IT WASN’T PRETTY; THAT’S FOR SURE! 

VERSUS

“That was what  we call in hockey, ‘a greasy win,’” Connecticut Whale Assistant Coach J.J. Daigneault said his team gutted one out and defeated the Springfield Falcons 3-1 Sunday afternoon in front of 4, 985 at the XL Center. “But we’ll take it,” He said with a smile.

Whale Head Coach Ken Gernander was a bit more direct. “We’re not going to thumb our nose at any win at this point in time,” He said. “We’re happy with the two points it was a pretty good grind of a weekend of three games in three nights. The Sunday ones are maybe a little bit tough, but the guys got through it and got us the two points.

“It’s that time of year when those things take their toll on you, so you gotta manage your game a little bit. And it’s not always equal footing, three-in-three.  You have a guy that does extra on both special teams and is a physical guy, maybe a bigger guy and he really has to pay the price to maintain that pace for two nights as opposed to maybe a guy that floated around for two nights, is on the perimeter and plays a little bit different role. It affects each guy differently, so I thought that our guys played hard, and most importantly got the win.”

There are currently three teams, the Whale, the Worcester Sharks and the Binghamton Senators fighting for the two remaining undecided playoff spots. The Whale are in third place and hold one of the two spots with a four-point lead over their Atlantic Division rival, the Sharks and hold a single point margin over the East Division’s Senators. Whichever team has more points, the fourth place Atlantic or fifth place East division will go to the playoffs while the other goes home. The Sharks are currently on the outside looking in as they trail the Sens by three points. All three teams have played the same amount of games.

Given the desperation of their own situation and playing a rapidly fading Springfield Falcon team that came into the game with a tired team that had extended their current losing streak to 10-games after being shut out by the Senators 2-0 the night before, you’d have expected that the Whale, despite playing their third game in less than 72 hours, to have come out looking to end this one quickly and put the two points in the standings.

“We want to build an identity as a forechecking team and a pressuring team and giving them three-in-three, if you’re going to be killing penalties and not getting pucks deep, and you’re a half-step off, it changes the complexity of the game a little bit.” Gernander said.

Even knowing all that was at stake, the Whale came out slow and sluggish and clearly looked out of sync on any number of levels.

Dale Weise, who would score what would prove to be the game winner in the second period, acknowledged his team’s poor play over the first half of the game. “I didn’t think we had a very good start, but once again our goaltender held us in the game and we did what we had to do to win the game.”

Cam Talbot was between the pipes for the Whale for his first start since a poor outing in a 5-4 loss to Worcester the previous Sunday.  Talbot spent time talking with goaltending guru and Rangers coach, Benoit Allaire.

“This was a big game for me and obviously a big game for the team,” Talbot said. “I talked to Benoit earlier in the week and he said, ‘You just have to forget about (the start in Worcester). You just have to move forward. That’s what all the best goaltenders do. Hank (Rangers All-Star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist) can give up seven one night and come get a shutout the next night. That’s what separates the best from the worst. So you’ve got to put them behind you and focus on to the next one.’

“(Benny) is great with (the goaltenders). He’s never negative. He always focuses on the positive. That really helps. He’s really easy to play for. He doesn’t care if you make a mistake, he just expects you to stop the net one and that’s all I tried to do tonight.

The rookie netminder went on to add, “Basically he said stop the puck and don’t worry about anything. If you let up a rebound, you just have to be in position for the next save. I was seeing the puck a lot better. I was seeing through screens a lot better and we blocked a lot of big shots, especially Jared Nightingale and Pavel Valentenko, who’s like having three goalies.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good goalie tandem right now. There are not too many games where we’re losing because of goaltending, that’s for sure. Then again, we haven’t lost that much at all lately. Any time you can keep the opposing team to one or two goals, you know our team is going to fire in at least three. The guys have been playing great, and they came out in the third period and really kept the shots to the outside. They got a few inside on the power play, but the guys did a good job of clogging up the middle and let me see all the shots.

“Guys are really buying into the system in the offensive and defensive zone. We’ve been working the puck down low and getting the third man high, so we’ve been limiting the odd-man rushes. Anytime you can limit odd-man rushes, they have to dump it in and then we have the first guys back making good outlet passes. Every game this time of year is obviously a playoff game, so there aren’t going to be many scoring chances, and it’s going to be tight games from here on out.”

“Last Sunday’s game probably wasn’t indicative of Cam’s best hockey.” Gernander said. “Just like everybody this time of year, you want him playing his best hockey. He and Dov (Grumet Morris, the Whale’s other netminder) have brought some pretty solid goaltending to us, so just like any other member of the team, you have to bring your best hockey right now.”

Despite posting a three shots in the first period, which tied a season low, which they’d done three previous times, (Oct. 10  in a 4-3 loss to Worcester; Mar. 2 a 3-2 win over these same Falcons both came in the first period of those games and in the third period in a 2-1 loss to Hershey on Mar. 11) , the Whale managed to get on the scoreboard with one of them.

Evgeny Grachev made a strong move up the ice. He had Maksim Mayorov chasing him up the ice and blue right past Tomas Kana along the left side boards. As he approached center ice he hit a streaking Jeremy Williams rushing up along the right wing. Grachev put the puck right on Williams’ stick.

As Williams drove past Trevor Frischmon, all the centerman could do was throw his stick out there at the Whale’s right winger. It went to no avail as Williams headed into the right circle where defenseman Theo Ruth tried in vain to make a play, but Williams’ snap shot went over the far shoulder of starter and ex-Wolf Pack goaltender David LeNeveu (10 saves, 16-20-2) for his 29th of the season at 9:35.

But that lead didn’t last long as Tomas Kundratek took a useless and lazy Interference call at 10:16 that put the Whale on the penalty kill.

It only took nine seconds for the game to become tied.

Kris Newbury won a defensive zone draw back to veteran Wade Redden in the right corner. Redden then fired the puck around the back wall to Brodie Dupont on the left side. The left winger semi-fanned on the clearing attempt and it wound up on the stick of David Savard on the left point. Savard through it over to Tomas Kubalik who sent it right back to the Falcon defenseman. Savard fired form the left point with Newbury all over him, but the puck hit the pants of Ben Guite who was crossing the slot at the time. Both Redden and Valentenko were in front of Talbot dealing with forward Trevor Smith and screened their netminder from seeing the puck clearly on the shot.

In the second period the Whale came back and had a number of excellent scoring chances early on. Weise had a terrific shot at 7:40 but was turned aside by LeNeveu and then Derek Couture and Francis Lemieux had a 2-on-1 odd man rush that the Falcon goaltender denied.

The Whale were buzzing the net starting with a shot from Weise from the top of the slot. The puck rebounded off of LeNeveu to Stu Bickel on the left side. Bickel’s shot hit LeNeveu and went out to the right side and also caused the Falcon netminder to lose his stick. Newbury recovered the stick behind the net and fired it up along the boards to the right point to Kundratek. The Whale defenseman sent it back down to Newbury in the corner. Newbury then shook Frischmon and found Weise in the right circle all alone. Cody Goloubef tried to get in Weise’s way, but the Whale right winger used him as a screen and threw the puck on net.

“We had a set play off the faceoff, and Tomas hit me up high and I just put it on net looking for a tip,” Weise said. “I find the soft areas pretty well, and Newbs knows where I am so I gave a quick holler. He made a great pass, and I got it off quick. I saw LeNeveu didn’t have his stick, so I tried to keep it low and get it in his feet somewhere. There wasn’t much (LeNeveu) could do.”

The Whale were given a brief 5-on-3 late in the second when Jonathan Sigalet took a tripping call at 12:47 and then John Moore took a Delay of Game penalty when he launched the puck into the stands at 14:28 which gave the Whale 19 seconds of two man advantage. They did nothing with either power play and finished the game 0-for-4 on the power play.

“(Bringing your best hockey to the forefront) was kind of our message in between the second and the third period,” Gernander said. “‘Okay, we’re right where we need to be right now. Let’s make sure that we finish the deal. You know, like we don’t want to sit back. We don’t want to protect leads, but also don’t take unnecessary risks either. you manage your game to some extent. But that doesn’t mean sitting back and being passive.”

According to Falcon’s coach Rob Riley, LeNeveu “was wiped out” after playing overtime Friday night, a full sixty on Saturday and two periods Sunday, so the decision was made to substitute Gustaf Wesslau for LeNeveu to start the third period.

Wesslau seemed to keep things quiet in the third frame as the Whale were playing cautiously and looking to keep mistakes to a minimum.

6:59 into the period, the league’s leader in penalty minutes, Devin DiDiomete and Justin Soryal, the Whale’s toughest customer, had a run in with Trevor Smith, John Moore and Kana in front of the Falcon net that led to plenty of time in the penalty box for both teams (See on this link at MassLive.com). Kana was tossed from the game for being the third man into a fight.

Shortly after the fireworks had faded, at 9:07, the Whale scored what would be the backbreaker.

Pavel Valentenko started the rush up ice handing off the puck to Kelsey Tessier who used his speed to advance the puck up ice past Guite on the left wing side. Tessier looked to make a pass to Couture but that was broken up by David Savard. However, C0uture took the puck away from him and curled up in the left wing circle and found Valentenko and his massive shot all alone at the left point.

Valentenko unloaded a bomb of a one timer. Tessier battled with Guite in front of  Wesslau and deflected it over the right pad of the Falcon goalie. Tessier celebrated the goal, but it went credited to Valentenko.

“Valentenko has a good shot that he has to make sure gets through,” Gernander said. “Obviously that was a big goal for us, so that was much-needed offense from a source that’s not typical of some of our power-play guys.”

“We didn’t shoot much the first period, but we hung in there and started to play a lot better,” The rookie forward said. “We had a better third man high and made sure we helped out our defense a little more. Talbot played really well, and we just had to work harder than them at the end of the game.”

With 1:42 left in regulation, Blake Parlett took a cross checking call and the Falcons pulled their goaltender to give them a 6-on-4 advantage on the ice. The Falcons were un able to get a puck past Talbot, and the Whale had four legitimate shots at the empty net. Grachev missed twice while John Mitchell and Newbury also missed on their tries as well.

“Lately our third period has always been the best the last 10 to 12 games and we want to keep that going but make sure we’re ahead when we’re going into the third period.” Tessier said. “It was three-in-three, so you have to grind it out. You can’t get too fancy. It’s a dump-and-chase game pretty much, and when you have the opportunity to bring it to the net, you have to. We didn’t have as many as we wanted in the first period, but we came back hard in the second and third and proved we can get a few more goals.”

At the end of regulation there was a big dust up around the benches.

“Things were building up. There were a couple of scrums earlier in the game. Guys were hacking and whacking a little bit and at the end there, Kyle Neuber threw a spear at DiDiomete so it got us all worked up,” Soryal said.  “He’s their tough guy so all us tough guys play on the edge a little bit, so he tried to get a couple of guys going so that’s how we react.”

Soryal was restrained first by Grumet Morris and Assistant Coach Pat Boller also held him back from going from the Whale bench onto the ice to get Neuber.

“I think I had a few of my own teammates on my back,” Soryal said with a laugh. “I got a bit of jersey burn on my neck that didn’t come from their team. (Our Teammates) have to hold us back sometimes. We play on the edge so sometimes it’s a little difficult to keep the emotions in check.”

Neuber was the Falcon player who’s cheap shot injured Jeremy Williams’ neck with a dirty hit that kept the Whale’s leading goal scorer out of action for four games back on March 2nd when the two teams last tangled at the XL Center.

“I think there’s enough desperation and urgency to get the two points night-after-night,” Gernander said. “I think it’s helped to enhance our game a little bit.”

Bruce Berlet writes another masterful summary that can only be read in its entirety here at Howlings. Jason Remillard has the view from inside the Springfield locker room at MassLive.com.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

STANDINGS:

(Standings via theahl.com)

VIDEO:

SOUNDS OF THE GAME:

Ken Gernander: 

Cam Talbot: 

Kelsey Tessier: 

Dale Weise: 

Justin Soryal:

NOTES:

* The Whale output of a measly 18 shots matched their season’s low that came on October 17 against Providence. Ironically, the Whale, then the Wolf Pack, also scored three goals and also won the game, that one a 3-0 road win.

* One-goal games, as many playoff games are, has become a Whale specialty. All three games, Friday through Sunday, were one goal games and all won by the Whale.

* After struggling all season long to win at home, the Whale moved two games over hockey .500 at 16-14-2-2.

* When tied after first , the Connecticut record is now 20-9-1-2 and when leading after two, the record is 21-1-0-3.

LINES:

Dupont – Newbury – Weise
Grachev – Mitchell – Williams
Couture – Lemieux – Tessier
Soryal – Garlock – DiDiomete

Redden – Nightingale
Valentenko – Parlett
Bickel – Kundratek

Talbot
Grumet-Morris

(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)

SCRATCHES:

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. CT – D. Weise
2. CT – C. Talbot
3. CT – K. Tessier

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Referee:
Chris Cozzan (18)
Mark Lemelin (84)

Linesmen:
Kevin Redding (16)
Chris Low (88)

NEXT GAME:

Are you ready for some vendetta hockey? Wednesday the Falcons return where there should be attitude all over the ice. 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:

Springfield Falcons 1 at Connecticut Whale 3 – Status: Final
Sunday, March 20, 2011 – XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Springfield 1 0 0 – 1
Connecticut 1 1 1 – 3

1st Period-1, Connecticut, Williams 29 (Grachev), 9:35. 2, Springfield, Guite 14 (Savard, Kubalik), 10:25 (PP). Penalties-Nightingale Ct (interference), 5:11; Kundratek Ct (interference), 10:16; Ruth Spr (interference), 11:56; Tessier Ct (tripping), 14:45; served by DiDiomete Ct (bench minor – too many men), 19:40.

2nd Period-3, Connecticut, Weise 15 (Newbury, Kundratek), 11:15. Penalties-Nightingale Ct (slashing), 1:43; Sigalet Spr (tripping), 12:47; Moore Spr (delay of game), 14:28.

3rd Period-4, Connecticut, Valentenko 3 (Couture, Tessier), 9:07. Penalties-Holden Spr (holding the stick), 3:44; Kana Spr (game misconduct – third man in), 6:59; Moore Spr (fighting), 6:59; Smith Spr (slashing), 6:59; DiDiomete Ct (fighting), 6:59; Soryal Ct (slashing), 6:59; served by Soryal Ct (bench minor – too many men), 11:11; Parlett Ct (cross-checking), 18:18; Neuber Spr (slashing), 20:00; DiDiomete Ct (slashing), 20:00.

Shots on Goal-Springfield 7-7-9-23. Connecticut 3-9-6-18.
Power Play Opportunities-Springfield 1 / 7; Connecticut 0 / 4.
Goalies-Springfield, LeNeveu 16-20-2 (12 shots-10 saves); Wesslau 12-16-1 (6 shots-5 saves). Connecticut, Talbot 11-5-2 (23 shots-22 saves).
A-4,985
Referees-Chris Cozzan (18), Mark Lemelin (84).
Linesmen-Kevin Redding (16), Chris Low (88).