By Bruce Berlet
Connecticut Whale right wing Dale Weise likely didn’t need a plane to fly from Hartford to Philadelphia on Friday afternoon.
With former Hartford Wolf Pack right wing Ryan Callahan sidelined 6-to-8 weeks with a broken left hand sustained when he blocked a shot in a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night, the New York Rangers called up Weise, who hoped the second time was a charm for making his NHL debut.
“I’m totally pumped up for the opportunity to play in the next level,” Weise told Howlings.net before his flight. “It’s been a tough start to the season, but I’ve working really hard and feel like I’m ready.”
Weise, 22, missed 18 of the Whale’s first 30 games because of injuries but still had six goals and five assists, including the winners in the last two games against the Adirondack Phantoms. It was part of a three-game point streak that included three goals and two assists. Weise averages 0.92 points, which ranks second on the team, and is tied for third with three power-play goals and ranks fourth with six goals despite two lengthy absences.
Ironically, Weise got his first call-up at the end of last season because of an injury to Callahan but was a healthy scratch for four games. By all accounts, he’ll be in the lineup Saturday at 1 p.m. when the Rangers face the Atlantic Division-leading Philadelphia Flyers.
“It’s funny the way things work out,: Weise said. “Last year Cally gets hurt, and I get recalled, and this year he gets hurt and I get recalled. I really have to thank him when I see him. He’s doing everything he can to help me get an NHL career.”
Weise earned a shot at the major leagues last season when he had AHL career highs in goals (28), assists (22), points (50), penalty minutes (114), power-play goals (four), shorthanded goals (five), game-winning goals (seven) and shots (177) and tied his career high with a plus-8 rating. His five shorthanded goals tied for the AHL lead.
Weise, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has 45 goals, 39 assists and 200 penalty minutes in 159 career AHL games with the Wolf Pack/Whale.
If Weise does play Saturday, he won’t have to worry about running into former Whalers defenseman Chris Pronger, who will miss 4-to-6 weeks with a broken bone in his right foot. Pronger, 36, the Whalers’ first-round pick (second overall) in 1993, had surgery Friday afternoon to repair a broken first metatarsal that he sustained when he blocked a shot during the second period of the Flyers’ 5-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night.
It’s the second time this season Pronger will have a long-term injury absence. He had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in August and missed all of training camp and the first two games of the regular season while recovering.
In 31 games this season, Pronger has four goals and 11 assists while averaging 22:20 minutes, second on the team. Last season, his first with the Flyers, Pronger was named team MVP after getting 10 goals and 45 points while playing in all 82 games. Then he had 18 points in 22 games in helping the Flyers reach the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1997, averaging a league-high 29:03 of ice time in the postseason.
“It’s disappointing,” Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said. “It is what it is. Other guys will pick up the slack.”
OFF THE STREET AND ONTO THE COYOTES BENCH IN MSG
A sudden bout with the flu for Phoenix Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov led to a Walter Mitty Moment for Tom Fenton.
Bryzgalov was scheduled to be the Coyotes’ starting goalie against the Rangers on Wednesday night, but the flu knocked him out of the net, leaving the team no time to call up a goaltender that could get to Madison Square Garden in time for the 7 p.m. opening faceoff.
So the Coyotes signed Fenton, the director of game operations and community relations at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., to a pro contract just hours before the game.
“I was getting my hair cut at the time,” Fenton told MSG Network when asked about receiving a call from the Coyotes. “At first, I thought everyone was playing a big joke on me – a couple of my buddies playing a prank.”
The Coyotes didn’t become aware of Bryzgalov’s illness until after the team meal Thursday afternoon and considered signing goaltending coach Sean Burke, whose 18-year NHL career included five seasons with the Hartford Whalers. But the 43-year-old Burke, a NHL All-Star who played seven games with the AHL’s Springfield Falcons before retiring in 2007, would have had to spend 24 hours on waivers first.
Fenton, a native of Sarnia, Ontario, played four years at American International College in Springfield, where he was 1-12-1 with a 3.60 GAA and .886 save percentage in his senior season (2008-09), the last time he played organized hockey.
The 26-year-old Fenton backed up former Wolf Pack goalie Jason LaBarbera, who made 33 saves but lost 4-3 on Erik Christensen’s shootout goal as the Rangers improved to an astonishing 9-0-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games. Captain/center and Trumbull native Chris Drury got his first point of the season in his third game when rookie Derek Stepan converted his rebound for the tying goal, his seventh but first at home, with 5:43 left in regulation.
But Drury earned plenty of points after Rangers backup goalie Martin Biron had to endure chants of “Hen-rik, Hen-rik, Hen-rik” in reference to Henrik Lundqvist and sarcastic cheers when he made easy back-to-back saves after allowing two soft goals in the opening 5:53 of the game.
“After that second goal, Dru (Drury) skated by and slapped me in the pad and said, ‘Show them what you got,’ ” Biron said. “I felt pretty good that the captain skated by me and gave me a vote of confidence. That got me back into the game.”
As the Coyotes’ Eric Belanger, a friend and junior teammate of Biron, prepared to try to keep the Coyotes alive in the shootout, the MSG crowd was chanting, “Mar-ty, Mar-ty, Mar-ty.”
Maybe that’s why Belanger lost control of the puck after faking a slapshot, giving the Rangers their eighth win in their last 11 starts during which Brandon Prust scored his league-leading three shorthanded goals, including one Thursday night, to increase the Blueshirts’ total to a league-high 11.
Fenton, meanwhile, only got in the net before the game.
“I took some warm-up shots in practice,” Fenton told MSG. “I was a little shaky at first, but the guys made me feel really comfortable out there.”
Warm-ups were enough for a graduate student skipping a final exam for his NHL shot in the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“It was great. This whole place is electric,” Fenton said. “They always say that cliché,but once you’re out there it’s a totally different experience. Words can’t really describe it.”
Coyotes captain Shane Doan joked during a between-periods interview with FSN Arizona that “we’re trying to find a way to get him on the scoresheet.”
Fenton was actually a bit lucky to even have a chance of getting in a NHL game after the traffic he encountered on the New York Thruway.
“It was bad,” Fenton said. “I was actually on the phone because I didn’t think my GPS was doing justice, and I just wanted to get here as quickly as I could because they told me I had a bunch of paperwork to fill out. That was almost more nerve-wracking than the entire game, just getting down here and ducking and weaving through other people, then finding somewhere to park.”
The Capitals went through a similar situation in December 2008 when starter Jose Theodore suffered a hip flexor injury, and there wasn’t enough time to get Semyon Varlamov to the rink in Hershey to back up Brent Johnson. So Brett Leonhardt, a producer for the team’s web site, dressed as the backup and took warm-ups before the Capitals’ game with the Ottawa Senators. Leonhardt was eventually replaced on the bench by Varlamov midway through the first period.
Fenton didn’t have that luxury but got to experience a night of a lifetime, traffic or no traffic.
HAMDEN NATIVE QUICK TELLS STORY ON LAKINGS.COM
Los Angeles Kings standout goalie Jonathan Quick wrote an account for www.LAKings.com recounting his days growing up in Hamden and how he became passionate about hockey.
Quick’s story begins: “Hamden is where I lived my whole life. Most of my memories at an early age revolve around the second year I skated. I played defense then, and I wondered if I would still remember how to skate. I was nervous as heck going out there, but I took one step on the ice and was pleased that I still remembered how.
I played defense for only two years. I grew up with many kinds my age and we played street hockey. I always wanted to play goalie during street hockey. Later I told my parents I wasn’t going to play hockey unless they let me be goalie.
For the first maybe four or five years, the parks and recreation place in our town had goalie equipment. It was old, beat-up equipment that they would let kids use, so I would go to the cages there and they would hand me a glove, blocker, pants, pads and other equipment.
My hometown has a strong hockey tradition. We had the Hartford Whalers for a few years, but I grew up watching the New York Rangers. I wasn’t a huge Whalers fans, and I liked that the Rangers had Mark Messier, (Cheshire native) Brian Leetch and Adam Graves. Plus they had Mike Richter in net.
The first time I went to an NHL was with my buddy and his parents. They had tickets to a Whalers-Detroit Red Wings game. I was 13 when I went to see my second game. It happened while I was playing with the Junior Rangers in the Pee Wee World Championship Quebec Tournament. In between periods we got to go out and have a shootout during the intermission. So we were able to hang out and watch the game and meet a few of the players. When I see the kids at an NHL game today go out there during intermission I kind of think back to that. I was in their shoes 10-12 years ago.”
To read the rest of Quick’s story, go to LAKings.com. He talks about his time with the Manchester Monarchs, where he played with former Wolf Pack goalies Dan Cloutier and Jason LaBarbera. Quick is a leading candidate for the NHL All-Star Game as he has a 15-6-1 with a 2.18 goals-against average and .925 save percentage for a team that’s 17-11-1. That includes making a career-high 51 saves in a 5-0 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Monday night, his second shutout of the season.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a game where a goalie stood on his head like that,” Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. “It was unbelievable. If we didn’t have him back there, I don’t think we would have won.”
The Kings notched only their second shutout at Detroit. Quick joined Rogie Vachon, who was in goal in a 4-0 victory over the Red Wings on March 30, 1978.
“Well, it’s great to get those saves,” Quick said, “but at the end of the day, those two points is all that matters. It felt like one point got away the other night against Minnesota (a 3-2 overtime loss), and it’s great to come into this rink (and win). It’s a tough rink and a great hockey team, and we had some tremendous goal support. The power play was clicking, and the PK was clicking and it was a good team win.”
PARENTEAU HELPS CAPUANO GET FIRST NHL COACHING WIN
Former Wolf Pack right wing P.A. Parenteau ended a 13-game scoring drought with a power-play goal that ended a 1-for-50 run with a man advantage as the New York Islanders notched a rare victory on Thursday night, 3-2 over the Ducks before a season-low 7,659 at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.
It was Parenteau’s fifth goal, fourth on the power play, in his first season with the Islanders, who have the NHL’s worst record (6-18-5). Former Bridgeport Sound Tigers Blake Comeau and Matt Moulson also scored in the next 1:39 for a 3-0 lead, sending Ducks goalie Curtis McIlhinney to the bench in favor of Jonas Hiller. Parenteau set up the winner when he poked the puck away from Saku Koivu to Moulson, who scored his team-leading 11th goal on a backhander.
The Islanders had to hold on for the victory, their second in 22 games since mid-October (2-17-3) and the first for former Sound Tigers coach Jack Capuano since he replaced Scott Gordon as Islanders interim coach on Nov. 15.
“Nothing surprises me,” Capuano said when asked about the Ducks rallying on goals by Joffrey Lupul and former Islanders wing Jason Blake. “We played a great first period and then we had to hang on, but we did.” … The Sound Tigers’ annual holiday toy drive runs through Sunday. The Sound Tigers are working with the Bridgeport Fire Department to gather toys and teddy bears to be distributed to local children and families. Fans are encouraged to donate during games Saturday night and Sunday, and the toys and teddy bears will be distributed by Sound Tigers players and front office staff members. Before a game against Worcester on Sunday afternoon, the Bridgeport Fire Department will play a charity hockey game against the Worcester Fire Department to assist families of Bridgeport firefighter Michel Baik and Lt. Steven Valeasquez, who were killed in the line of duty on July 24 in Bridgeport.
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