WORCESTER, Mass. – The Eminem on the IPod played a little louder than usual in the Connecticut Whale locker room late Sunday afternoon.
But coach Ken Gernander’s injury-riddled, man-short team deserved some time to celebrate after a decisive statement victory over the Worcester Sharks before 3,730 at the DCU Center.
No last-minute theatrics needed this day. After successive dramas against the Springfield Falcons on Wednesday and Saturday nights, the Whale rolled to a comprehensive 7-2 win as they tied their season high for goals in their third consecutive victory.
Veteran defenseman Wade Redden had his first two-goal game since before the NHL lockout six years ago, and Dale Weise added a goal and two assists and Brodie Dupont a career-high four assists as the Whale (31-24-2-6) moved two points ahead of the Sharks (28-23-4-8) in the battle for the third and final guaranteed playoff berth in the Atlantic Division.
The Whale pressed from the start, survived a bit of a scare late in the second period and then put it away with a three-goal third period, starting with Redden’s two goals, as they earned at least a point for the eighth time in 10 starts. And they reached a high-water mark for the season of seven games over .500 despite being without eight regulars but shooting 7-for-19 against Daren Machesney, who had a 34-save shutout in a 2-0 win over the Charlotte Checkers Saturday night.
“We look at the standings and kind of have our destiny in our own hands because we play the Sharks (three times),” said Dupont, who helped set up four of the Whale’s first five goals for personal bests for points and assists in a pro game. “We’re fully aware of where we sit and talk about the games during the week. Nobody wants to miss the playoffs again. This is a team that really pummeled us 9-2 last season when we were making our push. Sometimes those little things are hard to forget.
“It was a big win, and a big weekend, actually, because it’s playoff hockey now. The team played well together, (goalie Cam) Talbot played well and we got offense from all kinds of players (11 of 17 skaters). Our line (with Weise and Kris Newbury) played well because it was one of those nights where the puck was kind of finding us. We had a good jump in our step, so whenever there was a loose puck, we put ourselves in good positions to get the puck right back.”
Somewhat lost in the Whale’s offensive explosion was Talbot, who made 32 saves in his first AHL game since being injured in a 6-3 victory over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Jan. 16. Talbot missed 13 games and then was 1-0-1 during a rehab stint with Greenville of the ECHL before backing up the New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist on Tuesday night and then returning to Hartford while Chad Johnson headed to Broadway.
Though Talbot admitted making a blunder when he wandered too far on the Sharks’ first goal by Cory Quirk, he had two stellar saves on Michael Swift and Matt Irwin late in the first period, when the Whale had a 2-0 lead, and then was alert early in the third period before the Whale assumed total control.
“That was a huge game for us, and we made a big statement,” Talbot said. “We got on them right off the bat and didn’t really lay back. I made kind of a dumb play coming out that one time, but the guys got a goal right after that. You like to see that as a goalie. They get one for you and it puts your mind at ease and lets you forget about the goal and keep playing. They did that after the second one, too, and we never looked back after that.”
The Whale started strong, as Machesney had to be sharp to make a right-pad save on Evgeny Grachev from the right circle at 4:18. But on the Whale’s second power play, Dupont picked off Nick Petrecki’s clearing attempt in the slot and fired a 35-foot shot that newcomer John Mitchell tipped past Machesney for his second goal in three games since being acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday for future considerations.
The Whale made it 2-0 when Weise pushed the puck along the left boards to defenseman Pavel Valentenko, whose slap shot from the left point beat a screened Machesney to the far corner at 11:21.
Talbot then denied Swift in front at the right post with 6:05 left in the period and Irwin’s wide-open shot from 30 feet in the slot on a 4-on-3 Sharks power play.
The Whale increased their lead to 3-0 at 1:44 of the second period when a Sharks clearing attempt ricocheted in front to a wide-open Kelsey Tessier, whose blind back pass found a wide-open Grachev for an easy finish into an open net.
Machesney temporarily kept the Sharks in the game when he made a brilliant glove save on a wide-open but snake-bitten Derek Couture. As often happens, the Sharks went the other way and made it 3-1 at 2:54. Tommy Wingels beat Redden to a clear-in pass, and Talbot came out to try to clear the puck, but it hit off Wingels and sat in the slot for an easy finish into an open net for Quirk at 3:21.
After Machesney made a good stop on Weise’s backhander at 7:22, Dupont lost the puck on a breakaway while being hooking without a penalty being called. Given that reprieve, the Sharks got to 3-2 when Brandon Mashinter jammed in his second rebound of Benn Ferriero’s shot with 4:09 left in the period.
But the Whale quickly responded with the game’s biggest goal as Newbury outworked Mike Moore for the puck behind the Sharks net and put a pass in front to Weise, who got inside Swift for a quick finish past an unsuspecting Machesney.
“When we cycled the puck down low, I thought we were all over them,” Talbot said. “The guys did a great job playing down low in both ends.”
Redden made it 5-2 when he took a drop pass from Weise and fired a 40-foot shot that beat a screened Machesney at 2:49 of the third period. Redden then made like Wayne Gretzky as he came out of the penalty box, took a pass from Francis Lemieux, deked Machesney to the ice with a brilliant fake and flipped a backhander into an open net at 7:16. It was Lemieux’s first point in six games with the Whale since being signed to a professional tryout contract Feb. 28 while leading the ECHL in scoring (73 points) with the Florida Everblades.
“The last three games we’ve had guys really step up and have big efforts,” Redden said. “Guys have come together and played so hard every shift, and I think that’s the key this time of the season, just going and battling all the time. We didn’t get rewarded a lot, just kind of squeaked out the last two games, but (Sunday) they started going in for us, so I think that’s a good sign.”
Hard-working Oren Eizenman capped the scoring against one of his eight former pro teams when he converted defenseman Blake Parlett’s brilliant diagonal pass from the left circle through the slot at 8:38. Valentenko got the secondary assist for his first two-point game as a pro to finish plus-4. Parlett scored his first AHL goal with 27.7 seconds left in overtime Saturday night to give the Whale a 2-1 victory over the Falcons. That came after Mitchell scored with 7.7 seconds left in regulation for a 3-2 win over Springfield on Wednesday night. Obviously stunned by such tough losses, the Falcons were buried 6-1 by the second-place Portland Pirates on Sunday to fall five points behind the Whale.
“Everybody knows what kind of situation we’re in, that we have to get third place because it’s going to be tough to catch (the fifth-place team) in the East Division,” Weise said. “It was a good team effort all around. We’ve got a lot of skilled players who had kind of got a little bit cold lately, and it was just a matter time of time before we broke out and scored. I think this is just a building block for us to have.
“I thought we were sharp from the get-go, and other than a five-minute lull in the second period, I thought we played a pretty solid game. We played the way we need to to win. We played simple, didn’t do anything crazy. A lot of our goals were just getting traffic and shooting from the point, and that’s what we have to do to score.”
Besides being eliminated from the playoffs two seasons ago, the Hartford Wolf Pack/Whale is 14-4-0-2 lifetime at the DCU Center vs. the Sharks, including 2-0-1 this season while amassing a 4-1-0-1 overall edge. Sunday was the Sharks’ second-worst loss at home to the 7-1 beating they got from the Wolf Pack on Dec. 8, 2007.
Though pleased with his team’s performance, Gernander knew there are still 17 games left in the regular season, including a home-and-home set with the Sharks next weekend.
“It was a big win on the road against a team we were tied with, so I was happy with the guys,” Gernander said. “There was a little bit of a glitch (in the second period), but for the most part, I thought we were pretty strong. The guys know the situation, but you remind them because that’s part of what you do. But that’s just kind of a little kicker at the end. You go over what you need to do, what you want to accomplish, special teams or whatever, and then say, ‘Now remember, boys, this is for a big two points.’
“It’s that time of year where teams are missing players. You do what you do, but I’m happy with the guys getting six big points this week against our nearest opponents in the standings. I think that’s a pretty good week.”
Pretty good, indeed.
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