River Rats defeat Wolf Pack
January 9, 2010 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Connecticut Whale News Release
Albany, NY - Jacob Micflikier had a goal and an assist, and Nicolas Blanchard's second-period shorthanded goal stood up as the game-winner, as the Albany River Rats defeated the Hartford Wolf Pack, 3-1, Saturday night at the Times-Union Center.
It was the first regulation loss for the Wolf Pack in their last 15 meetings with the River Rats (13-1-0-1), dating back to January of 2005.
The first period featured few scoring chances, despite five power plays handed out by referee Shaun Davis, three of them to the Wolf Pack.
The only goal of the first came on what was the only River Rat shot for much of the session, a power-play marker by Drayson Bowman at 6:28. Micflikier sent a pass to Bowman below the right-wing faceoff dot, and Bowman's quick shot beat Wolf Pack goaltender Matt Zaba (26 saves).
The River Rats doubled their lead on Blanchard's shorthander at 10:10 of the second period. Blanchard blocked Ilkka Heikkinen's center-point shot and broke away with the loose puck. Zaba got a piece of Blanchard's shot but could not keep it out of the net, and Albany took a 2-0 advantage into the third session.
The Wolf Pack got on the board with a shorthanded tally of their own at 12:18 of the third period, upping their AHL-leading shorthanded goal total to 13. Dale Weise chipped the puck out of the defensive zone and beat the Rats back to it for a breakaway. Weise was able to deke Rat goaltender Justin Peters (19 saves) and slip the puck underneath him. That gave Weise a three-game goal streak (4-0-4) and five goals in his last five games.
The Wolf Pack were not able to get anything else past Peters, though, and Micflikier iced the game with an empty net goal at 19:57, lofting the puck from near the corner of his own zone and all the way down into the vacated net.
The loss was only the Wolf Pack's third in regulation in the last 12 games (7-3-0-2) and dropped them to 20-15-1-4 for 45 points on the season.
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