WORCESTER, Mass – A third-period Connecticut Whale comeback fell just short Sunday at the DCU Center, and the Worcester Sharks held on for a 5-4 win to move back into a third-place tie with the Whale in the Atlantic Division standings.
Trailing 5-2 in the third, the Whale scored twice in the final 5:23, but could not manage an equalizer and saw a five-game winning streak in the season series against Worcester come to an end. The two teams are deadlocked at 74 points with 13 games left in their respective seasons and their eight-game season series complete.
John McCarthy scored a pair of goals, his first two AHL goals of the season, to lead the Sharks, who earned a split of a home-and-home series with the Whale after losing 4-2 at the XL Center on Saturday night. Worcester also got goals from Dan DaSilva, Tommy Wingels and Kevin Henderson, who had the game-winner early in the third. Carter Hutton made 29 saves in his first appearance of the year against the Whale. Kris Newbury, Brodie Dupont and Kelsey Tessier had a goal and an assist each for Connecticut, and Jeremy Williams upped his Whale-leading goal total to 28 with his third goal in two games. Rookie defenseman Blake Parlett had his first career multiple-point game in the AHL with three assists.
Worcester opened the scoring at 5:29 of the first period, on DaSilva’s 14th goal of the season.
Michael Swift pounced on a Whale turnover just outside the Connecticut blue line and moved left to right across the slot before feeding DaSilva, who fired a shot from the right faceoff dot past the glove of Whale goaltender Cam Talbot (24 saves).
A major swing occurred about seven minutes later, when the Whale appeared to have tied the game at 12:19, with Francis Lemieux poking the puck past Hutton, but not only was the goal disallowed, Lemieux was also called for a high-sticking penalty, and Worcester scored only seven seconds into the resulting power play.
That goal was scored by Wingels, who had both Shark goals in Saturday night’s game. Jamie McGinn sent the puck to Wingels between the circles and Wingels beat Talbot with a snap shot to the stick side.
The Whale narrowly missed going down 3-0 with about two minutes left in the first, when Talbot stopped DaSilva on a breakaway with a left-pad save.
The Sharks were able to extend the lead just 1:19 into the second, though, on a shorthanded goal by McCarthy, just the third shorthander given up by the Whale in 67 games on the season. Williams had the puck trickle away from him at the left point, and McCarthy broke two-on-one with McGinn. Using McGinn as a decoy, McCarthy unloaded a shot off of right wing that went underneath Talbot’s stick-side arm. The goal was McCarthy’s first in 12 AHL games on the season.
Connecticut finally got on the scoreboard at 11:29 of the second, with Newbury getting his 14th goal of the year and his fifth in the last six games. Hutton made a pair of saves, and had a teammate bat the puck out of the air from in behind him, but couldn’t stop Newbury’s shot from the top of the circles, off of a pass from Tessier.
The Whale then got a shorthanded goal of their own at 17:04, as Newbury and Dupont broke in on a two-on-one. Newbury passed to Dupont in the right circle, and even though Dupont didn’t get all of the shot, he still had enough room to get it by Hutton on the glove side.
The Sharks got that one back, however, just 1:55 later on McCarthy’s second of the game. McCarthy took a pass from Sean Sullivan and circled the net, coming out to Talbot’s right. McCarthy jammed the puck toward the crease, and it found its way past Talbot for a 4-2 Worcester lead.
Worcester gave itself a three-goal cushion only 1:49 into the third period, as T.J. Trevelyan won an offensive zone faceoff from Lemieux and Matt Irwin’s shot from the right point was deflected in by Henderson.
While that looked like it was going to be an insurance goal, it turned out to be the game-winner when Tessier and Williams scored 3:11 apart, starting at the 14:37 mark.
Connecticut cut the lead to 5-3 when Parlett brought the puck down right wing in the Worcester zone and centered it across the slot, and Tessier, who had been knocked down hard at the far side of the net, reached out with his stick while down on the ice and slid the puck into the goal.
That tally, Tessier’s eighth of the season, was followed at 17:48 by Williams’ goal, which came as a result of Tomas Kundratek finding Williams unguarded in front of Hutton. Williams backpedaled to about 15 feet from the net and snapped the puck into the top corner over Hutton’s catching glove.
The Whale ended up with a 12-6 shots on goal in the third period, and a 33-29 edge for the game, but could not solve Hutton again, finishing the season series against the Sharks 5-2-0-1. The loss was only the Whale’s fifth all-time regular-season regulation defeat in Worcester against the Sharks, in 21 total visits (14-5-0-2). The Whale also had a three-game road winning streak, and a five-game win streak against Atlantic Division teams, snapped in the loss.
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