It may have taken some time, but just over a minute into the second period, teddy bears came raining down onto the ice at the XL Center as Hartford Wolf Pack forward Brennan Othmann potted his first of two goals on the night. His second would serve as the overtime winner to help the Wolf Pack down the Lehigh Valley Phantoms by a final score of 5-4 on Saturday night.
The long wait for Hartford fans was only made worse after Lehigh Valley leapt out to an early 2-0 lead in the first, with goals from forward Wade Allison and defenseman Helge Grans. That score would hold until Othmann’s goal early in the second. Just 24 seconds later, Wolf Pack forward Matt Rempe would net the equalizer to even the game at 2-2. The go-ahead goal for Hartford would come towards the end of the second period when forward Karl Henriksson deflected a shot from captain Jonny Brodzinski to beat Phantoms goaltender Felix Sandstrom to take a 3-2 lead.
Hartford would pad their lead with forward Brett Berard’s fifth goal of the season before Lehigh Valley would strike right back with a goal from forward Jordy Bellerive to cut the lead back down to one. With just under four minutes remaining, Phantoms captain Garrett Wilson would deflect a shot from defenseman Ronnie Attard to even the game at 4-4.
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It took almost the whole overtime period before Othmann scored his second goal of the game, firing a shot from the slot through the traffic to send Lehigh Valley home with only a point.
“Whether we’re up a goal or down a goal, I think for the last few games we’ve done a good job of just staying the course,” said Wolf Pack interim coach Steve Smith when discussing his team’s resiliency after going down 2-0 early in the game.
Hartford extends their win streak to six games after this weekend’s success and will look to carry it over next week when they host the Cleveland Monsters on Wednesday.
Lehigh Valley, on the other hand, has now dropped three straight and will be looking for their first win in December where they’ll host back-to-back homestand weekends.
“They came back in the game and nobody quit,” said Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere in response to Saturday’s loss to Hartford. “We kept pushing and we got a point.”
These two clubs will meet again one final time this season when the Phantoms host the Wolf Pack in Lehigh Valley on January 12.