HARTFORD, Conn. – The Portland Pirates played beat the clock on the power play Saturday night and came away with one of their most stirring victories of the season.
Left wing Derek Whitmore took a pass from behind the net from Corey Tropp about 35 feet in the slot and beat Connecticut Whale goalie Chad Johnson high to the glove side with 7.5 seconds left to give the Pirates a 3-2 victory before 10,872 at the XL Center.
“I came off the bench and tried to find the seam,” Whitmore said after scoring his 19th goal. “(Defenseman) Nick Crawford was working the puck down low. Tropp made a good play to the slot. I knew there wasn’t much time, and I tried to shoot it past the guy coming out at me (Chad Kolarik) and was able to find the back of the net.”
Johnson’s head dropped after allowing a goal set up by Dale Weise’s interference penalty with 1:38 left. It earned Weise a post-game, closed-door meeting with coach Ken Gernander.
“It was a great game and hugely disappointing,” Gernander said. “Their goalie (David Leggio) played good, but we had a lot of guys who really worked hard, paid the price and did extra duty when we shortened the bench.”
Weise admitted that his penalty was ill-timed.
“Obviously not a smart play by me,” said Weise, playing his third game since being one of six players reassigned by the parent New York Rangers earlier in the week. “I’m an emotional player, and sometimes I cross the line. I crossed the line tonight, and it cost us the game. I don’t feel good about it, but it’s a mistake, and I’ll learn from it.”
Weise’s mistake led to the Pirates (29-14-4-1) finishing 2-for-3 on the power play as they won their fifth in six starts and remained one point behind Atlantic Division-leading Manchester, which beat Bridgeport, 3-2. Leggio had 36 saves for his second straight win over the former Hartford Wolf Pack, the other being a 21-save shutout in a 3-0 victory at home on Jan. 14.
Meanwhile, the Whale (22-20-2-5) lost their third in a row and fifth in seven starts to fall 13 points behind the Monarchs. More importantly, they fell one point behind Worcester, which beat Providence, 3-2. The Whale also has lost four in row and six of seven at home after eight consecutive wins at the XL Center. They’re 11-12-2-1 at home and 11-8-0-4 on the road.
Besides Weise, no Whale player was more upset than Johnson (21 saves).
“The guy made kind of a good shot past Kolarik, and I just kind of caught it at the last second and just didn’t have enough time to react to it,” Johnson said. “It’s really disappointing because it was a big moment in the game. I talked to Kolarik, and he doesn’t know how it got by him. He was in good position, it’s just the guy found some way to get it by him and then I picked it up late and it beat me. It’s tough. When they score a late goal like that, you can’t do much with seven seconds left.”
Pirates coach Kevin Dineen reiterated Gernander’s thoughts about the quality of the game and was delighted his team could pull out such a win in its eighth game in 11 days, especially after losing two more players, defenseman T.J. Brennan and right wing Maxime Legault, to injuries.
“Except for the one game, all the games against them have been extremely tight,” Dineen said. “There’s a heck of a lot of talent on the ice with good goaltending at both ends in a game with a real, real physical tone to it. We were fortunate to go two-for-three on the power play, which is a huge night for us. We talked before the game that we had to have some power-play production in order to have some long-range success. I don’t think there was much designed play. There was a lot of effort more than anything else.”
Especially on the Pirates’ first power-play goal 59 seconds into the third period when Luke Adam, who left immediately after the game for the AHL All-Star Classic in Hershey, Pa., poked the puck behind the net to Tropp, who found Matt Ellis alone 15 feet in front for a quick finish for his ninth goal and first since being reassigned by the parent Buffalo Sabres on Friday.
The goal seemed to invigorate the Pirates, and Johnson had to be sharp to stop Ellis’ backhander at 6:14. The Whale then tied it on their third power play as Brodie Dupont got inside Crawford and deflected Kris Newbury’s centering pass from the right corner past Leggio with 7:56 left.
The Whale outshot the Pirates 10-1 in the opening 14:20 but actually fell behind 1-0 when NHL veteran Mark Parrish outworked several players for the puck in the right corner and passed into the slot to a wide-open Crawford, who beat Johnson to the glove side with a shot that went in off the post.
Evgeny Grachev, a threat throughout the game thanks to the passing of linemate Tim Kennedy, nearly tied it 50 seconds later, but his deflection went off the post. But the Whale continued to press and got even when Jason Williams made a lead pass to Kelsey Tessier, who outmaneuvered defenseman Dennis Persson and feathered a pass that All-Star right wing Jeremy Williams buried into the top corner at 5:25 for his 22nd goal and 40th point, both team highs.
Grachev nearly gave the Whale the lead, but his bid out of the corner and rebound were both turned aside by Leggio with 8:24 left in the period. Johnson made his best save of the period during the Pirates’ first power play when he stopped Parrish in front with 1:32 to go.
After Johnson denied Tropp cruising in off the right point at 5:28 and Ellis hit the post 36 seconds later, the Pirates escaped the second period tied despite being outshot 13-5 thanks to Leggio. First, he made what might be the save of the season at 6:58 with a glove stab off Grachev, set up alone in front at 15 feet off a pass from behind the net by Kennedy, who was named to the 2009 AHL all-rookie team after leading all rookies in points (67) and assists (48) while with the Pirates and beat his former team with back-to-back overtime goals on Dec. 29 and 31.
Leggio stopped a good Kennedy bid at 7:31 and denied Grachev from 20 feet in the slot at 11:08. The Pirates goalie then got lucky when Dupont stole a Pirates cross-ice pass and raced off on a breakaway, only to be caught from behind with 3:42 left in the period.
Given those reprieves, the Pirates regained the lead on Ellis’ goal, then survived Dupont’s equalizer to win on Whitmore’s late heroics.
Story by Bruce Berlet of the Connecticut Whale
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