The Wolf Pack gearing up for a new season
In what will undoubtedly be the strangest season in AHL history, the New York Rangers’ top developmental team, the Hartford Wolf Pack, kicks off the 2021 campaign Sunday against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
What’s strange? Hartford will play its entire 24 game schedule against two other teams, the Sound Tigers and the Providence Bruins. That’s because in the realigned American Hockey League, the Pack’s Atlantic Division ended up with only three teams. Compare that to the Pacific and North Divisions with seven team, the Central Division with six and the Canadian Division with five. Three of the former Atlantic Division teams ended up in the North Division while Charlotte and Springfield opted out of the season.
No matter the competition, it is huge news that the AHL is even playing. Considering that the league generates almost all of its revenue from ticket sales and concessions, they will be taking a massive financial hit this season and the teams’ parent organizations stepped up to fund the season. Besides Charlotte and Springfield, Milwaukee also opted to not play this season.
The Wolf Pack roster
The Hartford roster will be an interesting mix of players with a number of Canadian juniors players still with the team until their CHL leagues approve play. They include goalie Dyland Garand, Defenseman Braden Schneider and forward Will Cuylle. Due to the pandemic, those players are free to play in the AHL without signing professional contracts. As soon as there are approvals, the trio will ead back to Canada just as defense prospect Matthew Robertson did last week.
Here is the roster. Players under contract to the Rangers are in bold. Players not under contract to the Rangers are the three Canadian Juniors players and players under contract to the Wolf Pack.
Goalies
- Dylan Garand
- Adam Huska
- Tyler Wall
Defense
- Brandon Crawley, LD
- Mason Geertsen, LD
- Zach Giuttari, RD
- Vincent LoVerde, RD
- Darren Raddysh, RD
- Tarmo Reunanen, LD
- Braden Schneider, RD
- Patrick Sieloff, LD
- Jeff Taylor, LD
Forwards
Will Cuylle, LW
Ryan Dmowski, LW
Mike O’Leary, C
Paul Thompson, RW
Alex Whalen, RW
Players to watch
There are some new faces in Hartford who have potential as future Blueshirts. Of all of the Blueliners, Tarmo Reunanen is the most interesting. The Finnish native signed his Entry Level Contract (ELC) before last season and played in Finland . He played this season in two Finnish leagues on loan from the Rangers and had solid numbers. He is a left shot defenseman and once he gets accustomed to North American ice, he could be a contender for promotion.
The Rangers signed four players after the NCAA season season was halted and they will all be playing for Hartford after attending the Rangers’ training camp. The most promising is center Morgan Barron out of Cornell University. He was one of the top collegiate players and many feel he has an NHL future.
Patrick Khodorenko is a center who played at Michigan State University. Austin Rueschhoff is a a big (6’7″) right winger who was signed out of Western Michigan University. The last player is Justin Richards, a top defensive center who came out of Minnesota-Duluth. Richards missed all of the Rangers camp due to COVID-19 protocols so this is the first that he will be in action.
While Ranger fans have high hopes for all of these undrafted free agents, they will be joining Patrick Newell and Jake Elmer who were similar signees before last season.
Minus the taxi squad
The use of taxi squads will affect AHL teams this season. Currently the only Ranger on the taxi squad is goalie Keith Kinkaid, due to the injuries to Filip Chytil, Colin Blackwell, Jack Johnson and Brendan Smith. When the team is healthy, we could see a return to the taxi squad for Tony Bitetto, Libor Hajek and Blackwell when they would normally get sent to Hartford.
Hartford players
There are college players who signed contracts to play in Hartford. The new faces this season are Zach Giuttari, a defenseman out of Brown University, Mike O’Leary, a right winger from Notre Dame and Alex Whelan, a 23 year old right winger who graduated from Quinnipiac University.
To round out their roster, the Wolf Pack signed some AHL veterans including 26 year old defenseman Patrick Sieloff, 26 year old blueliner Jeff Taylor and , 32 year old right winger Paul Thompson.
Leadership
With Chris Drury showing no interest in leaving the Rangers for the open Penguins GM job, he retains his role as the General Manager of the Wolf Pack. He is helped on the day-to -ay runing of the team by Assistant GM Pat Boller.
Kris Knoblauch is starting his second season as the head coach and is assisted by Gord Murphy, also in his second year.
This week, the Wolf Pack announced that defenseman Vincent LoVerde will serve as team captain. The 31 year old veteran is starting his second year with the Wolf Pack and has played eight years in the AHL.
Last season the Wolf Pack were having a successful season when the campaign was halted in March by the pandemic. They were definitely help by the goaltending of Igor Shesterkin and their record took a downturn when he was promoted to the NHL.
The team will have a new look this season with only Darren Raddysh returning among the team’ s top five scorers. Returning players include Raddysh and LoVerde along with Mason Geertsen and Brandon Crawley on defense. The returning forwards are Ryan Dmowski, Jake Elmer, Gabriel Fontaine, Tim Gettinger,Patrick Newell and Ty Ronning.
They will be playing at the XL Center in Hartford, in front of no fans. The arena is undergoing some renovations, but will not affect the team’s ability to play their home games there.
More. What to expect from the next 10 games. light