VERSUS 
Sometimes concern for others supersedes the concern for making money.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
“The Post-Christmas Blizzard” inspired the National Football League to postpone the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings game until Tuesday. The American Hockey League followed suit when they allowed the Worcester Sharks and Portland Pirates to reschedule their game in their concern for public safety. The AHL even approved the Manchester Monarchs and Springfield Falcons putting off a game they were supposed to play until MONDAY to insure that the first order of business was the well-being of the fans, organization’s workers, not to mention their own players.
Apparently that message must have gotten lost in the snow and never made it to Bridgeport.
Katie Strang of Newsday reported that the parent NY Islanders requested to postpone their game Sunday afternoon but were denied the right to do so by the NHL. The likely reasoning…the Montreal Canadiens were already in town. However, the Whale had to travel some 60 miles in this weather to play in Sunday afternoon’s contest. So the bottom line was that apparently the leadership of the Sound Tigers felt that if the NHL felt getting comfortable endangering Islanders fans they might as well go all the way and put their AHL fans and an opposing team in the same boat.
3,136, bad even by Islanders standards, showed up at the Nassau Coliseum. In Bridgeport, a reported 600 fans, and that’s probably a bit on the generous side, braved the roads and terrible weather, although 2,177 was the announced attendance, and were rewarded with a strong performance by the Connecticut Whale, who blanked the Sound Tigers Sunday afternoon, 4-0.
It was “The Chad and Chad Show” in the Whale’s return to winning after dropping their final two games before the Christmas break as Chads Johnson and Kolarik were the difference in the game.
Johnson (10-11-3) stopped 22, mostly harmless perimeter shots, en route to his first shutout of the season. Meanwhile Kolarik was all over the ice for the visitors with one of his better games since arriving in a trade from Springfield in November, scoring his 13th and 14th goals of the season (his 9th and 1oth since joining Connecticut).
It started off slowly for the visors taking two quick penalties, one to Tomas Kundratek who held Jean Bourbeau on a rush up the ice just three minutes in and then at 9:28 Brodie Dupont was called for interference.
The two penalties didn’t cause much concern for Whale head coach Ken Gernander. “A little of that is to be expected after the lay-off.’
Jesse Joensuu, who was just returned to the Sound Tigers from the Islanders, took a Boarding call in the offensive zone at 10:37.
With the two teams skating four a-side, Mats Zuccarello had a terrific scoring chance turned aside by Tigers netminder Kevin Poulin (21 saves, 9-4-0) but then things changed in a hurry.
“It was just one of those nights where the puck was just kind of following me,” Brodie Dupont said. “I came out of the penalty box and it became a power play (the 4-on-4 had expired with Dupont’s release). I was just getting into the zone and I saw a quick rebound (of a Zuccarello shot). I gave it to (Tim Kennedy) and he drove the net, a great drive, the puck just kind of bounced out on my stick and I tried to get it off as quick as I can and beat (Poulin) 5-hole.”
On the play Dupont got his shot off by getting past three Bridgeport defenders, defensemen Wes O’Neill and Anton Klementyev and center Rob Hisey at 11:48.
At 15:09 Tony Romano put his team down a man for the second time.
The Whale, now 8th overall on the power-play at 2-.3%, took advantage of the opportunity and converted for the second straight time.
Dupont found Jeremy Williams wide open in the slot and fed him the puck from below the right side of the goal line. Williams, the AHL leader in goals scored, wristed it high over Poulin’s blocker for his 18th of the season just 9 seconds into the power play at 15:18.
Despite being totally outplayed by their hosts over the first ten minutes of the period, the first frame ended with shots tied at nine, but the Whale leading 2-0.
Just 1:40 into the second period, Dale Weise was completely robbed by a magnificent play by Poulin. Weise made a great fake to get the goaltender flat on his stomach. Weise went to put the puck around the fallen netminder only to be thwarted when Poulin through his left leg out and denied the stuff in attempt.
Thirty seconds later Evgeny Grachev mishandled a slightly bouncing puck and was unable to convert when he was left all alone on the left side of the crease.
There’s usually no shortage of rough stuff when these two teams play each other. Perhaps it was a little carry over from the Christmas cheer, but this one lacked any fire until Weise took exception to an Oliver Labelle tripping call and the two dropped their gloves at 6:43. Labelle slipped a punch in that hit Weise in the mouth, but then Weise opened up on the Sound Tiger right winger and was landing a lot of unanswered shots when the linesman separated the two.
The tide had turned and the Whale finished the period up in shots 17-14 and still leading 2-0.
In the third period, “The Chad and Chad Show” kicked into high gear.
First Johnson made a nice save turning aside David Ullstrom in front just 55 seconds into the period when Tomas Kundratek gave the puck away behind the Whale net.
“I felt good out there,” Johnson said. “Guys blocked a lot of shots. There were moments here and there like in any game where they had pressure, but guys did a good job and made it easy on me and cleared my rebounds and really forced them to shoot the puck from a distance.
“I felt good and everyone played really well and we got the two points.”
5:10 later Kolarik got his first of two.
Klementyev and Kolarik went to the right side Sound Tiger blueline to battle for the puck. The Tiger defenseman got to the puck first and went to clear it, but the puck hit Kolarik and went deeper into the Tiger zone. With Klementyev behind him, and his linemate, Kelsey Tessier to his right, a 2-on-1 against O’Neill Kolarik came into the left circle and fired a wrister that beat Poulin over the glove and into the far corner of the net at 6:05.
With 3:48 to go Tomas Marcinko put a high-stick into Ryan McDonagh’s face which was spotted by referee Geno Binda. With his hand raised and the Whale on a delayed penalty, Kris Newbury rushed the puck up ice on a breakaway but was turned aside by a nice save by Poulin.
On the resulting power play for the Whale Poulin stood strong against a 3-on-1 odd man rush with Newbury, Dupont and Weise and just Mark Wotten back defending with just 3:06 remaining in the game.
But exactly one minute after Marcinko took a seat in solitary, the man he hit, McDonagh, found Kennedy deep in the right corner. Kennedy would put his second helper of the game on the scoresheet when he found Kolarik all alone in the slot and put the puck right on the tape. Kolarik blasted the shot right past Poulin for the game’s final tally.
With the exception of their last meeting in this building when, in their last game was the Hartford Wolf Pack, the team collapsed and surrendered three goals late in the third period before losing the game 4-3 in a shootout, The Whale have otherwise owned their GEICO Connecticut Cup series opponent. Head to head with their intra-state rivals, the Whale own a 4-1-0-1 record this season and next face the Tigers again till Feb. 4th in Hartford.
Since converting to the Whale, Connecticut has at least a standings point in 12 of its last 13 games (9-1-0-3) and 14 of the last 16 (11-2-0-3).
“We were a little rusty, but overall I thought we played a pretty good game.” Gernander accurately surmised.
Bruce Berlet used common sense and did not make the trip through the blizzard, so after calling the game on the air, Bob Crawford has the recap at CTWhale.com. One of our favorite beat writers, Michael Fornabaio gives the Sound Tigers perspective at CTPost.com.
GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET
SOUNDS OF THE GAME:
Ken Gernander:
Brodie Dupont:
Chad Johnson:
NOTES:
* After the game the coaching staff brought Zuccarello into the office and told him that he was heading back to New York where he would play in tomorrow night’s battle with the Sound Tigers parent club, the NY Islanders at MSG. It’s unclear at this point even if Zuccarello will even come back to the Whale. If he doesn’t, there’s a good chance that Todd White will. Zuccarello, like the rest of the players hustled after the game to get dressed and on the bus to get back to Hartford before the weather got any worse.
* While the Whale are now tied with Portland in points (37) for second place, the Pirates have four games in hand.
* In 34 games the Whale are the most penalized team in the American League with 838. The next closest team is the Norfolk Admirals in 31 games with 736.
* Kris Newbury is 4th in the AHL in scoring with 33 points (4g, 29a). David Desharnais of the Hamilton Bulldogs is first with 41 points (10g, 31a). Jeremy Williams is 20th with 28 points (18g, 10a).
* Chad Johnson has moved into the top 15 goaltenders in the league. He’s now sporting a 2.46GAA and a .908%
* Jeremy Williams is first in the AHL with 18 goals. Chad Kolarik is is 12th with 14.
LINES:
Dupont – Newbury – Weise
Grachev – Kennedy – Zuccarello
Kolarik – Tessier – Williams
Soryal – Garlock – DiDiomete
Redden – Niemi
McDonagh – Nightingale
Valentenko – Kundratek
Johnson
Talbot
(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)
SCRATCHES:
Lee Baldwin – Healthy Scratch
Orin Eizenman – Healthy Scratch
Stu Bickel – Healthy Scratch
THREE STARS:
1. CT – C. Kolarik
2. CT – B. Dupont
3. CT – C. Johnson
ON ICE OFFICIALS:
Referee:
Geno Binda (22)
Linesmen:
Kevin Redding (16)
Luke Galvin (2)
NEXT GAME:
Time for the sixth home-and-home battle for The Whale who now do so with the Portland Pirates. Wednesday and Friday night. Bob Crawford and the pregame go on the air at 6:30pm Wednesday and 5pm on New Year’s Eve.
To watch the game live, you can purchased it for $6.99 at AHL-live.
For Ticket information 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.
SCORE-SHEET:
Connecticut Whale 4 at Bridgeport Sound Tigers 0 – Status: Final
Sunday, December 26, 2010 – Arena at Harbor Yard
Connecticut 2 0 2 – 4
Bridgeport 0 0 0 – 0
1st Period-1, Connecticut, Dupont 4 (Kennedy, Zuccarello), 11:48 (PP). 2, Connecticut, Williams 18 (Dupont, Newbury), 15:18 (PP). Penalties-Kundratek Ct (holding), 3:00; Dupont Ct (interference), 9:28; Joensuu Bri (boarding), 10:37; Romano Bri (hooking), 15:09.
2nd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Weise Ct (fighting), 6:43; Labelle Bri (tripping, fighting), 6:43; Niemi Ct (hooking), 14:19; Romano Bri (interference), 17:27.
3rd Period-3, Connecticut, Kolarik 13 6:05. 4, Connecticut, Kolarik 14 (Kennedy, McDonagh), 17:12 (PP). Penalties-Haley Bri (boarding), 8:28; Valentenko Ct (hooking), 10:10; Marcinko Bri (high-sticking), 16:12.
Shots on Goal-Connecticut 9-8-8-25. Bridgeport 9-5-8-22.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 3 / 6; Bridgeport 0 / 4.
Goalies-Connecticut, Johnson 10-11-3 (22 shots-22 saves). Bridgeport, Poulin 9-4-0 (25 shots-21 saves).
A-2,177
Referees-Geno Binda (22).
Linesmen-Kevin Redding (16), Luke Galvin (2).
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