Bulldogs Leave Civic Center with Tails Between their Legs

Hartford (2) Hamilton (1)
Zac Champ

The Wolf Pack returned to the Hartford Civic Center to play before a rather large crowd of 7,928 after a 5-3 win over the Springfield Falcons the previous night. In this the first ever meeting between the 2^nd year Wolf Pack and the 3^rd year Hamilton Bulldogs, Hartford outplayed them with an end score of 2-1 only to have Hamilton return home to lick its wounds.

Hamilton has been struggling as of late coming off a quite humbling 8-0 loss to the Rochester Americans.

Labbe started in net tonight, a former Bulldog; he had something to prove, to his former team. Although he said "there are only four left on the team."

Hartford drew first blood when Stefan Cherneski scored his first of the season on the power play, assisted by Dube and Brad Smyth. The puck was shot right on when Passmore –the Hamilton goalie— gave a rebound allowing Cherneski to give a high wrist shot, Passmore jumped up juggling the puck before it fell behind him, he then fell into the goal. It was then 1-0.

Dube scored shorthanded at 15:32 assisted by Errey. Dube’s 4^th goal, Erry’s 5^th assist on the season.

End of First Period Stats

Hartford 2 Hamilton 0

During the second period things started to get a little choppy on both sides. It all started after Brennen was hit along the boards and hit his thigh what most would call a "Charlie Horse." EJ Maguire had this to say about Rich’s condition. "It’s being iced now and evaluated, the good news is that right now, what they initially told me was there that no knee was involved, and that is great news on a hit like that." After Brennen went down the penalties started to come. For example in the first period there were only 2 penalties all together, but in the second a total of 11 penalties were counted. Three of those were Hamilton’s the other 7 went to Hartford. Hamilton was finally put on the board when Steve Potvin notched his second of the season, nutmeging Labbe at 18:15, assisted by Chris Hajit and Georges Laroque.

End of Second Period Stats

Hartford 2 Hamilton 0

The score remained the same to the end, even though Hamilton had some nice attempts; they could not break the Hartford defense. Hamilton had 11 shots on goal as compared to Hartford’s 6, Hamilton did not have a lack of opportunity with 3 Hartford penalties, Hamilton just couldn’t get it done. In fact that was the case all night, Hamilton had 7 attempts on the power play totaling 10:18, without one power play goal. "Penalty killing was great from the goaltending out to the defense, to the two penalty killers, and once again JF Labbe turned in a first star performance." Maguire

Final Game Stats

End score

Hartford 2 Hamilton 1

Pack 8-3-0 (16 pts.)