HARTFORD, Conn. – One of the all-time fortuitous bounces in Hartford Wolf Pack/Connecticut Whale history proved a winner Wednesday night in a crucial matchup with the Springfield Falcons.
Whale defenseman Pavel Valentenko’s dump-in attempt down left wing from his side of the redline hit a stanchion and ricocheted into the slot, where newcomer John Mitchell picked up a bouncing puck and fired a shot from 20 feet that went in off former Wolf Pack goalie David LeNeveu with 7.7 seconds left to give the Whale a 3-2 victory at the XL Center.
“The guys on the bench were yelling, ‘Dump it in, dump it in, dump it in,’ ” Valentenko said. “It was just a lucky bounce. Today was one lucky game for us.”
Mitchell, acquired by the parent New York Rangers on Monday from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a seventh-round pick in 2012, took advantage of the ricochet and scored his second goal of the season.
“I went for the forecheck and kind of got held up, so I was a little bit choked about that and kind of yelling at the ref as I was going up the ice as the puck was going out,” Mitchell said. “Tanker just pounded it in, so I just curled back to go (back) on the forecheck because I knew there wasn’t much time left so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going too aggressive, just play passive not to give up any chances.
“Obviously it was a fortunate bounce right into the middle of the ice, and it was kind of bouncing so I had to make sure I timed it so I could just tried to get a shot on net as fast as possible because there was a defenseman coming out of the corner sliding. So there definitely wasn’t going to be any time to dust the puck off and pick a corner, so I just tried to time the bounce. I was fortunate to get a good whack at it and good wood on it and slip it through his pads. It seemed to work out just fine.”
Just fine, indeed, as the Whale (29-24-2-6) broke a fourth-place tie with the Falcons (30-28-1-3) and vaulted past the idle Worcester Sharks (27-22-3-8) and into the third and final guaranteed playoff spot in the Atlantic Division. And the Whale notched the dramatic win as Ken Gernander returned from missing his first two games as coach in four seasons because of blood clots in his legs and lungs and finished without All-Star right wing Jeremy Williams, the team leader in goals (25) and points (44), and defenseman Michael Del Zotto, their top offensive defenseman.
Williams was injured with 5:02 left in the first period after Falcons wing Steven Goertzen pinned Williams in the left corner of the Whale zone. As Williams bent over to escape Goertzen, Kyle Neuber came from behind the net and hit Williams with his shoulder.
Williams immediately fell to the ice, where he remained for about 10 minutes while being treated by trainer Damien Hess and team doctor Brett Wasserlauf, an orthopedic surgeon, before leaving on a stretcher and being taken to St. Francis Hospital Medical Center.
“You never want to see someone get carried off on a stretcher, but I think it was more of a precautionary thing,” said Mitchell, a close friend of Williams for more than a decade and an off-and-on teammate with the Maple Leafs and Toronto Marlies for their eight pro eight seasons. “He was talking to us on the ice kind of laughing and having a good time, so I’m sure he’s fine, even if he got carried off on a stretcher. He actually wanted to try to get up and play, but (Hess) took the proper precautions and made sure he was safe getting off the ice. Hopefully it’s a speedy recovery for Willie.”
Neuber received an interference penalty, but the Whale got only one of their three shots in the first period, tying their season low for a period. Whale enforcer Justin Soryal tried to extract a bit of revenge when he scored a decision in a fight with Neuber at 2:20 of the second period.
The Whale lost Del Zotto in the second period. Del Zotto, a member of the NHL all-rookie team with the parent New York Rangers last season, had just started his third reassignment after having seven assists in 10 games.
Shortly after Del Zotto was injured, Mitchell was penalized for hooking, and the Falcons took a 1-0 lead at 6:47 on Brent Regner’s shot from 25 feet in the slot off the rebound of a Tomas Kubalik try.
LeNeveu (20 saves) kept the Falcons ahead with a glove stab of Jared Nightingale’s shot with 9:46 left in the period, which ended with the teams having combined for only 20 shots, 12 by Springfield, in the first 40 minutes.
But after a somewhat stern lecture from Gernander during the second intermission, the Whale picked up their pace and improved to 4-19-0-2 when they trailed after two periods, getting 15 shots in the final 20 minutes.
“(Gernander) didn’t exactly give us an earful, but he spoke in a matter like, ‘Hey, boys, let’s get going here,’ ” Mitchell said. “He did his job as coach and got the guys fired up. He said we need 15 shots this period. If we get 15 shots, we’ll win the game. He’s a successful coach for a reason.”
After LeNeveu made a sharp right pad stop on Nightingale at 2:41, the Whale tied the game as fellow defenseman Stu Bickel got away from Tomas Kana in the left corner and beat a screened LeNeveu to the short side at 4:24 for this first goal as a Whale.
Dov Grumet-Morris, signed to an AHL contract earlier in the day, kept the Whale even when he made a brilliant split save off Kyle Wilson breaking in alone off left wing at 6:40.
Dale Weise then broke the tie when he took a pass from Brodie Dupont in the neutral zone, broke in 2-on-1 with Kelsey Tessier, faked Falcons defenseman Cody Goloubef to the ice and fired a 25-foot shot that went in off LeNeveu with 5:43 left.
“Coming down, I was originally looking to pass, but their D-man was over with Tessier and I knew he was going to slide because I saw him do it earlier,” Weise said. “The toe-drag is kind of my go-to, so I just kind of out-waited him, the goalie went down and got a lucky one when it ticked off his glove.”
LeNeveu kept the Falcons close with a sprawling save on Francis Lemieux breaking off the right wing with 4:23 left, then Grumet-Morris robbed Kana in front with 1:33 to go, when the Falcons pulled LeNeveu for a sixth attacker.
Weise gave the Falcons life when he took a high-sticking penalty with 1:08 left, and they capitalized as Kubalik deflected David Savard’s shot from just inside the blue line past Grumet-Morris with 47.7 seconds left.
“I didn’t think my stick was very high,” Weise said. “I connected with the puck and followed through, and I thought I hit him in the chest and thought he might have embellished it a little bit. But late in the game, you know the refs are going to make those calls, and I’m a guy around the league that’s known to maybe taking things a little too far in the last couple minutes, and obviously the ref called me on it.
“(But) obviously when you go from giving them a goal and tying the game and going and getting the two points, it’s huge against a team on our heels. It’s a big two points for us.”
Gernander said the two points were satisfying because the Whale had six players who had joined or rejoined the team in the past week playing against a team that had won six of its last eight games.
“We had so many guys just coming in, and some didn’t even have a practice, just a pregame skate,” Gernander said. “Maybe it took a little time to jell, and if you watched Mitchell, I thought he got better and better as the game went on, so that’s encouraging. Center is a position where we’ve been a little depleted, and he gave us a little bit of a boost.
“After they tied it on kind of a fluky bounce, it wasn’t like we quit and just laid it in the corner and didn’t forecheck. They stayed right with it to the final buzzer. It was big goal at the end, a little bit fluky, but we’re going to take it. It was a big game and a big two points, so we’re pretty pleased with that. Now we have to go back to work for the next two day and prepare for a big weekend (at Springfield and Worcester) on Saturday and Sunday.”
Gernander also said Grumet-Morris got a just result and deserved the game’s No. 2 star.
“It was a great hard shot and a great tip on the tying goal,” Grumet-Morris said. “But I was very, very, very excited when we scored the third goal. The first two periods were a bit more quiet. The third was a bit more frenetic both offensively and defensively, which led to more opportunities. So when you have slower game where the pace picks up in the third period, as a player, whether you’re a goaltender on a defenseman, you want to be able to execute your job to have a bit of a contribution to the win.
“So it felt good that I was able to make a couple of saves in the third to either keep it tied or close. And it felt good to keep us ahead when he had the lead.”
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