WOLVES HOWL THEIR OWN TUNE; SHUTOUT MUSICMEN

Antti Miettinen

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Dayton, Ohio- Clicking on all cylinders, the Thunder Bay Timberwolves took the Dayton Musicmen to the wood shed on Monday in a 5-0, one-sided tilt in what many are deeming a Champions Cup Final preview.
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"We wanted to come in here and set the tempo early, and take their crowd out of it," said Timberwolves coach Craig Hartsburg. "We did that and the guys executed the gameplan to perfection. It's hard for a coach to pick this game apart and look for things to improve on. Obviously we want to keep those shots against us down [40-30 in Dayton's favour]. But Hank [goaltender Henrik Lundqvist] seems to play that much better with the more rubber he sees."
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Marian Hossa put the visiting Timberwolves up 1-0 at 10:04 in the first period for the Slovaks 18th goal of the year and second since being acquired from Copenhagen. Assists came from Matt Duchene and Marek Zidlicky.
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Rick Nash notched his team-leading 38th goal at 17:23 in the first from captain, Patrick Sharp and Sidney Crosby to close out the opening period's scoring. Lundqvist stopping all eight shots he faced.
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In the middle period, Lundqvist was clearly zoned in and stopped all fifteen Musicmen shots. Antti Miettinen's 14th from Marc Staal and James Wisniewski extended Thunder Bay's lead at 3-0 going into the final twenty minutes of hockey.
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In the third, Dayton continued to pile on the shots on the Timberwolves goaltender. But King Henrik stood tall and eventually stopped all seventeen put on him. Another tally from Miettinen and the fifth and final goal from Sharp sealed the win for the now-one-point-from-first-place Timberwolves.
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"This is a huge win for us," said Crosby after the game. "When you can control and dominate a team like Dayton, in their barn... it just proves to us how important it is to stick with a plan, play our game and we can be successful against anyone in this league. Credit our coaches for getting us ready. Hart and Walzy [Wes Walz] and all of them did a great job."
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"The guys are really high on this win for sure," said captain Sharp. "The hardest part is toning it down and getting ready for the next one. Which is these guys again at our place. They're going to be coming out to avenge this loss, and we have to be ready for it. So we'll celebrate this one on the plane back to T-Bay. But it's back to business when we land and getting back into the groove we've been in to be successful."
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As mentioned, the Musicmen travel to Thunder Bay for Thursday's back end of the home-at-home. The winner either stays first overall in the league rankings, or takes over first place.
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3-STARS
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*Henrik Lundqvist [THU] - 40 saves on 40 shots for 6th shutout of the season
**Antti Miettinen [THU] - 2 goals
***Marian Hossa [THU] - Opening goal