HARTFORD, Conn. – A five-minute lapse early in the second period proved the Connecticut Whale’s undoing Friday night in another tight encounter with the Manchester Monarchs.
AHL All-Star defenseman Viatcheslav Voynov, Brandon Kozun and Bud Holloway scored in a 5:06 span, and the Monarchs held off a late Whale charge for a 4-2 victory before 5,802 at the XL Center.
It was the Whale’s third consecutive loss at home and dropped them to 11-11-2-1 at the XL Center compared to 11-8-0-4 on the road. Meanwhile, the Monarchs (29-16-1-3) moved back into the Atlantic Division lead, one point ahead of the Portland Pirates (28-14-4-1), who lost 4-2 at Providence and will be at the XL Center on Saturday night.
Despite being reinforced by the return of defenseman Michael Del Zotto and forwards Kris Newbury, Dale Weise, Chad Kolarik, Evgeny Grachev and Brodie Dupont from the Rangers, the Whale fell to 1-5-0-1 against the Monarchs.
“They’re (the Monarchs) obviously a good team, and you can’t give them opportunities,” Whale coach Ken Gernander said. “They’re going to earn them on their own, so you can’t give them extra cracks at it, and that was the case a couple of times tonight.”
Especially in the first 10:20 of the second period when turnovers and lax play by the Whale helped the Monarchs take the lead and then hold it thanks in large part to another solid effort by rookie goalie Martin Jones, who had 26 saves to improve to 17-5-0 with a 2.17 goals-against average and .930 save percentage. In the Monarchs’ previous visit, Jones made 39 saves for his first of two shutouts in a 3-0 victory.
“Within that (five-minute span), we made some big mistakes that I’m sure we’ll have to address,” Gernander said. “It’s not that we went flat or disappeared for a segment of time. The goals came in a short span, but there were some big mistakes in that span. I’m not going to single guys out, but some of our mistakes were by some of our more key players, and that’s always disappointing.”
An angry Gernander called his timeout at 10:20 of the second period after the Whale turned the puck over in the neutral zone and Holloway, the Monarchs’ leading scorer, skated into the left circle and beat Chad Johnson high to the glove side at 10:20.
“There were mistakes, and there were some areas where our effort could have better,” Gernander said in revealing what was said during the timeout. “Throughout the course of a game, people are going to make mistakes, people are going lose the odd battle, but it was just the general kind of malaise and some mistakes that were beyond just mistakes, kind of bonehead plays instead of just the mistake that you make in the course of a game. After some of those mistakes, I don’t think the effort was there to try to recover or correct the situation.”
Dupont admitted a lack of defense and effort on the sequence that led to Holloway’s goal.
“I tried to make up for it,” Dupont said. “You know you can do better. I wanted to make it up to the team because I enjoy playing for this team.”
The Whale responded with their best forechecking of the game, leading to Weise scoring off a give-and-go with Dupont at 13:41 for his third goal in two games since being reassigned by the Rangers on Saturday.
The Monarchs managed to retain their lead 2:23 into the third period when a diving Dupont drove to the net and let go a shot from 10 feet in the slot that Jones stopped without knowing where the puck was. After Johnson (30 saves) kept the Whale close with three stops during the Monarchs’ third power play, Kennedy broke in alone from center ice but hit the post at 7:37.
“(Jones) was pretty good,” Gernander said. “There were no muffins. I thought we had some pretty good chances where he made some good saves and we hit a post and other things, but I think he’s a really good goalie.”
The Whale pulled Johnson for a sixth attacker with 1:06 left, but John Zeiler took a pass from former Yale forward David Meckler and iced it with an empty-net goal with 50 seconds to go.
Jones picked up where he left off from the previous game when he turned aside Dupont’s 30-foot shot at 2:55 and slid across to stop Jason Williams’ rebound attempt on a power play at 5:05.
Johnson then made bang-bang saves on Kozun’s close-in bid and rebound at 7:09 before Weise had the crowd buzzing after hits that knocked down defensive partners Thomas Hickey and David Kolomatis at the nine-minute mark.
The Whale then took a 1-0 lead on a brilliant individual effort by Tim Kennedy, who stole a Kozun back pass in the Whale zone, raced into the offensive zone, pirouetted away from Monarchs defenseman Jake Muzzin and passed in front to Grachev, who had gotten away from Voynov, for an easy finish at 11:23. It gave Grachev a four-game scoring streak, best on the Whale this season, and was his seventh goal in that span.
Whale center Todd White was injured in a collision with Dupont with 7:02 left in the period and didn’t return. Moments later, Jones made a strong save on Stu Bickel’s one-timer off Kelsey Tessier’s pass.
The Whale nearly expanded their lead on their second power play, but Jones denied Newbury in front with 5:44 left and then made a right pad save on Weise’s 40-foot laser from the right circle with two seconds to go.
Jones made another alert stop on Tessier’s 35-foot shot from the slot 2:24 into the third period before Johnson stopped Justin Azevedo from the left circle on a Monarchs power play at 4:59.
But the game quickly turned in a little more than five minutes.
Moments after the Monarchs’ second power play expired, Meckler hit the post. Weise was unable to reach the rebound, and Voynov picked up the puck and fired a 40-foot shot to tie it at 5:14, becoming the Monarchs’ 10th player with at least 10 goals.
The Monarchs took the lead for good 62 seconds later as Elkins dropped a pass to Kozun, who got away from Kolarik and fired a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Johnson high to the glove side, went off the crossbar and inn. Holloway capped the rally 4:04 later.
“We didn’t play a 60-minute game,” said Del Zotto, starting his second go-around with the Whale. “I know from the first day I got here that’s one thing we’ve talked about, you need to play 60 minutes. The penalty kill did a good job (4-for-4), but it kills you when you just don’t take care of the puck for a couple of shifts.
“They did a really good job in the neutral zone, and we were trying to make plays through them when all we really had to do is chip it by them and become the first guy on the forecheck. When we were doing that, we were successful and scored our goal in the second when we had 45 seconds battling them down low.
“When we did that, we were successful, but we didn’t do it on a consistent basis. And turnovers really kill you, especially in the neutral zone, and that’s what happened. There were a couple of shifts back-to-back that hurt us and ended up costing us the game.”
Story by Bruce Berlet of the Connecticut Whale
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