SPRINGFIELD, Mass – Mike McKenna made 19 saves, and Graham Black, Dryden Hunt and Ryan Horvat scored third-period goals, Saturday night at the MassMutual Center, as the Springfield Thunderbirds shut out the Hartford Wolf Pack 3-0 in AHL preseason action.
Mackenzie Skapski allowed two goals on 29 shots in the Hartford net.
The two teams took turns controlling the action in the first two periods, with the Thunderbirds outshooting the Wolf Pack 11-6 in the first and Hartford holding a 11-3 edge in the second, but neither club could find the back of the net in the first 40 minutes.
The pattern continued in the third period, as Springfield had a 16-2 shots advantage, and the Thunderbirds finally broke the scoreless tie at the 9:29 mark.
That was when Black had a Matt MacKenzie shot from the left point hit him in front of the net and drop to the ice. Black quickly grabbed the loose puck and backhanded it past Skapski for what would turn out to be the only goal that Springfield would need.
Then just 1:39 later, at 11:08, Skapski got another bad break, as a Brent Regner left-point shot hit Hunt behind the Wolf Pack net, went off the top of the goal and fell into the goalmouth. Hunt reached around the post to Skapski’s right and jammed the puck in, making it 2-0 in favor of Springfield.
The Thunderbirds put the game out of reach with an empty-net goal with 13.8 seconds remaining. Horvat worked the puck away from the Wolf Pack’s Calle Andersson in the right-wing corner of the Hartford zone and had no one between him and the front of the goal, easily depositing the puck into the empty cage
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