-inside move and putting a backhander past David LeNeveu. This time, however, it took the Pack only 21 seconds to answer. While Lashoff's goal was still being announced, Byers and Hugh Jessiman dug the puck out from deep in the Bruin end and Jessiman fed it to the suddenly-sniping Mike Ouellette. Ouellette, who earlier in the season seemed like he couldn't finish a chance no matter how hard he tried, calmly ripped this one into the back of the net for fifth goal in a span of five games, and it was tied again.
The deadlock held up through the rest of regulation and overtime, and I thought the fates might be favoring the Wolf Pack in the shootout, with the Pack having won one the previous Sunday after having lost six straight and the P-Bruins having dropped three in a row after winning eight of their first nine.
No such luck, though, as Jeff Hoggan and Boston first-rounder Zach Hamill, playing his first pro game, scored on LeNeveu, and Greg Moore was the only one of five Wolf Pack shooters able to solve Sigalet.
That was a disappointing end to a great game, but the Pack got some help on the scoreboard from the Worcester Sharks, who came from behind in the third period to dump Portland, 2-1, in overtime. That result clinched at least second place for the Pack.
The Wolf Pack were still mathematically alive for first place going into Saturday's trip to Portland, and the overtime loss the night before had locked the Pirates into third place. The Pirates were looking to snap a slump, though, that had seen them win only one of their previous six games, and hoped to give themselves some extra confidence going into a likely first-round playoff meeting.
In this game the Wolf Pack's start was fine, but they hurt themselves with a bad finish.
For a second night in a row, the game had the feeling of a playoff battle. Both clubs were in each other's faces and the pace was excellent, and goaltenders Miika Wiikman of the Wolf Pack and J.S. Aubin of the Pirates both were sharp and seeing the puck well.
The Pack were missing a bit of their finishing touch in the person of P.A. Parenteau, who took a slash in the second period of Friday's game and was bruised up, and the Pirates, already in resting-some-key-guys-for-the-playoffs mode, sat out their second-leading goal-scorer, 29-goal-man Jason King.
Neither team was hurting for scoring chances, but nobody buried one until Portland's Brian Salcido, a distant second to Hutchinson in point-scoring among defensemen but having a heck of a year of his own, knocked home a rebound of an Andrew Ebbett shot just past the halfway point of the second period.
Like the night before, though, the Wolf Pack responded strongly to the adversity, bouncing back to tie it only 3:24 later. That goal was as a result of an excellent offensive-zone pressure shift by a line of Jordan Owens, new addition Tomas Zaborsky, showing well in his pro debut out of the Ontario Hockey League, and Mitch Fritz. Owens threw the puck in front from behind the net and it hit a Portland defender, occupied with trying to keep Fritz at bay, and deflected past Aubin.
After that quick burst of offense, the game settled back into a back-and-forth battle for the next 26 minutes, both teams entertaining a sellout crowd by going all out on every shift.
It looked like the Pack were in for another trip to overtime, which would have made it three straight games of OT, but the at-least-one-point that would have meant slipped through the Wolf Pack's fingers in the dying seconds of regulation.
As a four-on-four expired, a Pirate rush broke into the Pack zone, and Salcido fed the puck from left to right toward Ebbett, normally more of a setup man than a goal-scorer, but just the opposite against the Wolf Pack this year. Ebbett had just enough reach to deflect the perfect Salcido pass over the glove of Wiikman, and just like that, the Pack were down, 2-1, with only 21.9 seconds showing on the clock.
The Wolf Pack got Wiikman to the bench off the ensuing center-ice draw but not only were not able to threaten the Portland net, but also gave up an empty-net tally, scored by Simon Ferguson, that made the final margin 3-1.
Combined with Providence's shootout win at Lowell, the loss to the Pirates clinched first place in the Atlantic for the Bruins and locked the Pack into second and a certain first-round date with Portland. That was pretty much a foregone conclusion after the Wolf Pack had failed to win in Providence on Friday night but was still a tough pill to swallow, especially after giving up the winner so late in a game in which the Pack had played extremely hard.
They didn't let any disappointment carry over, though, into Sunday's home game vs. Lowell, which, understandably in that the Devils are well out of the playoff race, did not feature nearly the same intensity as the previous two contests.
The Pack had smoked the Devils, 8-2, in the last meeting between the two clubs, a couple of Wednesday's prior in Lowell, and if it had not been for the fine work in goal by the Devils' Frank Doyle in the first two periods, Sunday could have been a real blowout as well.
The Pack channeled Saturday night's disappointment into a dominating first period, outshooting Lowell 22-4, and registered a 32-10 advantage in shots through the first two periods, with plenty of good scoring chances. Doyle's strong play kept the score down only to 2-0, however, and after Hugh Jessiman's second goal of the game made it 3-0 at the 8:55 mark of the third period, the Devils started to turn it on.
Former Yalie Brad Mills ruined LeNeveu's shutout bid with a deflection goal at 12:32 of the third, and Devil leading scorer Petr Vrana set up Ivan Khomutov for a tap-in with 3:25 left in regulation. That really set the Pack scrambling, but they were able to hang on by the skin of their teeth, despite a 17-4 shots disadvantage in the third, and finish the weekend on a high note with a 3-2 squeaker of a win.
That victory finished the season series against Lowell with the Wolf Pack sporting a 5-1-0-1 record, running their combined slate against divisional non-playoff teams the Devils, Worcester and Springfield to a nearly-spotless 22-2-0-1 in 25 games.
Now to some reader messages…
Jason from Waterbury, CT asks, “I can't remember exactly the Clear Day rules concerning guys who are signed after that deadline, but are Mike Taylor and Brad Brown eligible to be on the Pack roster for the playoff run? And which Pack player do you feel has 'slid in under the radar' with a good-to-great season this year?”
Jason, on your first question, guys coming in from amateur levels, i.e., Juniors or college players, like Mike Taylor, can play at any time during the Clear Day period, regardless of the AHL team's roster/injury situation. Players who have been in pro all year, like Brad Brown, and are not on the Clear Day roster can only play in the Clear Day period and playoffs under “emergency conditions”. Being under emergency conditions is defined as being down to less than 18 healthy skaters, due to injuries, recalls and/or suspensions.
It so happens that Brown was released from his tryout contract and headed back to Florida of the ECHL Monday, but Jordan Owens is another example of a player in that situation.
To your second question, I would say Mike Ouellette is an under-the-radar guy who has been real key to the Wolf Pack's success this year. I kind of compare him to Tony Tuzzolino, whose arrival to the Wolf Pack in the Calder Cup year of 1999-2000 coincided with that team's really taking off. The Pack really started rolling this season right about when Ouellette was brought in from Charlotte, and like Tuzzolino, he is a guy who doesn't put up huge numbers, but is a real important cog for the Wolf Pack at the all-important center position.
Ouellette has good size, is outstanding in the faceoff circle, and makes a lot of little plays that serve the Wolf Pack well, especially in the defensive zone but really in all three zones. Plus, now he's really starting to generate some offense. You knew from the numbers he put up in college and in the ECHL he had some pretty good offensive skill, but that part of his game took a back seat for most of this year to his play away from the puck. He's had a hat trick now and a two-goal game, though, in the last three weeks and eight goals in his last 13 games, after finding the net only five times in his first 53 wolf Pack outings.
Ed from Meriden, CT writes, “I'm confused with the ATO signings at this time of the year. I would think that the club would want to get continuity and stability to make a run at the Cup. Do the Ranger brass really care about winning the Cup or are they cheating the fans? You follow the team all year, then they bring in amateurs for the playoffs. I don't understand it.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, Ed. The tryout guys are being brought in purely for depth, and believe me, none of those guys are going to play ahead of any of the Pack's regular players that they think is going to give them a better chance to win in the playoffs. Nothing would make the Ranger management any happier, or serve the Rangers' interest any better, than winning a Calder Cup.
And I don't know about you, but far from feeling cheated, I think it's pretty exciting to see unheralded guys come in here that the scouts have liked, such as Jordan Owens last year, and give their best effort to try and make an impact. To steal an idea from a Wolf Pack staffer in relation to a guy like Mike Taylor, he might not be the next Teddy Purcell (college free agent who was rookie of the year this year with Manchester), but it certainly behooves the Pack and the Rangers to take a look at him and find out if he is.
Chris from West Hartford, CT says, “I was looking at the standings after the weekend, and there are 15 teams with an x that says they are in the playoffs. The thing that confuses me is that there are five teams in the West Division with the x. If there are four divisions and only 16 teams make it, shouldn't there only be four teams from each division that make the playoffs?”
Chris, there is a “crossover” provision for playoff spots in the Western Conference, to compensate for the fact that the West Division is the only division in the league that has eight teams instead of seven. To make it more fair, if the fifth place team in the West Division finishes with more points than the fourth-place club in the North Division, then the fifth-place finisher from the West crosses over and makes the playoffs ahead of the North's fourth-place team. This year, all the West-Division teams that have the X next to them have assured themselves of finishing ahead of defending Calder Cup-champion Hamilton, the fourth-place club in the North, so that's why there will be five teams making it from the West and only three from the North.
And Rich from Croton, NY asks, “With the playoffs around the corner, is it more important for a team to gain home ice advantage during the playoffs or be more concerned with who their opponents might be? Would most teams like to deal with a top-notch team like the P-Bruins or the Pack in the first round and get the adrenaline flowing or have to face them in later rounds?”
That's an interesting question, Rich. I think probably teams would rather try to get on a roll by winning a series or two before they had to face one of the top teams, but there's probably something to be said for catching a team that's had a real good regular season early in the playoffs, before it can get on a big roll. No matter what, the teams in this league are so close, I'd say most of the playoff matchups are close to tossups anyway. You need to get a lot of breaks, in addition to being really good. And to answer the first part of your query, I think recent Wolf Pack history has shown that home ice advantage, while it's nice to have, doesn't necessarily mean a ton when you get to the playoffs. Teams are so battle-tested, they are perfectly capable of going into any other team's building and winning.
Thanks for the questions and I’ll continue to poke my pen into this space whenever I can put together enough material!
