Local pro hockey: Deveny, Port Huron shut down Watertown in regular-season home finale

Apr. 9—WATERTOWN — The home portion of the Watertown Wolves' regular-season schedule mercifully came to an end Saturday night.

The Wolves home and late-season struggles continued as they were dealt yet another loss with the playoffs on the horizon and now less than two weeks away.

Liam Freeborn scored three goals and goalie Ian Wallace made 46 saves to back the Port Huron Prowlers to a 4-0 triumph over Watertown in a Federal Prospects Hockey League game before 569 fans at Watertown Municipal Arena,

With the setback in their home finale before the playoffs, the Wolves not only lost their sixth consecutive game, they also suffered their 10th straight loss on home ice.

"It's definitely been tough," Wolves forward Mathias Tellstrom said. "But I feel like we have a good group of guys here and we're just going to keep working on team bonding and not get too comfortable with where we're at right now. We know we have to work on things. But at the end, we're in the playoffs, so we've just got to prepare for the first round and do our best there, because anything can happen."

Even with its recent hard times, Watertown (18-31-4) has already qualified for the playoffs and will host the first game of a first-round playoff series April 21.

"A lot of injuries have plagued us, we were down to four (defensemen) tonight, we've just had a lot of injuries" Wolves team captain and player/assistant coach Charlie Pens Jr. said. "We've just got to try and make the best of it."

The Wolves remain in third place in the league's Empire Division and currently hold the No. 3 seed in the Empire Division's playoff field, and have three games remaining in the regular season — all this week and all on the road.

"The mood is positive, I mean we outworked these guys tonight, obviously we had 60 shots," Pens Jr. said. "We just couldn't bury them and that's kind of been the roadblock for the last few weeks. Like in five games, we have four goals and that's not going to cut it."

As the regular season winds down, there is clearly a world of difference between this year's Wolves team and last year's championship squad.

Watertown is assured of finishing with its worst record in the regular season in franchise history. This will also be the first Wolves team to finish below .500 in the standings.

Last season, Watertown recorded franchise bests in wins (43), points (129) and winning percentage (.729) en route to winning its third league title.

The team's current active roster also does not include one player from the title-winning squad.

Over the past month, several members from last year's championship team have recently been released from the Wolves, including Greg and Brendan Hussey, with both now playing with Carolina.

"From my own experience from the teams I've been on in the past, that's kind of how it's been working here in North America," Tellstrom said. "I mean guys come and go, but you kind of get used to it at one point, I mean we're all professionals and you need to get the job done by the end of the day. So I like the guys we have now and we're just going to move forward and do our best in the playoffs."

"We're not one of the teams in the league that holds guys' rights over their heads and holds them for a year or two," Pens Jr. said. "But if guys want to leave, then obviously we let them leave. And back on the Husseys, Brendan Hussey had seven points this year for us ... and Greg statistically was our third goalie, so I don't think that was a huge loss. I think that Sam Hrabcak and Fabian Lehner, who are injured, those are big losses for us."

The team has also endured seemingly wave after wave of injuries, including Larry Yellowknee, currently sidelined and is one of the last links to the title team.

"I can't think off the top of my head all the guys who are injured, if you look at the roster online, you can see all the guys that are on season-ending (injury reserve)," Pens Jr. said. "Which has been unfortunate, it's hockey and the way the rules are this year in the Fed is you can't have an IR, so when guys get injured, you have to release them or trade them or at this point of the season, just release them."

After showing some signs of life in a 4-1 home loss to Port Huron on Friday, the Wolves showed little fight on Saturday against Port Huron (28-22-4).

"We've got to crash the net," Pens Jr. said. "We've got to get guys to go directly to the net and get in those dirty areas and get rebounds."

In inauspicious fashion for the Wolves, the Prowlers opened the as Freeborn scored on a wraparound shot past goalie Adam Wisco just 2:01 into the game.

Port Huron led 2-0 on Bryan Parsons' power-play goal with 7:43 left in the opening period as his shot rang off the goal post and into the net, with former Wolves and SUNY Canton player Joe Deveny assisting on the tally.

"It was good weekend, it's nice to get a sweep as we get near the playoffs," said Deveny, a winger who played for the Wolves in his rookie season of 2019-20. "The season's been good, it's been up and down for us, but we've had trouble sweeping weekends, but to get this is big for us."

Freeborn went on to score a goal with 9:50 remaining in the game for Port Huron and went on to add a an empty-net shorthanded goal with 1:15 left for the final margin.

"It's been good," Deveny said of his season for the Prowlers, who have clinched a playoff berth and sit in fourth place in the Continental Division. "I'm having a career year, which is nice, so it's been good. I played here two years ago, so it's nice to come back here, I know a bunch of guys on the team here."

Wisco, a rookie netminder, made 36 stops on 39 shots faced. The Wolves also outshot the Prowlers, 46-40, but were held to one goal over two games.

"We just need to get those rebounds and be tougher in front of the net," Tellstrom said.

The Wolves' previous home win was Feb. 11 when they beat division-leading Danbury, 5-4.

"We're trying to get healthy over the next few weeks and just take it from there," Pens Jr. said. "I mean when we get a full roster together, when we get Elijah Wilson back, he's a good guy and we obviously need him and Tellstrom, he's playing with injuries, I mean a lot of guys are playing with injuries right now. Even (Lincoln) Gingerich, he's a guy who played every game this year until recently. I'm very excited to for us get healthy, but yeah, it's been a tough stretch."

"I like that team, they play a hard game and they play right to the buzzer," Deveny added about the Wolves. "They're not an easy team to beat, so it's good to get six points on the weekend, they're a good team."

The Wolves will play at Elmira on Wednesday before playing at Delaware next Friday and Saturday to finish out their regular season.

"Absolutely, we have a good group of guys who have all the grit we need, we have the skill, we have the chemistry, we have everything so we've just got to get the pieces together now and get ready for the playoffs," Tellstrom added.

—NOTES: Watertown entered with a 10-17-2 record at home, with an 8-13-2 road mark. ... The Wolves have also lost 13 of their past 14 games, earning a pair of points from two of those losses, including a 2-1 overtime home loss to Delaware last Sunday. Deveny, a former team captain at SUNY Canton, has recorded career highs in goals (30), assists (28) and points (58) in 48 games this season.