HARTFORD, Conn. – Former Portland Pirate Tim Kennedy’s goal 36 seconds into overtime gave the Connecticut Whale a 2-1 win over the Pirates Wednesday night before 7,913 at the XL Center.
Kennedy patiently held the puck in the right faceoff circle on the winning play, looking for a teammate before firing a 15-foot shot that beat Jhonas Enroth high to the glove side on a 4-on-3 power play.
“I’ve seen that shot before,” Pirate head coach, and former Hartford Whaler legend, Kevin Dineen said, alluding to Kennedy being on the AHL’s all-rookie team in 2008-09, when he was with the Pirates and led all first-year players in points (67) and assists (49). “He’s a great hockey player and a great kid, and we think a lot of him. Obviously he’s a big part of their team and played a lot of minutes, maybe 30 minutes.”
Kennedy admitted getting some added satisfaction from beating his former team but wasn’t thinking about shooting until the last moment.
“I’m usually a pass-first, shoot-second guy,” Kennedy said after scoring his fifth goal of the season and first winner with the Whale. “First I looked for (Wade Redden), then I looked for (Jeremy Williams), then I looked for (Kris Newbury) and they were all covered, so I kind of tried to shoot high glove.
“I didn’t have much room with Jhonas. When you practice against a guy for a whole year, you kind of know where to shoot on the net. Not that he has any weakness, but I kind of know where to go. I don’t think he was expecting me to go there. I think he thought I was going to pass.”
But Kennedy’s shot enabled the Whale (16-12-2-5) to improve its run to 10-1-0-2 and move four games above .500 for the first time this season. The month-long surge has vaulted the Whale into third place in the Atlantic Division, one point behind Portland (18-10-3-1), which has three games in hand and will host the Whale on Friday at 5:30 p.m. The Whale are 7-0-0-2 in their last nine division games and have a standings point in 13 of their last 14 games (10-1-0-3) after their first of eight meetings with the Pirates.
“It was a goal-scorer’s goal,” Whale coach Ken Gernander said of Kennedy’s winner. “It was obviously pretty fortuitous on the power play, and you want those types of players to have the puck on their stick in those situations.”
Meanwhile, the Pirates have lost four of five games and fallen six points behind division leader Manchester, which routed Adirondack, 6-2.
“It was a great game, well-played by both teams with lots of back and forth,” Dineen said. “I thought our guys executed well. You really have to respect how hard our guys played. I’m really happy with the effort we gave. The fans certainly got their money’s worth with a heck of a hockey game, and they got their win, which is probably the way it was written.”
A scoreless first period was highlighted by virtually no quality scoring chances and two fights within five seconds between the Whale’s Brodie Dupont and Pirates’ Tim Conboy, followed by Justin Soryal versus Dennis McCauley. The first was a draw, while Soryal scored a takedown in the second.
The scoring chances came early and often in the second period, as Johnson (24 saves) had to be alert to stop T.J. Brennan’s shot from the blueline at 31 seconds during the Pirates’ first power play. Enroth (28 saves) then denied Chad Kolarik’s move out of the left corner at 2:34 before Johnson stopped Conboy’s one-timer from 35 feet in the slot 54 seconds later.
Strong Pirates cycling down low led to the game’s best scoring opportunity so far at 11:12, but Johnson made a reflex save on a sprawling Derek Whitmore’s one-timer from 10 feet in front. Whitmore had an even better chance on the Whale’s third power play, but Johnson flicked out his right pad to stop his shorthanded breakaway with 1:20 left in the period.
“I was just trying to be patient,” Johnson said. “Working with (New York Rangers goaltenders coach) Bennie (Allaire), I’ve been pretty good on breakaways this year so I just tried to make him make the first move and kind of good read on him. It was good depth in my net – I wasn’t too far in or too far out – and kind of forced him to shoot it and was in good position.
“It was a kind of a big moment in a 0-0 game, and you can deflate a team quite a bit if you give up a shorthanded goal. So I just had to step up and make the save.”
The Whale had the 5-on-3 power play early in the third period, but Enroth stopped Kennedy’s rebound bid at 1:02, then his second rebound try slid through the crease.
The Whale finally broke through at 4:58 when Kelsey Tessier converted the rebound of Ryan McDonagh’s shot from the left point off a pass from Soryal.
But only 1:11 later, the Pirates tied it as the Whale failed to clear their zone before Paul Byron took a pass from Colin Stuart and fired a 35-foot slapshot that beat Johnson low to the stick side for his 11th goal of the season.
Enroth got the Pirates to overtime when he denied Kolarik on the decisive power play with 28.4 seconds left in regulation, but his former teammate beat him cleanly early in the five-minute extra session.
“They’re a quick team and came hard at us the whole game,” said Johnson, who had a shutout in his previous start, a 4-0 victory over Bridgeport on Sunday. “But I think we kept with them and took it to them in parts of the game, too. We knew what to expect and were prepared for the kind of game that was played. I think we did a good job with our scoring chances. But it was definitely good to get two points against a team like that.”
Article provided by Bruce Berlet of the Connecticut Whale
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