Pack Take Bruins Sitting Down

One hand tied behind their backs: Francis Lessard,
Nigel Dawes, Brad Isbister (Chris Rutsch photo)

The Hartford Wolf Pack continued to inch their way up in the division standings on Wednesday night, defeating the Providence Bruins at home, 4-1. A game that was fairly close (though not particularly well-played from a Wolf Pack standpoint) through the second period and well into the third turned into a rout, with Hartford scoring three unanswered goals in the game's final four-and-a-half minutes.

Al Montoya provided another outstanding effort in net, as he made several key momentum-shifting stops-- the kind that were going the other way against him only a short while ago. Montoya is now 5-0 in his last five starts, with only 4 goals against (126-for-130) in that span, and he seems to have earned back the starting job for now.

Ryan Callahan scored first for the Wolf Pack, midway through the first period, though it was a great play by Brandon Dubinsky on the set-up that deserves most of the credit. Dubinsky froze the puck down low to Providence goalie Hannu Toivonen's left side, holding it long enough to make Toivonen commit to the near post before sending the puck back through traffic to Callahan, who had a wide-open net to shoot at.

Providence tied the score, 1-1, late in the second period, as the Wolf Pack played like a mess through most of the second and third, looking like they could barely get out of each others' way half of the time. Dane Byers did provide one highlight, as he dismantled Jonathan Sigalet in a second-period fight that wasn't even close. Byers sent Sigalet down flat to the ice with a huge punch early in the fight, and then when Sigalet responded by grabbing Byers by the legs and trying to flip him, Byers pulled Sigalet up by his jersey and continued to whale on him some more.

Byers then scored Hartford's next goal, tipping in a shot on a powerplay 15:27 into the third period. Byers finished the night with a goal and an assist, besides the fight, and is now second on the Wolf Pack in scoring while leading the team in penalty minutes.


Target practice for Dane Byers
Only seconds after Byers' goal made it 2-1, Brad Isbister was hauled down from behind on a breakaway (which led to no penalty, for some reason). Isbister was able to send a shot on net as he was being taken down, and Nigel Dawes entered the play only a step or two behind Isbister to jammed the rebound home.

Isbister got his goal shortly after that, on an empty net with 47 seconds left to make the final score 4-1.


#9 Nigel Dawes (Chris Rutsch photo)
Providence goalie Jordan Sigalet continued to sit out with an injured shoulder, suffered in a game against the Wolf Pack eleven days earlier when Francis Lessard ran into him behind the net. None of the Bruins players made a move towards Lessard during this game, however, although there was some yapping going on after the final horn had sounded.

In other news, the Wolf Pack have posted some more videos from the archive on their 10 Years, 1 Mission web site, this time in ready-made YouTube format (which isn't as crisp-looking as the .wmv format the first batch of videos was posted in, but they're slumming like the rest of us now, I guess).

Monty's Revenge

Al Montoya vs. Portland 12/31/06
(Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald photo)

Al Montoya shut out the Portland Pirates last night in Portland, 2-0, in a rugged game that saw all 12 players on the rink involved in a first-period brawl, including Montoya and the Portland goalie, Dov Grumet-Morris.

The pushing and shoving started at 6 minutes of the first period when, according to Pack Attack, who was at the game, "about 3 or 4 beats after the whistle, a Portland player took a whack at Montoya's catching glove while the puck was still in it." By the time the scrum was over, Grumet-Morris had skated the length of the rink to challenge Montoya, drawing only a 2-minute minor for "leaving the crease" (the same penalty that Montoya was given).


Garrett Morris

After a miserable stretch in Nov./Dec. that saw Montoya get pulled in two consecutive starts, immediately followed by two consecutive starts where he gave up 5 goals each, Montoya has now posted two shutouts in the past six days. Montoya has allowed only 3 goals over his last 4 starts, winning all four and turning aside 98 of 101 shots he has faced.

Hartford has now moved back into a 6th-place tie with Worcester, and is only a point behind 5th-place Providence. The Wolf Pack and Providence will face each other on Wednesday night in Hartford.

Here are a couple of photos from the Portland game that Pack Attack posted on JokerTom's board:


All 12 players squaring off at once


Montoya (29) and Grumet-Morris tussling in the corner
Also, two more photos from the Portland Press Herald:


Craig Weller tangles with Petteri Wirtanen


Montoya and Dan Girardi defending a backhander by Matt Keith
It's also fun to see that all the newbie Portland fans are now surpassing even the Monarchs fans as far as whining and acting entitled for the 12 bucks a game they spend on tickets...

And now for some bonus coverage of the Jonas Brothers "concert" during the intermissions of the previous night's home game against Manchester, courtesy of some screaming fan-girls who were at the game and posted a whole bunch of videos on YouTube like this one:


If you were there, you can click on the video to re-live the headache; if you weren't there, now you can suffer along with the rest of us who were.

As part of my own little stain on YouTube, I'd like to direct your attention to a new feature that I've added in the sidebar: a link to the YouTube account that I've set up as sort of a companion to this blog, where I'll be posting stuff like Russian hockey videos and cool stuff from a few of the bands that I like, and so forth. I'm pretty happy with all of the stuff that I've posted on it so far, so please check it out!