Bears defeat Wolf Pack
January 3, 2009 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Connecticut Whale News Release
Hartford, CT: A Hershey Bear line of Alexandre Giroux, Keith Aucoin and Graham Mink combined for nine points Saturday, to lead Hershey to a 6-2 victory over the Hartford Wolf Pack at the XL Center.
Giroux, a former Wolf Pack forward returned to Hershey earlier in the day by the parent Washington Capitals, chalked up a goal and three assists, Mink notched a pair of goals and Aucoin, the AHL's co-leading point-scorer going into the game, contributed a goal and two assists. Steve Pinizotto also had a goal and an assist for the league-leading Bears, who upped their record to 25-9-0-1 for 51 points.
Patrick Rissmiller had a goal and an assist for the Wolf Pack.
Giroux set up the first two goals of the game inside the first 6:35. At 1:25, Giroux worked a perfect give-and-go with Aucoin, who finished the the play into an open net. The Bears made it a 2-0 lead at 6:35, after the Wolf Pack's Bobby Sanguinetti lost his stick and the Pack's defensive coverage broke down. Tyler Sloan rushed the puck down from the left point, and Giroux centered from behind the net to Mink, who batted the puck past Hartford starting goaltender Miika Wiikman.
Wiikman and the Wolf Pack avoided further first-period damage, despite serious penalty trouble starting at 13:01. P.A. Parenteau was assessed a major for spearing Hershey's Dean Arsene, and an interference minor to Mike Ouellette at 14:55 gave Hershey a two-man advantage for two minutes.
The momentum from killing off those disadvantages was snuffed at the 36-second mark of the second period, though, when Pinizotto scored on a shot through a screen. Kyle Wilson made it 4-0, and chased Wiikman from the game, at 6:20, before Greg Moore got Hartford on the board with a power-play goal off of an Artem Anisimov pass with only 0.8 seconds remaining in the period.
The Wolf Pack then cut the deficit to 4-2 at the 1:44 mark of the third, as Rissmiller had the puck carom out of the corner to him in front of the net and backhanded a shot past Hershey netminder Simeon Varlamov.
The Bears restored the two-goal lead at 4:15, though, as Giroux fed Mink for his second of the game on a power play. Giroux completed the scoring at 14:29, when he was set up alone in front of the net by Pinizzotto and deked relief goaltender Matt Zaba.
Varlamov made 32 saves to get the win for Hershey. Wiikman took the loss, allowing four goals on 23 shots, and Zaba stopped 13 of the 15 shots he faced.
The defeat dropped the Wolf Pack's season mark to 17-15-1-3 for 38 points and caused them to fall into fourth place in the Atlantic Division.
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