The Hartford Wolf Pack got exactly what every home team wants in an opener: an early goal, a quick jolt, and a chance to settle in. Then the game turned hard and fast.
Hartford led 1-0 after Liam Greentree finished off a power-play chance in the first period, but the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins answered with seven straight goals and rolled to a 7-1 win Saturday night in Hartford’s 2026-27 home opener.
Greentree’s goal came after Jake Livanavage was whistled for slashing just past the 11-minute mark of the opening period. On the power play, a clearing attempt struck Glenn Gawdin, who gathered the loose puck and moved it to Justin Dowling on the left side. Dowling then sent a cross-ice pass to Greentree at the bottom of the right circle, and Greentree beat the empty net for his first goal of the season and first professional goal.
The goal also made Greentree the third Wolf Pack player this season to score his first professional goal, joining Cole Beaudoin and Nathan Aspinall.
Hartford carried that one-goal edge into the first intermission, but the second period belonged entirely to the Penguins.
Bill Zonnon opened the floodgates a little more than a minute into the frame by putting a loose puck past Gabriel Carriere. Atley Calvert followed, then Avery Hayes added a shorthanded goal to stretch the lead. Zonnon struck again at 10:52, and Mikhail Ilyin finished the five-goal burst with a power-play goal at 17:11 to give Wilkes-Barre/Scranton full control heading into the third.
The Penguins added two more in the final period, with Tanner Howe and Owen Pickering both scoring to close out the 7-1 final.
Afterward, Wolf Pack head coach Jay Leach said the team let the game slip once things started going sideways. “We certainly had some fatigue in our game,” Leach told Blueshirt Banter following the contest.
“But what's disappointing is we really didn't use our brains enough to get our of that mindset. It just started snowballing from there.
Hartford won’t have much time to dwell on it. The Wolf Pack are back at it Sunday, hosting the Laval Rocket to finish their first three-in-three of the season. Puck drop is set for 3 pm.
“We'll take that as a challenge,” Leach told Blueshirt Banter when asked about playing just a day following a lopsided loss. “This is our first real test here as far as what kind of resolve we have as a group.
Can we learn from our mistakes? We have a great opportunity tomorrow.”
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