WHALE CLOSE FINAL REGULAR SEASON GAME WITH A THUD 

VERSUS

It would have been a perfect night for the Connecticut Whale. The fans were in the XL Center ready for all the excitement and energy to root on their favorite team as well as taking part in the annual, “Shirts-Off-Our-Backs” celebration. For New York Rangers’ fans, all-time great Adam Graves was in the house and took pictures and signed plenty of autographs. It was also a night where they gave out the year end team awards. Nearly a perfect night  had it not been interrupted by the sixty minutes where they actually played the game.

The Whale were sloppy with the puck; played virtually no-defense, took undisciplined penalties and allowed a team that would have been better off losing the game, in terms of their playoff positioning, and on a three-game losing streak and a 1-6-1 run, to push them around in their own building on the final night of the regular season and beat them 6-3…and it wasn’t that close.

Yes, the Whale did have some of their youngsters in there including first round pick Dylan McIlrath, who had a couple of bumps along the way, but overall faired pretty well for his second AHL game. Also in the lineup was Andrew Yogan who added a helper to his two goal tally from his first game Saturday night. Yogan skated on the first line with Dale Weise and Brodie Dupont as Kris Newbury was given a night to watch a game from the team luxury box with his family.  Tommy Grant was also given another look at left wing.

But as was the case against Bridgeport the night before, it wasn’t the youngsters that were the issue in this game. It was the veterans, the guys who know better, who just didn’t show up. Sure it was a meaningless game for the Whale, having sewn up their return ticket to the playoff dance on Friday night against Bridgeport, but that’s no excuse for mailing it in.

Head Coach Ken Gernander wasn’t thrilled with the way his team played.

“When you’re playing your best hockey, you don’t make poor decisions and don’t take penalties. When you’re playing your best hockey, usually you’re in the other team’s offensive end, creating chances and forcing them to take penalties.

“When you put yourself behind because of taking penalties, you’re overtaxing some (players), you’re taking others out of the flow. You can’t be successful when you’re shorthanded all night.”

The Whale players voted their goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris (17 saves)as their MVP as it was disclosed in the post game ceremony. However, they hung their netminder out to dry in the first period taking only four shots on Norfolk starter Jaroslav Janus (17 saves, 2-5-1) while surrendering twenty to the visiting Admirals. The Whale were being outshot 11-1 when a Jared Nightingale defensive zone turnover  was cashed in by ex-Springfield Falcon Marc-Antoine Pouliot got around the Whale defenseman and sweep wide and then slide a puck past a fallen Grumet-Morris’s left leg and into the net.

6:20 later Sunday’s First Star Paul Szczechura, deflected a Troy Milam shot from the left point which went high over the glove to put the Whale down two goals and then with just 38 seconds left in the period, Blair Jones scored on the power play past a helpless Grumet-Morris.

Needless to say, Gernander was not a happy camper and pulled Grumet-Morris in favor of the struggling Cam Talbot (14 saves, 11-9-2).

“The change wasn’t necessarily a reflection on (Grumet-Morris),” Gernander said. “I don’t think he was getting a lot of help, and I don’t think he had a lot to gain from playing the last two periods the way we were playing in front of him. And you want a bit of a ‘send a message’ that you can’t play the next 40 minutes the way we played the first 20.”

The spark worked early in the second period when John Mitchell used a toe-drag move to shake off Vladimir Mihalik and moved into the slot where he fired a shot past Janus and scored his eighth of the season and his second in three games after returning after missing five games with an injury.

But the Whale surrendered two goals, one to Mattias Rittola and another to James Wright 2:19 apart to make it 5-1 and the team could not recover.

At 13:10, the Whale managed to get one back off a faceoff, as Andrew Yogin recovered the puck in the circle and slipped it out to Pavel Valentenko at right point where “The Russian Rocket“ once again uncorked a missile that not even Patrick Roy in his wouldn’t have been able to stop.  The goal was Valentenko’s fifth of the season.

Jyri Niemi added a goal off a great feed from Evgeny Grachev at 11:56 of the third frame before a busted play in front with 2:34 left in regulation would prove to be the final tally.

Now it’s on to Portland and a first round showdown with the Portland Pirates, a team the Whale match up well with. Over the regular season the Whale posted a 5-3-1 record with all of the games except one being a one goal game and three of them determined in overtime.

“We’ve had great games with Portland, and that’s what I would expect moving forward, that everything is going to be a close, tight-checking game,” Gernander said. “Usually both teams are fairly physical and like to grind it out, and that’s what we’re expecting.”

“I think we had a great run to get into the playoffs, which was huge because it was in doubt for a long time,” Grumet-Morris said. “Now that we’re in, we feel focused, and we’ll see how we show up on Thursday. Portland is going to be ready, and (Cumberland County Civic Center) is a difficult place to play because I know from playing there for and against Portland. It’s going to be a monumental challenge for us, but we’re looking forward to it.”

“They’re a skilled team that plays very well in their building, but we’ve had success there this year. So we have to stick to our game plan and do what we do best, which is crash and bang and keeping it simple and getting off to a good start,” Defenseman Jared Nightingale said. “That first period is going to be critical, along with staying out the (penalty) box.”

“We’ll relax for a few minutes tonight, get reenergized or recharged and obviously put the last couple of games behind us and focus on playing our best game starting on Thursday,” Gernander said. “I don’t know if we want to use the tapes from the last two days specifically. I think we want to focus more on bringing our best game.

“We might make corrections based on what we saw the last couple of games, but for the most part I think we’ll probably want to stress what positives, what attributes, we bring to the table and draw out our best game for Thursday night.”

Bruce Berlet gives you his view of the game and updates on several other things. Find his unabridged edition here at Howlings.  The PilotOnline has the AP-esque story from Norfolk.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

FINAL STANDINGS:

(Standings via theahl.com)

VIDEO:

SOUNDS OF THE GAME:

Ken Gernander: (1st half – Post Game) 

Ken Gernander: (2nd half – Post Game) 

Dov Grumet-Morris: 

John Mitchell: 

Jared Nightingale: 

NOTES:

*  The big question about this game really wasn’t this game at all. For the Presentation of the team awards, ESPECIALLY the team MVP, where were the Baldwins? Neither Howard Sr. or Jr. were anywhere to be found to make ANY of the presentations.

That’s just not right.

When a team is building it’s brand in no small part off the identity and historical significance of who the owners are, which this one clearly is, those same owners have an obligation to be there for something this significant.

In a year where the franchise has done so many things right, this was one thing that was done REALLY wrong.

* Rangers great and executive Adam Graves was in attendance for a second straight night and had a long and pleasant conversation with Wade Redden and then was seen giving some proper positioning technique tips to Dylan McIlrath.

LINES:

Kerbashian – Newbury – Weise

Grachev – Yogan – Couture

Soryal – Garlock – Tessier

Grant – Wiebe – Lemieux

Bickel – Kundratek
Parlett – Nightingale
Niemi- McIlrath

Grumet-Morris
Talbot

(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)

SCRATCHES:

Todd White – Concussion – Season

Devin DiDiomete – Hip – Season
Chad Kolarik – Hamstring – Day-to-Day
Michael Del Zotto – Broken Finger – Day-to-Day
Wade Redden – Healthy Scratch
Kris Newbury – Healthy Scratch
Jason Missiaen – Healthy Scratch
Kale Kerbashian – Healthy Scratch
Blake Parlett – Healthy Scratch
Shayne Wiebe – Healthy Scratch

THREE STARS:

1. NOR – P. Szczechura
2. NOR – M. Ritola
3. CT – D. Coutur

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Referee:
Marcus Vinnerborg (45)

Linesmen:
Jim Briggs (83)
Luke Galvin (2)

NEXT GAME:

It’s on to Portland and the first round of the playoffs! Game one is in Portland on Thursday night.  The puck drops at 7pm with Bob Crawford handling the play-by-play. Pregame a half an hour before game time.

To watch the game live, you can purchased it for $6.99 at AHL-live.

For Ticket information for all home games, call (860) 548-2000.

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SCORE-SHEET:

Norfolk Admirals 6 at Connecticut Whale 3 – Status: Final
Sunday, April 10, 2011 – XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Norfolk 3 2 1 – 6
Connecticut 0 2 1 – 3

1st Period-1, Norfolk, Pouliot 25 (Ritola), 9:26. 2, Norfolk, Szczechura 21 (Milam, Barberio), 15:46 (PP). 3, Norfolk, Jones 24 (Pouliot, Ritola), 19:22 (PP). Penalties-Niemi Ct (hooking), 13:55; Nightingale Ct (slashing), 15:06; Valentenko Ct (tripping), 17:35.

2nd Period-4, Connecticut, Mitchell 8 (Couture, Valentenko), 1:02. 5, Norfolk, Ritola 9 (Jones), 3:15. 6, Norfolk, Szczechura 22 (Wright, Harju), 5:34. 7, Connecticut, Valentenko 5 (Yogan, Dupont), 13:10. Penalties-Williams Ct (roughing), 15:59.

3rd Period-8, Connecticut, Niemi 3 (Grachev, Couture), 11:56 (PP). 9, Norfolk, Angelidis 20   17:36. Penalties-Gudas Nor (boarding), 10:00.

Shots on Goal-Norfolk 20-11-6-37. Connecticut 4-8-8-20.
Power Play Opportunities-Norfolk 2 / 4; Connecticut 1 / 1.
Goalies-Norfolk, Janus 2-5-1 (20 shots-17 saves). Connecticut, Grumet-Morris 13-5-1 (20 shots-17 saves); Talbot 11-9-2 (17 shots-14 saves).
A-4,825
Referees-Marcus Vinnerborg (45).
Linesmen-Jim Briggs (83), Luke Galvin (2).