VERSUS 
The Connecticut Whale travelled to the DCU Center in Worcester Sunday afternoon with a five-game winning streak against and a two point lead on their Atlantic Division opponents. Their mission: Grab two points; Come out of the game healthy and finally a little more distance between themselves and the Sharks to secure a hold on third place which would guarantee them a spot in the playoffs.
The good news, they came out of the game no worse physically than they did when they entered it. The bad news, the same old story, an inconsistent performance and lack of a sixty minute effort led to them handing two points to the Sharks and fell back into a tie with Worcester for third place when they dropped a 5-4 decision in front of 4,247 Sunday afternoon.
“We can never seem to play a full 60.” the Whale’s leading scorer, Jeremy Williams said. “We either have two great periods and then falter in 20. It’s always those little things that when there’s breakdowns they seem to score. It’s frustrating because these guys want to win.”
“We just didn’t deserve to win this game,” Assistant Captain Kris Newbury said. “They just outworked us from the start of the game until the finish. We deserved our result tonight.”
“It was pretty disappointing,” Coach Ken Gernander said. “(Saturday) night where we were so good playing through some adversity or some frustrating points, in the game tonight when things got a little frustrating we deviated.”
The Whale potted their hosts a 3-0 lead in a little over the first 21:19 of the game and battled back to pull within a goal on a Newbury goal with 2:56 to go in the second, but then John McCarthy scored his first of two on the game with just 1:01 left in the second and Kevin Henderson scored just 1:49 into the third to restore the three goal lead that the Whale just could not overcome.
It was NOT a good performance for netminder Cam Talbot who fought with the puck all night.
“I don’t think it was his best game tonight,” Gernander said.
Talbot didn’t disagree.
“I’ll take the blame for this (loss). The guys came out in the third and battled hard and tried to get us the win. If I play as I normally do it’s a win for us. I was definitely battling the puck a little bit tonight; a couple of those goals shouldn’t have gone in so we should have had the win tonight.
“We really should have been motivated to put these guys four points behind us, but like I said, I didn’t have my best game tonight, came out a little flat in the first period and they got some chances and I should have made some stops. It’s just the way it goes sometimes.
“It was one of those games…and tonight it was mine.”
Much like their come-from-behind-win Saturday night, the Whale found themselves down a goal early when Dan DaSilva took a pass in the right circle from Michael Swift and moved up in the circle untouched and was able to fire a hard wrist shot that beat Talbot (24 saves, 10-5-2 ) over the glove at 5:29.
After exchanging penalty kills with the Sharks, at 12:19 the Whale had a chance tie the score as Francis Lemieux rushed up the right wing side and appeared to slide a shot under Shark starter Carter Hutton (29 saves, 7-3-2). The goal judge put the light on, but referee Tim Mayer emphatically waved it off saying that he had Lemieux for a high stick penalty prior to the goal.
Whale fans in attendance booed rather emphatically, but Newbury didn’t have a problem with the call. “I think it was fair,” Newbury said. “From what I saw on the bench the goalie’s helmet was off. Anytime that happens you have to worry about the safety of him. I think (Mayer) made the right call. It was a bang-bang play and he didn’t know what to do and he said he just had a brain cramp there.”
With the goal wiped off and Lemieux in the penalty box, it only took Worcester seven seconds to put the puck behind Talbot and in the net.
After a terrific effort by Benn Ferriero at the blue line to keep a Whale clearing attempt in the zone, the right winger found Jamie McGinn in the right face off circle and then a quick pass over to Tommy Wingels in between the two circles and the Massachusetts native fired it under Talbot for the 2-0 lead.
Talbot did have flashes of showing his game. With just 2:15 left in the period, a tremendous outlet pass broke Dan DaSilva free for a breakaway, but the Whale goalie waited him out and used his pad to turn the scoring attempt aside.
The Whale dug their hole just that much deeper to start the second period.
After defenseman Mike Moore went to the penalty box at 19 seconds of the second period, John McCarthy got the first of two goals in the game and his first two of the AHL season. A Whale turnover in the offensive zone was picked up by McCarthy and when Jamie McGinn joined him on the rush it became a 2-on-1 up ice against Wade Redden. McCarthy uncorked a hard shot from the right circle that blazed under and by Talbot’s blocker at 1:19 to make it a three-goal lead.
But the Whale would battle back.
Blake Parlett fired a shot on Hutton that became airborne and was knocked out of the air by Sean Sullivan. The puck went right out to Kelsey Tessier who heard Newbury banging his stick and got it to him immediately. Newbury did the rest.
“I just tried to find some open space. I knew their D was stuck behind me so I just tried to find a little hole and Tessier made a great pass and I was able to finish.
“I feel more confident with my shot and stuff and I’ve been scoring more as of late so the confidence is there, (Confidence) is not a problem.”
It was 3-1.
Once again the Whale exchanged penalties with their Worcester neighbors…only this one cost the Sharks.
“Turnabout is fair play,” says the old cliché, but that’s exactly what the Whale did.
With Stu Bickel in the box for an unnecessary cross-checking penalty at 16:01. But a bad pass in the defensive zone that was picked up by Blake Parlett, who has been quite the find since being recalled on Feb. 17 from the Whale’s ECHL affiliate the Greenville Road Warriors, who’s pass broke Brodie Dupont and Newbury out on a 2-on-1 (Benn Ferriero). Dupont didn’t get all of it, but he had enough on it to get to sail by the outstretched glove of Hutton.
The Whale had closed the gap to within a single goal. That lasted all of 1:54 as the Sharks would strike again.
Patrick Davis put the puck in the left corner. McCarthy picked it up and swung behind the Whale net headed for the right side. Talbot picks up the story.
“There was a guy coming around the side (McCarthy) and I thought he was going to pass it out so I was anticipating the pass and he wrapped it through my legs.”
Scoring late in a period can have a real detrimental effect to the psyche of a team. Allowing another early can be a crusher and the Whale did just that.
Following a faceoff win by TJ Trevelyan in the offensive zone, the puck advances to Irwin on the point. He puts the puck on goal where Henderson was and he knocks it under the pads of Talbot reestablishing the Shark’s three-goal lead.
“There were a couple of goals that are pretty tough to take when we have the momentum, where we could make a push up but we end up giving up a goal.” Gernander stated. “There were a couple of points in time where we had some good momentum where we took penalties that squelched our momentum as well.”
Williams saw it much the same way. “It’s a game of momentum and it always seems that when we get some momentum we give it right back or we get down after they score a goal. We have to fight harder. We have to have that tenacious desperation at the start of the game and not just at the end.”
“They got a couple of lucky ones,” Newbury added. “But at the same time they outworked us to get the faceoff in our end and stuff and bounces happen when you outwork teams and that’s what happened tonight.”
The Whale pressed hard in the third period scoring twice.
The first Whale goal came off an excellent effort by Parlett but an even more impressive effort by Kelsey Tessier. He shot the puck from the ground after getting knocked down from a set up pass by Parlett who’d rushed the puck up the ice along the right side from a Dupont feed.
Williams put it all in perspective. “Whenever you come down to a game with a team that you’re in a race for that’s solely in your hands really. It’s something that you can control and we came out flat and it tough to come back when you’re down 3-0,” He said. “We made a late push but it wasn’t enough. The good thing is that it’s the little things that we can fix pushing forward here.”
The Whale would manage to make it even closer with a goal at 2:13.
“(Kundratek) made a great play (digging the puck out of the corner). He saw that I was behind the D and got it to me. It kept going off my stick. I didn’t really feel like doing a spin-a-rama but that’s where the puck went. I actually didn’t know if it went in, I heard it hit a bar and you know, lucky shot. It was a breakdown and we got to capitalize.”
“We’ll have a good week of practice and work on the things we need to work on and hopefully be ready for next weekend,” Newbury said. “We have got to find a way to win games this is playoff type hockey for them to control the game the way they did, in those first two periods especially, that can’t happen.”
“We have to put this behind us,” Talbot said. “We’re still tied with these guys in the standings and that’s the last game we have against them, so we have thirteen games left to put them behind us. This is not the end of the road for us. So we have to keep plugging away and get the next one.”
Bob Crawford does double duty Sunday calling the game and writing the game story at CTWhale.com. Bill Ballou has the Worcester perspective at Telegram.com.
GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET
STANDINGS:
(Standings via theahl.com)
VIDEO:
SOUNDS OF THE GAME:
Ken Gernander:
Cam Talbot:
Jeremy Williams:
Kris Newbury:
NOTES:
* Any and all hockey fans should read Larry Brooks’ “Slap Shot” column in Sunday’s New York Post. It’s just brilliantly written and we could not agree with it more.
* This is the third defeat in a row where the Whale outshot their opponents.
* The Whale have surrendered five goals in regulation four other times and have not won any of those games. (Oct. 20 5-1 to Norfolk, Dec. 19 5-0 to Syracuse, Jan. 7 5-2 to Norfolk again, Feb. 24 to Charlotte 5-1) Prior to Sunday, Chad Johnson had started in net in all of them.
* The Whale entered the game 3rd in the AHL on the PP at 20.7% and 11th on the OK at 84.2%. They’ve scored 7 Shorties and allowed 3.
* Another interesting stat, when the team scores first, which they’ve done 30 times, their record is 22-3-1-4 (.817). They have not scored the first goal in 37 games. Given the team is 5-15-1-2 when trailing after one and 5-21-0-2 when trailing after two, the stat can’t be good.
LINES:
Dupont – Newbury – Weise
Grachev – Mitchell – Couture
Tessier – Mitchell – Williams
Soryal – DiDiomete
Redden – Nightingale
Valentenko – Parlett
Bickel – Kundratek
Baldwin
Talbot
Grumet-Morris
(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)
SCRATCHES:
Ryan Garlock – Healthy Scratch
Chad Kolarik – Undisclosed Injury – Day-to-Day
Michael Del Zotto – Broken Finger, 2-3 weeks
Jyri Niemi – Separated Shoulder – Four – Six Weeks
Todd White – Concussion – Indefinite
Chris McKelvie – Foot Surgery, Season
THREE STARS:
1. WOR – J. McCarthy
2. WOR – D. DaSilva
3. CT – K. Newbury
ON ICE OFFICIALS:
Referee:
Tim Mayer (19)
Linesmen:
Todd Whittemore (70)
Bob Paquette (18)
NEXT GAME:
The Whale are off until Friday when they go on the road once again, this time to Manchester for a battle with the first place Monarchs. The puck drops at 7pm with Bob Crawford handling the play-by-play with the 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.
Too far away or can’t make it? Listen live at WTIC.com or from your cell phone or computer visit www.twitter.com/howlingstoday for complete live in-game coverage of all games both home and away.
SCORE-SHEET:
Connecticut Whale 4 at Worcester Sharks 5 – Status: Final
Sunday, March 13, 2011 – DCU Center
Connecticut 0 2 2 – 4
Worcester 2 2 1 – 5
1st Period-1, Worcester, DaSilva 14 (Swift), 5:29. 2, Worcester, Wingels 15 (McGinn, Ferriero), 12:26 (PP). Penalties-Kundratek Ct (holding), 5:56; Schaus Wor (holding), 8:32; Irwin Wor (hooking), 10:15; Lemieux Ct (high-sticking), 12:19.
2nd Period-3, Worcester, McCarthy 1 1:19 (SH). 4, Connecticut, Newbury 14 (Tessier, Parlett), 11:29. 5, Connecticut, Dupont 14 (Newbury, Parlett), 17:04 (SH). 6, Worcester, McCarthy 2 (Davis, Sullivan), 18:59. Penalties-Moore Wor (boarding), 0:19; Kundratek Ct (interference), 3:01; Mitchell Ct (high-sticking), 12:53; Bickel Ct (cross-checking), 16:01.
3rd Period-7, Worcester, Henderson 7 (Irwin, Trevelyan), 1:49. 8, Connecticut, Tessier 8 (Parlett, Dupont), 14:37. 9, Connecticut, Williams 28 (Kundratek, Grachev), 17:48. Penalties-Petrecki Wor (cross-checking), 4:07; Grachev Ct (hooking), 9:16.
Shots on Goal-Connecticut 12-9-12-33. Worcester 10-13-6-29.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 0 / 4; Worcester 1 / 6.
Goalies-Connecticut, Talbot 10-4-2 (29 shots-24 saves). Worcester, Hutton 6-3-2 (33 shots-29 saves).
A-4,247
Referees-Tim Mayer (19).
Linesmen-Todd Whittemore (70), Bob Paquette (18).
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