TWO MINUTES FOR THOUGHTS: APRIL 2ND, 2025
Apr 2, 2025The final month of the AHL’s 2024-25 regular season is upon us. For the Hartford Wolf Pack, April represents the final seven games of the regular season, with a playoff race still in their sights despite a difficult weekend of results.
Onto the blog!
1. Saturday night’s game in Providence felt like a playoff game. There wasn’t much room for the Wolf Pack or the Bruins, and scoring chances were hard to come by. The result, a 2-1 victory for the Bruins, stings for the Wolf Pack. The process was good, and Hartford largely controlled the final 40 minutes of action, but it was not enough for two key points.
When points are at a premium and moral victories can’t replace them, it’s hard to look at a regulation loss with a positive outlook. That said, the Wolf Pack played another strong road game. They simply were not rewarded. That’s the harsh reality of sports sometimes.
2. The loss was made worse by a three-for-three weekend by the Springfield Thunderbirds. After sweeping a back-to-back set from the Iowa Wild on Friday and Saturday, the T-Birds went to Providence and took a dramatic 3-2 regulation victory on Sunday.
That puts the Thunderbirds ten points up on the Wolf Pack with seven games to go. That’s a six point increase from where things stood on Friday morning. That hurts.
3. The Wolf Pack are actually closer to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, despite their 3-1 victory in Laval on Saturday night. The Phantoms are nine points up on the Wolf Pack with seven games remaining for both.
4. The Phantoms visit Bridgeport on Wednesday, while the Thunderbirds are in Rochester to take on the Americans. The Phantoms then host the Hershey Bears on Friday night, and the Thunderbirds on Saturday night. The Thunderbirds, meanwhile, are in Utica on Friday night before their visit to Allentown on Saturday.
Springfield’s magic number is four, while Lehigh Valley’s magic number is six entering Wednesday’s action.
5. Yesterday, the parent New York Rangers signed goaltender Callum Tung to a three-year, entry-level contract that begins next season. Additionally, Tung agreed to an amateur tryout agreement with the Wolf Pack that covers the remainder of the 2024-25 season.
Tung had a terrific freshman season with the UConn Huskies, posting a 10-4-1 record in 15 appearances with a .933 save percentage and a 2.01 goals-against average. He was also named to Hockey East’s ‘All-Rookie Team’ for his performance.
With Talyn Boyko reassigned to ECHL Tulsa on Tuesday, there is a good chance that Tung will get game action down the stretch for the Wolf Pack. He and Dylan Garand are the only two healthy goalies on the roster as Louis Domingue deals with a lower-body issue.
Domingue remains day-to-day.
6. Speaking of injuries, Bo Groulx is out week-to-week with an upper-body aliment. Groulx first was injured on Feb. 19 in a game at Springfield. He then returned for a key game on Mar. 26 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton but left the game in the first period.
Groulx won’t be an option for the Wolf Pack this weekend in Hershey for their two games against the Bears.
7. There are some milestones on the table for some Wolf Pack players as we hit the stretch drive of the season. First off, will there be a 20-goal scorer? In every full season played in franchise history (excluding the 2020-21 COVID shortened campaign), at least one Wolf Pack player has hit the 20 goal mark.
Right now, Alex Belize (18 goals), Anton Blidh (17), and Dylan Roobroeck (15) are within range. Belzile’s career-high in goals is 19, while Blidh has already shattered his career-high of 13, set during the 2022-23 season.
Can one of these three keep the streak alive in the final seven games? I’ll say yes.
8. Dylan Garand has had a terrific season in net for the Wolf Pack. Will he collect his first 20 win campaign as a pro? He currently sits on 19, so the odds are heavily stacked in his favor.
9. The Wolf Pack and Bears will conclude their regular season series this weekend with two games in Hershey. For the Wolf Pack, the opportunity is there to win the season series from Hershey for the first time since the 2021-22 season.
The Wolf Pack won both games at the XL Center, taking a 3-0 decision on Dec. 11 and a 4-3 decision on Mar. 21. Winning the season series from the back-to-back Champions would be a nice feather in the club’s cap, regardless of how the standings shake out over the next few weeks.
10. As the Wolf Pack play for their playoff lives, they’ll also have an impact on the seeding race at the top of the division. The Bears currently lead the Atlantic Division but are just three points up on both the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Charlotte Checkers. A pair of victories this weekend for the Wolf Pack could ruin Hershey’s attempt to repeat as the division’s top dog.
The Wolf Pack also play the Checkers once (4/16) and the Bruins once (4/11) in Hartford. Both of those teams are fighting for a first-round bye in the Atlantic Division.
Regardless of what happens with the Wolf Pack’s playoff chase, they’ll have a chance to impact the top of the order in the Atlantic down the stretch.
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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.