HARTFORD, Conn. – A parade and rally to celebrate the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team’s third national title forced the start of Game 3 of the Connecticut Whale’s first-round playoff matchup with the Portland Pirates to be pushed back several hours.
After a second disheartening one-goal loss in Maine on Saturday night, one had to wonder how the Whale would react at a critical juncture of the Atlantic Division semifinal. Would they fight off the demons of several unfortunate breaks and more penalties to get back into the best-of-seven series or go onto life support with another loss?
Well, the Whale had a revamped look as coach Ken Gernander shuffled all four of his lines. And Pirates coach Kevin Dineen, the former Hartford Whalers standout right wing and captain whose No. 11 hangs in the XL Center rafters, had three reinforcements in his lineup, including All-AHL right wing Mark Mancari and defenseman Dennis Persson, reassigned by the parent Buffalo Sabres. That came three days after center/captain Matt Ellis returned from Buffalo for Game 1.
Despite facing the added firepower, the Whale competed to the nth degree, got a goal and an assist from John Mitchell and Derek Couture, countless minutes from veteran defenseman Wade Redden and Dov Grumet-Morris’ 29 saves, including on NHL veteran Mark Parrish’s penalty shot with 5:38 left, to carve out a 3-1 victory before 3,102 at the XL Center.
“In any game there’s an ebb and flow, and obviously we took a lot of minor penalties (10),” Grumet-Morris said. “But when that happened, the penalty killers were able to step up and do everything that they could do in their powers to kind of bail the guy out. Everyone – and I mean every single athlete at every level in any sport – makes a mistake. It happens. That’s why this is a team sport, and your teammates have to help you.
“If you don’t want to do that, then you play an individual sport. You play golf or you play tennis, something of that nature. We’re a very good team here when we play together, and obviously Portland is as well, and we just came out a little bit ahead. But usually that’s what happens in the playoffs. Usually you don’t see 7-1 games.”
Gernander concurred after the Whale went 8-for-8 on the penalty kill after a 7-for-7 showing in a 3-2 overtime loss in Portland on Saturday night.
“It was a good effort by a lot of guys,” said Gernander, whose team is 18-for-20 in the series while a man short. “Our defensemen were good on the penalty kill, Dov was good in net and the forwards logged a lot of minutes killing penalties. It was a real good team effort and more and more we’ve used a lot more personnel to try to spread out the penalty killing. And everybody has been pretty productive in that regard. That’s good to have, but you don’t want to rely on it, and I think we could do ourselves a big favor by staying out of the (penalty) box.”
The victory got the Whale to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series that continues Tuesday night at 7 at the XL Center and will have at least a Game 5 on Thursday night in Portland, Maine.
“It was a very close game that definitely went back and forth,” Grumet-Morris said. “Our power play, which has been much maligned, really came up huge for us in the third period, and that was the difference in the game. We got a couple of bounces and they didn’t, but certainly Portland could have won the game very easily. But now it’s 2-1 and a new ballgame.”
And that can be traced directly to Grumet-Morris stacking his pads to stop the penalty shot by Parrish, who skated right to try to get a better angle on the Whale goalie. Parrish got the chance after Whale defenseman Pavel Valentenko blocked AHL Rookie of the Year Luke Adam’s rebound blast from point-blank range with Grumet-Morris out of position during the Pirates’ eighth power play. Valentenko keeled over from the shock of the shot to his stomach, falling on the puck in the crease. Despite Valentenko being temporarily disabled, referee Jamie Koharski awarded the Pirates a penalty shot.
“(Koharski) obviously felt he tried to freeze the puck himself in the crease,” Gernander said.
But as he has done most of the season since joining the Whale from Greenville of the ECHL, Grumet-Morris bailed out a teammate.
“I could hear Koharski, so I knew right away it was going to be a penalty shot,” Grumet-Morris said. “From his perspective, it looked liked our man was on top of the puck. I would have to look at the replay to see if (Valentenko) was covering it or it was just lying next to him. Either way, the ref is just trying to make the best call he can make. I’ve known him for 10 years, so I don’t question his integrity. The call was the right call, and luckily we came out a little bit ahead on that play.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do ahead of time, but essentially there’s three things you can do. You can come hard down the middle, come from the right or come from the left. He came from my left, and luckily I was able to get a piece of it when he shot the puck.”
The Whale again took an early lead when left wing Tommy Grant, one of seven recent college/junior signees, passed to Ryan Garlock, who rushed into the right circle and flipped a backhand centering pass that hit off Grant’s skate and past David Leggio at 3:03 for his first pro playoff goal.
“Tommy got us a big goal off the start to get us going,” Gernander said.
Leggio (19 saves) denied All-Star Jeremy Williams’ rush off right wing at 5:00 and again in front at 12:50. Given those reprieves, the Pirates tied it when Parrish’s rebound bounded past Kris Newbury to Mark Voakes, who sled the puck past Grumet-Morris with 52.6 seconds left in the period.
Grumet-Morris then kept the Whale ahead with a left-pad stop on Igor Gongalsky’s bid off a 3-on-1 at 2:52 of the second period. Leggio, who had been 5-1-1 against the Whale, then stopped a semi-breakaway by Brodie Dupont at 5:18 after he left the penalty box.
Grumet-Morris made another stellar save on Colin Stuart, who had maneuvered around Stu Bickel in front of the Whale net with 8:19 left in the period.
The Whale then reclaimed the lead for good as Couture outmaneuvered Persson in front and backhanded in a rebound of Redden’s 40-foot shot from the slot off a nice setup by Mitchell with 3:37 to go.
“Mitch was on the forecheck and was strong on the puck and got it back to Reds, who let go a nice veteran shot low,” Couture said. “I screened the goalie, the rebound came out and just put it in. … It’s hard to say the difference from the first two games, but Dover played a helluva game, the power play got a goal and guys worked hard, though guys were working hard in Portland as well. You don’t know how it’s going to go down, so you’ve got to keep playing the same way.”
The Pirates nearly tied it again, but Derek Whitmore, the hero of Game 2 with the tying and winning goal in overtime, hit the far post with 2:08 left. The Whale nearly took a two-goal lead at 3:05 of the third period, but Leggio stopped Newbury’s deflection and dove to deflect Williams’ rebound bid.
The Whale then took their first two-goal lead of the series when Dale Weise’s shot deflected off Persson’s skate to Mitchell, whose bad-angle shot went in off Leggio at 9:22.
After Grumet-Morris stopped Parrish’s penalty shot, the Pirates pulled Leggio with 42 seconds left but got only one shot on goal as the Whale franchise ended a six-game playoff losing streak to Portland dating to 2008 and a six-game postseason slide overall since the then Hartford Wolf Pack took a 2-0 series lead in the first round against the Worcester Sharks in 2009.
“I think the first two games we had a few moments in certain periods where we kind of fell asleep, and that cost us,” Mitchell said. “In the playoffs, you can’t take any shifts off because if you do, they’re going to pounce all over you. And they did, especially in Game 1 when they got up 3-0 in a quick span in the first period. Then we brought it back and had a good game.
“And unfortunately in Game 2, they’re last two goals they got were a little bit of sloppy play for an instant, and before you knew it the puck was in the back of our net. We addressed those things, and this was obviously a must-win for our team, and we came in and put in a solid effort. There are plenty of teams that go on the road and not win either of the games, but we knew we had home ice and had to take advantage of it. We have a series, but now Game 4 is just as important as tonight’s game was.”
Meanwhile, the Pirates had a two-game playoff winning streak stopped after losing eight consecutive games since Game 1 of the 2009 division semifinals at Providence on April 15, 2009. The Pirates went on to lose the next four games of that series and were swept in the first round by Manchester last year.
“In the second period we ended up losing the period, but I was really very happy with the way the period went,” Dineen said. “We had good assertive play. We had some confidence and we made a good push. We started the third period on the power play, and that didn’t go so well and we started to lose momentum there. That was a little bit of a turning point in the game.”
Along with Grumet-Morris’ penalty shot save that assured it wouldn’t be the ninth one-goal game in the 11 meetings between the teams this season, including five at the XL Center.
“A lot of times goaltending and their whole body of work comes down to the big save you made or the save you didn’t make,” Gernander said. “I think obviously that was a big save that he made there.”
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