TWO MINUTES FOR THOUGHTS: APRIL 17TH, 2025
Apr 17, 2025Game 72 is just over 24 hours away as of the writing of this column. The 2024-25 Hartford Wolf Pack season is set to end, with playoff hockey not in the cards for the first time since 2022.
As we hit the end of the season, let’s give you ten things to keep an eye on tomorrow night. Next week, we’ll be back with the final column of the season, wrapping things up with my ten favorite moments of the 2024-25 campaign.
Onto the blog!
1. Will Dylan Garand start, and can he finish with 20 victories? Garand is currently on 19 wins and has dominated the Bridgeport Islanders in his young career. It would be great to see the netminder finish off the best season of his young career on home ice.
It would be even better if he finished it off with his 20th victory of the season.
2. 20 is the magic number tomorrow night. Through 71 games, the Wolf Pack don’t have a 20-goal scorer. They do, however, have three players sitting on 19 goals. In every season in Wolf Pack history, excluding the truncated 2020-21 campaign, the club has had at least one player hit the 20-goal mark.
That streak will either live on or be snapped tomorrow night.
3. Dylan Roobroeck is one of the three players sitting on 19 goals. If can score his 20th tomorrow night, it’ll mark the third straight season in which a Wolf Pack rookie hits that mark. Will Cuylle did it in 2022-23, while Brett Berard and Brennan Othmann did it a season ago.
Both Cuylle and Berard led the club in goals in their rookie campaigns with 25 each. Othmann, meanwhile, lit the lamp 21 times as a rookie.
4. Alex Belzile is also sitting on 19 goals for the second season in a row. It is the third time in his career that he has hit 19 goals. He has never, however, hit 20. He also scored 19 goals during the 2018-19 season as a member of the Laval Rocket.
Belzile has already set a new career-high in assists with 37 and points with 56 this season. He’s also a +10, which is the best mark of his lengthy career.
5. The other player with 19 goals is Anton Blidh, who has already smashed his previous career-high of 13 goals during the 2022-23 campaign. Blidh, who signed a two-year extension with the parent New York Rangers last week, has set career-high marks in goals with 19, assists with 16, and points with 35. His 109 PIMs are also the most in a single season in his career.
6. The club is tied for 13th in the AHL in home victories with 18 this season. A win on Friday night would end the season with 19 home victories. Right now, that would tie Hartford for tenth in the league in that category.
There is an outside chance the club will end up in the top half of the league in that area with a win on Friday.
7. Can the Wolf Pack get to ten shorthanded goals this season? They currently sit on nine. The Islanders, meanwhile, have surrendered the most shorthanded goals in the AHL this season with 16.
8. Both Adam Sýkora and Jaroslav Chmelař are closing in on 30 point seasons. With a goal on Wednesday night, Sýkora sits on 29 points (9 g, 20 a), while Chmelař is on 28 points (11 g, 17 a). Can one of them break the 30-point plateau against the Islanders?
9. Nine Wolf Pack players have recorded at least 100 shots on goal this season. Defensemen Connor Mackey and Casey Fitzgerald are both on 98 shots. Will either hit 100 on the season tomorrow night? If they both do, eleven different skaters will have recorded at least 100 shots for the Wolf Pack.
10. The race for the team’s power play goals crown is also still to be determined. Currently, Jake Leschyshyn holds the lead with seven goals. Belzile, who scored on the power play against the Islanders on Saturday night, is just one off the lead with six. Belzile has torched the Islanders this season.
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ABOUT THE HARTFORD WOLF PACK: The Hartford Wolf Pack has been a premier franchise in the American Hockey League since the team’s inception in 1997. The Wolf Pack are the top player-development affiliate of the NHL's New York Rangers and play at the XL Center. The Wolf Pack has been home to some of the Rangers newest faces including Igor Shesterkin, Filip Chytil, and Ryan Lindgren. Follow the Wolf Pack on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.