Denmark’s Jensen Named AHL/CCM Player of the Week

On Sunday afternoon in their third game in three days Nicklas Jensen continued his hot play of late with a goal and assist in a 3-0 shutout win over the Springfield Falcons.

Jensen closed out the games scoring with what can only be called the “Danish Hook” taking a pass from Chris Brown at the left side of the Falcons net flipped a blind backhand shot at the net that went off Falcons goalie German Nick Truetle and was going over his shoulder into the net and got help when Falcons defenseman Daniel New as he knocked the puck out of mid-air into the net where it was heading at 17:51 of the third period.

The Wolf Pack grabbed the lead on their 5th shot of the game on a well executed breakout play.

The genesis of the play came from defenseman Swiss native Raphael Diaz quick outlet pass from the Pack defensive zone to Jensen at the Falcons blue line who then one touched a backhand pass to linemate Slovak Marek Hrivik.

Hrivik moved in about 20 feet and sent a wicked wrist shot perfectly placed top shelf stick side on at. Head coach Ken Gernander was enthused about the body of work the line of Jensen, Hrivik and Paille has displayed.

“That line has been very good of late and had an excellent weekend for us and top marks to them. Jensen and Diaz made great passes and he (Hrivik) did a nice job at opening his blade like he might pass to Paille,but he got a real good release on that shot,”.

Then Saturday night they beat the Falcons 4-3 in a shootout with Jensen playing a key role on tying the game in the last minute regulation and scoring one of the two goals in the shootout.

First Jensen snapping one over the glove hand of Czech native Marek Langhamer to tie the shootout at one apiece. Teammate Luke Adam snapshot won it in the next round.

The heroics came off the stick of leading scorer Chad Nehring who popped in his second of the night as Jensen behind the net found Nehring bearing down off the left wing faceoff area and one time buried his team leading 19^th off the skate of Falcons goalie Marek Langhamer at 19:05 to even the game at three.

Raphael Diaz got the crowd jumping just after they sat down at 18 seconds firing a rocket past Langhamer screened in front by Nicklas Jensen.

In Friday’s night’s 4-3 overtime win over Portland a team they are battling for the last playoff spot in the AHL Eastern conference as the regular season winds down, Jensen was a force all game long.

The game winning play came as Marek Hrivik notching his third assist of the night took a pass from Jensen in the Pack end of the ice raced up the left wing once in the Pirates zone and cut across the ice with Mike Matheson chasing him.

Hrivik found Mat Bodie with nice cross ice pass in the three on three format Bodie was checked by the Pirates Rocco Grimaldi he was about to fall down managed to keep his balance bounce back up and waited to Jensen got in position sent him a perfect pass that Jensen drilled his 15^th of season past goalie Mike McKenna to send a crowd of 5,329 home happy.

 “I tried to get it off quickly Bodie made a great pass not hard to score when you get a pass like that,” smiled Jensen.

It was the first Wolf Pack regular season hat trick in over three and half years when Chad Kolarik (currently playing in Switzerland) did so November 24, 2012 against Norfolk and Jensen’s third AHL hat trick of his career.

It was Jensen who tied the game at three with his second goal that all came from solid play. First Luke Adam won a draw and then Adam getting a pass from Jensen at the right side of the net had two or three chances jamming at the puck and then the puck squirted across the crease to Jensen had just gotten to the left side and quickly flipped the puck on the backhand to the open shortside at 12:16.

“It was just one of those games where the puck finds you and Luke was battling there at the net had some chances,” said Jensen whose back board work and positioning was important to the goal.

Jensen’s first goal of the game was started by linemate Canadian Daniel Paille  who got the puck to Hrivik in the left wing corner and he spotted an open Nicklas Jensen in the slot 25 feet out and Jensen didn’t wasted little time firing the shot as soon as Hrivik’s pass hit his stick with 41.5 seconds left in the period that gave the team a 2-1 lead to enter the third period.

The goal was Jensen’s 13^th of the season matching his uniform number.

The line of Jensen, Hrivik and Paille for the weekend had 12 points.

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