Father-son matchup a win
FireWolves 3-0 as coach faces son for first time
Albany FireWolves head coach Glenn Clark was going to the FlyersRed Wings game with his four kids on Saturday night.
It was a nice way to finish a day that included another FireWolves victory and a family reunion.
Alex Simmons and Ethan Walker had eight points each in Albany’s 1510 victory over the Philadelphia Wings on Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Center.
The FireWolves improved to 3-0 by beating the Wings, whose roster includes Clark’s oldest child, Taggart, a rookie out of Robert Morris. Taggart scored a goal his first time playing against his father.
“There’s more about it before and after, but when you’re in the game, it’s just you’re so focused on what you’re doing,” Glenn Clark said. “Obviously, he’s the same, right? It’s cool after the fact and prior to, but it really is the business. We kind of got a chuckle here because (Taggart) scored a goal and they were saying, ‘Oh, you won’t throw a (challenge) flag on your son. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I will.’ ”
In fact, Clark did not challenge the secondquarter
goal upon reviewing it.
After the Wells Fargo crew converted the arena from lacrosse to hockey, Glenn planned to return to the arena to watch the NHL game from a suite with Taggart and his other three children, Taggart’s girlfriend, Glenn’s brother and many others.
“Just a nice, relaxing night,” Glenn Clark said.
The FireWolves enter their first bye week already matching last year’s win total.
“To be 3-0, I wasn’t sitting there going, ‘Yeah, we’re going to run December’ kind of thing,” Clark
said. “So it’s nice. It’s certainly comfortable and it’s nice because we’re winning the ways that I stressed and prioritized talking to media, ownership, everything. We needed to get better offensively. We’ve put up 12, 17, 15 (goals in the first three games).”
The FireWolves have scored at least 15 goals in back-to-back games for the first time in their three seasons in Albany.
Albany trailed Philadelphia 6-4 on Saturday before running off 10 of the next 11 goals to seize a 14-7 lead.
Walker and Simmons each had a hat track and
five assists. Tye Kurtz and Sam Firth each added two goals and three assists.
“At halftime, we made some purposeful adjustments and some real-time discussions on what were the difference-makers in the game,” Clark said. “We really separated in that third quarter and just kind of prioritized some different things and it worked out.”
Albany goalie Doug Jamieson made 38 saves and the FireWolves won 22of-29 faceoffs.
The FireWolves don’t play again until New Year’s Eve at Saskatchewan.