GROOVIN ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 

VERSUS   

If a movie producer was pitching a film to a studio about this past weekend’s Connecticut Whale games they’d likely say that it was equally part “Slap Shot,” part “Night of the Living Dead and a measure of “Sybil” or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Knowing Whale head coach Ken Gernander, he  is probably more interested in seeing the, “Coming Attractions.” But for the Whale players, they completed their blockbuster three-games in three-days weekend to good reviews for their performance in their Sunday afternoon matinee, a 4-2 win over the Atlantic Division leading Portland Pirates at the XL Center in front of 4,321.

Dale Weise rebounded from a “Lost Weekend” pair of performances in Providence and Springfield with a two-goal game, that included what proved to be the game winner.

The Whale also benefitted from strong supporting performances from Mats Zuccarello, who added a pair of helpers, outstanding two-way play from Kris Newbury and yet another strong game from Dov Grumet-Morris (20 saves, 12-5-1) between the pipes.

Puck possession was key for the Whale in this game. “That was something we addressed (Sunday).” Weise, the game’s first star said. “There was just too many odd man rushes; guys cheating as a third man in; that’s lazy, myself included. I got caught a couple of times. We made a note before the game we gotta have a good third man (high). I think that’s what hemmed them in so much.

“For 60 minutes tonight we played a complete game,” Weise said of his teammates effort. “I can’t point out to a performance (Sunday) that wasn’t a guy’s best game. I think everyone kind of raised their level up, our top guys were our top guys and that’s what we need to win.”

“Obviously we had a good first period and we just built on it and finished a full sixty.” Brodie Dupont said. “We kind of knew what we had to do. Everyone’s aware of the playoff standings. We were fortunate to get a little help (Worcester lost to Providence, 4-1) in the standings (Saturday) with our loss. We gotta kind of take care on our end of things and we’ll be alright.”

“I thought they played a real strong game. It was right to the wire though, but when all is said and done we got our two points and that’s the most important thing right now.” Gernander said.

Connecticut was focused right from the first shift of the game and they never looked back. The Whale came out to make a statement that the poor play was over and they weren’t about to get pushed around as they had over their four-game losing streak.

Just 30 seconds into the game, defenseman Jared Nightingale dropped the gloves with Pirate left-winger Dennis McCauley behind the Whale net. Both players landed some bombs on the other before the linesman pulled them apart. Whale players banged their sticks for their teammate along the bench wall and on the ice. Message sent loud and clear.

Three minutes and one second later, Zuccarello found Jeremy Williams in the right circle and the Whale’s leading goal scorer wristed a hard shot over the glove shoulder of Pirates starting netminder David Leggio (43 saves, 22-10-0).

The Whale doubled the lead 22 seconds later when defenseman Nick Crawford attempted to clear the puck out of the Pirates’ zone only to have it picked off by Weise. Weise raced forward with the puck, got around Crawford and fired a shot that went 5-hole. Leggio appeared to stop the shot but didn’t squeeze it and it squirted through and trickled over the goal line for Weise’s 17th of the year.

After cheap shots by players from both sides, a second fight of the period broke out between heavyweights Justin Soryal and Jeff Dimmen. The Whale enforcer simply dominated pummeled the Pirate defenseman at 5:36.

Newbury seemed to be under the skin of the entire Pirate team and many of them were taking runs at him or trying to goad him into something stupid. To his credit, Newbury was focused on the team and not on his own needs. At 8:27, John Scrymgeour was headed to the penalty box for a holding call and the Pirates’ enforcer, Tim Conboy skated over to Newbury and punched him twice in the face with his glove on looking to get the Whale center to drop the gloves. Newbury wasn’t biting and with Conboy jawing and trying to goad him into taking a penalty, the Whale assistant captain waved bye-bye to him as he headed to the penalty box.

Meanwhile with all the games going on between Conboy and Newbury, Stu Bickel dropped the gloves with Igor Gongalsky. That was a fairly even, but long fight. Both received ten-minute misconducts for a secondary fight.

While on their power play, disaster nearly struck for the home team.

Jeremy Williams was skating across between the points in the offensive zone when his skate boot literally broke. Williams went down to the ice and lost the puck. Rookie Luke Adam picked up the puck and raced to the Whale net. Williams did what he could to get back, but Grumet-Morris came up huge for the Whale and got Adam to put the puck right where he wanted it and the threat was neutralized at 9:13.

“I’m sure he had something in mind,” Grumet-Morris said of the stop. “I do try to take away as much as I can and then rely on my athleticism to help me make the save if they go one side or the other.”

The Whale kept attacking the Pirate’s net. Evgeny Grachev hit a crossbar at 10:17 and then 31 seconds later Zuccarello ringed one solidly off the inside of the crossbar that left the “Norwegian Hobbit” staring at the XL Center ceiling.

Ryan Garlock and Jacob Legace dropped the gloves and fought to a draw for  the fourth fight of the period.

“We’re a team that needs to play that way,” Weise stated in speaking about the physical nature of the game. “We don’t have any agendas out for any guys on their team. It’s just that this is a potential first round match-up and we’d like to send a message that we’re a team that we like to get in your face and we play hard. When we’re playing our best games, a couple of fisticuffs and guys are banging and everybody kind of builds on that. First shift goes out there a guy goes out there and throws a big hit and gets in a fight and everyone on the bench is just rolling and I think that’s what we need to do.”

With just 1:19 left in the first frame, Zuccarello was all alone on the right side of the net and took a cross-ice pass from Newbury. Zuccarello had the entire 4×6 to shoot at and rang it off the far post. Again, the diminutive forward stopped and stared up at the ceiling in disgust.

The Whale finished the period with 23 shots on goal, the most for a period this season and the most allowed in a period by Portland.

In the second frame, the Whale had a 1:38 5-on-3 man-advantage that they could do nothing with and just could not seem to get traction on the power play. That was until Gongalsky took a tripping penalty on 16:06 giving the Whale their seventh power play.

There was only 38 seconds left in the power play when Zuccarello, deep behind the goal line in the left corner, found Derek Couture right in front of Leggio and put the puck directly on his stick. Couture’s shot initially hit Leggio’s pad but came right back to him and on the second try the right winger buried his sixth of the season and made it a three goal Connecticut lead at 17:28.

The Whale played just magnificently dominating in shots 37-13 through two periods and other than the breakaway hadn’t given up a decent scoring chance.

In the third period Pavel Valentenko started things by taking a Cross-Checking call just 1:15 in. While on the penalty kill, Weise got the puck from Wade Redden on a delayed penalty call and rushed up ice. When he got into the right circle he blew right by Crawford and beat Leggio with a low to the ice shot that caught the inside of the post on the far side of the net for his second of the game.

“We obviously know we didn’t have a good performance (in Springfield Saturday) and none of us felt good about leaving (Cam Talbot) out to dry there,” Weise said. “I took it upon myself and stood up before the game and told the boys that I was going to be better. I thought that (Saturday) was probably my worst game as a pro. It’s just not acceptable and that’s what I thought and (Sunday) I knew I had to step up.”

Portland isn’t a team in first place because they fold up shop no matter what the score is and in this one they didn’t back down.

At 12:46 they got a Colin Stuart goal off a scramble in front of the net that Whale players initially thought was not in the net, but the referees, linesman and goal judge conferred and it stood as a goal.

With 3:32 left in the contest, veteran Mark Parrish redirected a Alex Biega point shot past Grumet-Morris for what would prove to be the game’s final tally.

“Today we just had a flow from the get-go and just dominated the game.” Zuccarello said.

“This is as close to a must win as we’ve had this year. Our work is not done, tonight was a step in the right direction and definitely a great way to rebound from (Saturday’s) disappointing loss and also a great way to put us forward into the last week of the season.” Grumet-Morris said.

Brian Ring provides the coverage of today’s contest with the Pirates in for Bruce Berlet who returns for the home stretch starting next Friday. You can read Brian’s take at CTWhale.com. The Portland perspective comes from the eyes and ears of Mike Scandura at PressHerald.com.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

STANDINGS:

(Standings via theahl.com)

VIDEO:

SOUNDS OF THE GAME:

Ken Gernander: 

Dov Grumet-Morris: 

Dale Weise: 

Mats Zuccarello: 

Brodie Dupont: 

NOTES:

*  The Pirates did not leave for Portland immediately following the game as most teams do. As a group they headed to Trumbull Kitchen for a post game meal.

* Don’t expect John Mitchell bank anytime soon. He was wearing a boot on his foot.

* Forgot to mention Saturday night ran into former Wolf Pack goaltender Matt Zaba in Springfield as he took in a game of his former team. Told Howlings that he had a very good season and was glad to be back in the States.

* Whale have a record of 5-2-0-1 against the Sharks this season. On Sunday night, should the two teams be tied in points, the Whale who advance because of their greater number of wins minus shootout victories as well as their record head-to-head.

LINES:

Zuccarello – Grachev – Williams
Dupont – Newbury – Weise
Grant – Tessier – Couture
Niemi –Garlock – Soryal

Nightingale (Niemi started the game) – Parlett
Redden – Valentenko
Bickel – Kundratek

Grumet-Morris
Talbot

(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)

SCRATCHES:

Devin DiDiomete – Lower Body – Day-to-Day

Francis Lemieux – Undisclosed – Day-to-Day

John Mitchell – Lower Body – Day-to-Day
Chad Kolarik – Hamstring – Day-to-Day
Kale Kerbashian– Healthy Scratch
Michael Del Zotto – Broken Finger, 2-3 weeks
Todd White – Concussion – Indefinite
Chris McKelvie – Foot Surgery, Season

THREE STARS:

1. CT – D. Weise
2. CT – M. Zuccarello
3. CT – K. Newbury

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Referee:
Chris Cozzan (18)
Ryan Fraser (14)

Linesmen:
David Spannaus (8)
Paul Simeon (66)

NEXT GAME:

The Whale have the week off to prepare for the three most important games of the season. First, they have a home-and-home against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers starting Friday night. The Sound Tigers put a hurting on the Whale that started the slide that Sunday’s victory ended. The Whale are 5-2-0-1 this season against their intra-state rivals. Then Sunday they have one of their toughest games, and hopefully by then it won’t mean anything, against the Norfolk Admirals to close out the regular season.  The puck drops in Bridgeport at 7pm with Bob Crawford handling the play-by-play and Mark Bailey with color commentary. 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:

Portland Pirates 2 at Connecticut Whale 4 – Status: Final
Sunday, April 3, 2011 – XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Portland 0 0 2 – 2
Connecticut 2 1 1 – 4

1st Period-1, Connecticut, Williams 31 (Zuccarello, Redden), 3:31. 2, Connecticut, Weise 17 3:53. Penalties-McCauley Por (fighting), 0:30; Nightingale Ct (fighting), 0:30; Dimmen Por (fighting), 5:36; Soryal Ct (cross-checking, fighting), 5:36; Conboy Por (roughing, roughing), 8:27; Gongalsky Por (fighting), 8:27; Scrymgeour Por (holding), 8:27; Bickel Ct (roughing, fighting, misconduct – continuing altercation), 8:27; Lagace Por (fighting), 13:25; Garlock Ct (fighting), 13:25; Couture Ct (holding), 15:54; Adam Por (slashing), 16:51.

2nd Period-3, Connecticut, Couture 6 (Zuccarello, Newbury), 17:28 (PP). Penalties-Voakes Por (hooking), 1:57; Niemi Ct (hooking), 2:10; Couture Ct (high-sticking), 5:28; Conboy Por (interference), 9:10; Biega Por (hooking), 9:33; Gongalsky Por (tripping), 16:06.

3rd Period-4, Connecticut, Weise 18 (Redden, Grachev), 2:25 (SH). 5, Portland, Stuart 15 (Ostrow, Crawford), 12:46. 6, Portland, Parrish 16 (Biega, Adam), 17:28 (PP). Penalties-Valentenko Ct (cross-checking), 1:15; Parlett Ct (hooking), 3:19; Conboy Por (misconduct – unsportsmanlike conduct), 13:19; Newbury Ct (misconduct – unsportsmanlike conduct), 13:19; Williams Ct (hooking), 16:34; Redden Ct (hooking), 19:21.

Shots on Goal-Portland 7-6-9-22. Connecticut 23-14-10-47.
Power Play Opportunities-Portland 1 / 8; Connecticut 1 / 7.
Goalies-Portland, Leggio 22-9-0 (47 shots-43 saves). Connecticut, Grumet-Morris 11-5-1 (22 shots-20 saves).
A-4,321
Referees-Chris Cozzan (18), Ryan Fraser (14).
Linesmen-David Spannaus (8), Paul Simeon (66).