HARTFORD, Conn. – Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the 1986 NHL All-Star Game at the then Hartford Civic Center and the end of the 2011 AHL All-Star break for the struggling intrastate rival Connecticut Whale and Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
While Game 50 for the Whale and Game 49 for the Sound Tigers likely won’t make any All-Star reels, it proved plenty exciting for the 6,023 at the XL Center, including ’86 All-Stars and former Hartford Whalers Mark Howe and Brian Propp, along with former Whalers fan favorite Alan Hangsleben.
And Whale goalie Chad Johnson gave an All-Star performance, especially in the first period, and AHL All-Star Jeremy Williams, rookie Jyri Niemi and veteran Kris Newbury scored as Johnson and the Whale ended three-game losing streak with a 3-2 victory.
Johnson’s 28-save effort came a day after he spent a half-hour after practice chatting and watching video with New York Rangers goaltenders coach Benoit Allaire. They reviewed a few clips of Johnson’s first NHL win last season against the Colorado Avalanche and focused on keeping things simple.
“I told him I just haven’t felt the same,” said Johnson, who had a 21-save, 4-0 victory over the Sound Tigers in their previous meeting Dec. 26. “For me, it’s all about my posture and my stance. We looked at things and just tried to keep it simple. I admit I haven’t really been consistent this season throughout games, so it has been tough. We just talked about little things and simplifying my game, just beat the pass, that’s the big thing. He was just reinforcing the basics and his philosophy and what can make us successful.”
Johnson was especially successful in the opening 10 minutes, which the Sound Tigers dominated while holding the Whale to only one shot. But that was a goal at 3:22 by Jeremy Williams, who took a centering pass from behind the net from Brodie Dupont and lifted a shot under the crossbar, much as he did in helping the Eastern Conference beat the Western Conference 11-10 in the AHL All-Star Game on Monday night. It was Williams’ 23rd goal and 41st point, both team highs.
The rest of the period belonged to Johnson, who made point-blank saves off Justin DiBenedetto at 6:14, Olivier Labelle at 9:38 and Brady Leisenring at 10:01.
“Bennie had said be aware of where the players are, and my success was being aware of where guys were when they got in the slot,” Johnson said. “I was in good position, pushed into it and was square to the puck earlier than usual. Guys did a good job communicating after I talked to the defensive corps with (assistant coach) J.J. (Daigneault). We wanted to make sure we had communications, and if could see pucks and playing the puck behind the net, and I think that helped a lot. We had a lot more communications and I was seeing a lot more pucks, so like J.J. said, if I see it, I stop it. Now having consistency is going to be the biggest thing for me.”
Newbury, reassigned to the Whale on Thursday after two solid stints with the Rangers spanning eight games, scored the winner off Wade Redden’s rebound with 8:40 left in the second period. Newbury had several other good scoring chances while having to play a more offensive role than in New York, where he was on a checking line and helped kill penalties and take face-offs.
“We’ve been struggling, but tonight we put it together for 45-50 minutes,” said Newbury, who will have played seven games in 10 days by the end of a home-and-home with the Portland Pirates on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. “There are definitely some things to work on when we have a couple days off next week to get some better practice habits and try to clean up our end a little better before we start on the offense.
“Chad played well and kept us in the game. Even when they got a late one (by Wes O’Neill with 6:56 left), he was able to shut the door for us. It’s good to see, but some a forward’s standpoint, and I think I can talk for most of the defense, we have to be better in our end.”
It was a much-needed victory for the Whale (23-20-2-5), who had lost the first three games of a homestand, as well as four straight and six of seven at home after eight consecutive wins at the XL Center. The victory got the Whale even at home (12-12-2-1) and kept them within one point of third-place Worcester, which beat Atlantic Division-leading Manchester 4-3 in a shootout. But the Whale, now 5-1-0-1 in the GEICO Connecticut Cup against the Sound Tigers, remained only three points ahead of Providence, which beat Springfield, 2-1.
Meanwhile, the Sound Tigers (19-24-3-3) lost their fifth in a row and are 1-10-2-1 in 2011 while falling into the division cellar.
After Williams gave the Whale the early lead, Johnson robbed DiBenedetto at 5:45. But moments later during the Sound Tigers’ first power play, DiBenedetto converted his own rebound 22 seconds later off a deflected shot from the right point by former Wolf Pack defenseman Dylan Reese, reassigned earlier in the day by the parent New York Islanders.
Moments later, a diving Koskinen robbed Evgeny Grachev, whose skate caught the goalie in the face, dazing him. Chad Kolarik picked up the rebound and sent it to the left point to Tomas Kundratek, who passed to the right point to Jyri Niemi for a 50-foot shot into an open net at 7:02 for his first pro goal.
“I thought the referee was going to whistle the play dead,” Koskinen said. “I thought I felt OK, but the next time I saw the puck, it was in the net.”
When asked if he thought a monkey had been lifted off his back, Niemi smiled and said, “Oh, yeah, it’s like a gorilla.” Niemi, a third-round pick of the Islanders in 2008 acquired by the Rangers for a sixth-round pick on May 25, 2010, had the commemorative puck in his locker room after being presented it by Kundratek.
“The guys told me that I would have been fined if I didn’t score,” Niemi said, smiling again. “When Tomas got the puck, I looked down and the goalie was falling down, so I thought I’d take my time and score. Tomas saw me wide open, so it was a good play by him.
“It has never taken me this long to score, maybe 12 games in my last year of juniors (with Saskatoon of the Western Hockey League). In juniors, I used to score a lot, so it’s a big relief to get the one out of the way here.”
Would he being texting his family and friends in his native Finland?
“They can look it up on the Internet,” Niemi said with one final smile.
The Whale got the winner when Redden picked off a Jesse Joensuu clearing attempt along the left boards and fired a shot that Newbury converted with a backhanded rebound at 11:20 after outmuscling All-Star defenseman Mark Wotton in front.
“We haven’t scored a plethora of goals lately, so those are the kind of goals that we need more of,” Whale coach Ken Gernander said. “We need him to get into those dirty areas either to get second or third attempts net-front or just occupy people in front or create some traffic.”
Johnson kept it a two-goal game with another brilliant stop, this time on All-Star captain Mark Wotton’s wide-open rebound bid from 10 feet in front with 2:48 left in the period.
Koskinen kept the Sound Tigers in the game when he made a right-toe save on Kolarik with three seconds left in the period. Then moments after the Whale killed a Sound Tigers power play, Kolarik blocked a pass in his own and took off on a breakaway but missed the net at 3:10.
At 6:33, Koskinen slid across to rob Niemi breaking in alone off a pass from Newbury, causing the rookie defenseman to shake his head in disbelief. Then Johnson came out to deny DiBenedetto cruising in off right wing with 8:34 left.
But Johnson couldn’t hold off the charging Sound Tigers forever as O’Neill got inside Whale defenseman Jared Nightingale and knocked in Leisenring’s rebound with 6:56 left.
The Sound Tigers pulled Koskinen for a sixth attacker with 1:32 left, but the Whale allowed only one shot on Johnson.
“I thought some guys were pretty sloppy in areas, and part of it was both teams were coming back from the (All-Star) break,” Gernander said. “We could have made better plays with the puck at times, and there were some breakdowns never should have occurred, and both goalies made some good saves, but Johnson was good.
“I’d like to see everybody hitting on all cylinders, and I don’t think our game is where it was before we had the rash of injuries and call-ups. So we have to continue to push until we squeeze out our A game on a consistent basis.”
Story by Bruce Berlet of the Connecticut Whale
Comment@prohockeynews.com
