Bears too powerful for Pack
December 6, 2008 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Connecticut Whale News Release
Hershey, PA, December 6, 2008: The Hartford Wolf Pack fell to the AHL-leading Hershey Bears, 4-2, at the Giant Center Saturday night, in the Bears' franchise record-tying tenth straight victory.
Martin Lacroix, Francois Bouchard, Patrick McNeill and Alex Giroux scored for Hershey. Andrew Gordon had two assists. The Wolf Pack got goals from Artem Anisimov and Tom Pyatt.
After the Wolf Pack registered the first five shots on goal of the game, the Bears got on the scoreboard first. Lacroix, playing in just his third AHL game, played the puck out of the right-wing corner and it deflected past Hartford goaltender Matt Zaba.
Hershey made it a 2-0 lead at 5:16 of the second, as its dynamic rookie line of Bouchard, Mathieu Perreault and Oskar Osala hooked up for Bouchard's eighth goal of the year. Osala worked the puck away from the Wolf Pack's Bobby Sanguinetti in the neutral zone, and Perreault fed Bouchard for a shot from the right-wing side of the goalmouth.
The Wolf Pack responded at the 11:19 mark, and Anisimov's 11th goal of the season gave him a four-game goal-scoring streak, Hartford's longest of the season. P.A. Parenteau's shot from the left circle was stopped by Bear goalie Simeon Varlamov, but the rebound trickled free to Anisimov, who swept it in from Varlamov's left. The Wolf Pack outshot the Bears 10-6 in the second.
McNeill restored Hershey's two-goal lead with a shorthanded score at 3:55 of the third. Kyle Wilson fed McNeill in the right circle on a two-on-one. Pyatt answered that 1:42 later with his third goal of the year, off of a great pass from behind the net by Jordan Owens. Giroux, a former Wolf Pack forward, put the game out of reach, however, with a breakaway goal with 3:12 left. Giroux anticipated a Wolf Pack pass in the Hershey zone and beat Zaba with a shot to the stick side.
Varlamov made 26 saves for his seventh straight victory. Zaba stopped 30 out of 34 shots in the Wolf Pack net. The loss dropped the Wolf Pack back below the .500 mark, to 10-11-1-2 for 23 points.
American Hockey League Stories from December 6, 2008
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