A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME? 

VERSUS 

When a hockey team goes five-for-five on the penalty kill and has a three-for five night on the power play, odds are pretty good that that team is going to win.

The Connecticut Whale did just that and had five points from their top line to lead the way. Brodie Dupont (1g, 1a), Kris Newbury (1g, 1a) and Dale Weise (1a) each had strong games. The team’s leading scorer, Jeremy Williams (1g, 1a), ended a four game pointless streak with a multi-point night. Wade Redden also chipped in his first goal in 17 games. The Connecticut Whale won for the second straight time since being shellacked by the Toronto Marlies 9-2 Wednesday night and knocked off the Providence Bruins in front of 8,470, 4-1 at the Dunkin Donuts Center Sunday afternoon.

Ryan Garlock took an early double minor for a  high sticking call on Brian McGrattan just 3:29 into the contest. The Whale penalty killers were superb as they knocked the four minutes off the clock.

As the Bruins’ power play ended, Dupont picked up the puck and made a terrific outlet pass that found Garlock as he exited the penalty box and that created a 2-on-1 odd man rush. Garlock redeemed himself coming up the left side and put a perfect pass right on the stick of Newbury coming up the middle of the slot. Newbury wristed it over the glove of Matt Dalton (12 saves, 7-8-0) for his eighth of the season.

With shots 6-2 at the latter part of the first and the Whale up a goal, tempers were beginning to flare. When Colby Cohen and Kris Newbury dropped the gloves it was no real surprise to anyone. Cohen, a recent signee and college player not accustomed to throwing punches, took a pretty decent pounding from Newbury, who to be kind has been in more than his share of scraps over the last 8 years.

With 2:32 remaining in the period, Jeremy Williams went to send the puck across the top of the blue line to Jared Nightingale on the right side. McGrattan read it perfectly and blocked the pass out to the neutral zone. Nightingale pursued but pulled him down with his stick and McGrattan was awarded a penalty shot.

McGrattan is known more for using his fists than his “hands” and yet when he came down the pipe on Dov Grumet-Morris (21 saves, 3-2-0) and snapped a wrister high glove on the Whale netminder you’d have never thought that fighting was bailiwick. McGrattan was credited with his 4th of the season.

The Whale were given a power play just 1:53 into the second frame when Yury Alexandrov was sent off for two minutes for high sticking Weise in the offensive zone.

Dupont, Weise and Newbury would make them pay for it.

Weise had the puck on the left side and sent the puck around the back of the net over to the right side to Newbury on the half-boards. Dupont meanwhile made his way to the front of the net and Newbury threaded a needle and put the puck right in the perfect spot for Dupont to send it to the back of the net to give the Whale what would prove to be the game-winner.

Dupont has been red-hot following his return from the New York Rangers eight games ago. Since then he has points in seven of them and has 3g and 7a for 10pts over that span.

Jordan LaVallee-Smotherman dropped the gloves with Stu Bickel for a tango at 3:40 and was assessed an extra roughing call. Despite excellent scoring chances for Devin DiDiomete and Garlock in front that were both stopped by Dalton, the Whale were unable to add to their lead.

At 9:07 of the second stanza, it was time for another scrap as Nathan McIver and Justin Soryal mixed it up. The fight was pretty even but McIver gets the decision for landing more punches.

LaVallee-Smotherman felt it was time for another tango himself with 6:06 left to intermission. His dance partner was DiDiomete who landed much harder blows and drove the Bruin left winger into the ice. The whole fight was predicated by a Matt Bartkowski hooking call that DiDiomete took exception to.

So after the dust was cleared, the Whale went on their third power play.  56 seconds into the man-advantage, Redden potted his hard shot from the right point past Dalton. On the play it looked like Dupont’s screen distracted Dalton and the puck hit Lane MacDermid’s stick and changed direction on the Bruin netminder.

When David Ling tipped Garlock and sent the Whale to the power play for the fourth time in the period and as hot as it was in this game you knew another tally was coming…and they didn’t disappoint.

With just 1:31 left, after Chad Kolarik won a battle along the wall on the right side he played catch with Tomas Kundratek on the point and quickly sent it to the left side of the high slot to Williams who was waiting on the pass to unleash his patented one-timer and he blew it right past Dalton for his 24th of the season.

The Whale badly outshot the Bruins in the second, 14-6 and really had full command of the game entering the third period.

Grumet-Morris was steady and solid throughout and deserved the second star honor that he was given at the end of the game.

By the way, someone ought to explain to Antoine Roussel that fighting isn’t something he should consider at making a part of his reparatory at any point soon. He was summarily thrashed by DiDiomete when the two mixed it up with 3:59 left in the game.

The Whale are now 3-0 at the Dunkin Donuts Center this season and in the six times the team has now played, the Whale are 12-for-28 on the power play, an ungodly 42.8%.

The two teams will meet again at the WhaleFest outdoors Saturday night at Rentscheler Field. Tickets are still available but they are going fast. 22,500 have been sold so far.

Bob Crawford was on microphone and on the keyboard filing this story at CTWhale.com.  The only place you’ll find the Providence story  is at ProvidenceBruins.com.

GAME SUMMARY and OFFICIAL SCORERS SHEET

STANDINGS:

(Standings courtesy of theahl.com)

NOTES:

* The Whale find themselves currently in third place in their division, but Worcester has four games in hand. They are temporarily in the playoffs, but there are eight points hanging out there for Worcester to grab. Two put the Whale out of the running as the Ranger’s AHL affiliate also trails Binghamton by three points with the Senators holding a game in hand.

86 points got the Bridgeport Sound Tigers into the last playoff spot last season. Figure the Whale will need about 90 to insure themselves of getting in. The team has 25 games remaining on the schedule and they have 59 points. That means, of the final 50 points available to them, the team will need to a minimum of 27 of them and realistically 31. A record like 14-8-1-2, or something like that the rest of the way should get them into the tournament for the Calder Cup.

* The same two teams will do battle in the Harvest-Properties.com Whale Bowl, outdoors this coming Saturday, February 19, at Rentschler Field at 7:00 PM. The AHL attendance record of 21,508 which came on Feb. 20, 2010 when the Syracuse Crunch beat the Binghamton Senators 2-1 at the New York State Fairgrounds on a goal by ex-Wolf Pack defenseman Dave Liffiton, will be shattered as 22.500 tickets have already been sold .The team is looking for a sell-out which will be around 38,000.

* Penalty shots have hurt the Whale all season long. Of the four attempted, three have led to goals. Wes O’Neil (Bridgeport) on Nov. 26 and Paul Byron (Portland) on New Year’s Eve,  both beat Chad Johnson. David Masse (Hamilton) was stopped by Pier-Oliver Pelletier on Jan. 21, 2011.

* The Whale raised their road record to 14-9-0-4. At home, the Rangers’ AHL affiliate is 12-13-2-1.

* The Whale evened their record in games decided by 3 goals to 5-5-0-0.

* When outshooting their opponents they are now 15-10-2-3 as opposed to 10-12-0-2 when out shot themselves.

* If the Whale find themselves ahead with a lead entering the third period they are 16-1-0-2 and 2-17-0-2 when trailing in that scenario.

LINES:

Dupont – Newbury – Weise
Grachev – Kennedy – Kolarik
DiDiomete – Tessier – Jeremy Williams
Soryal – Garlock – Eizenman

Niemi – Kundratek
Redden – Nightingale
Valentenko – Bickel

Grumet-Morris
Pelletier

(Assistant Captains Bold and Italicized)

SCRATCHES:

Todd White – Concussion – Undetermined
Chris McKelvie – Foot Surgery, Undetermined
Chad Johnson – Flu – Day-to-Day

Cam Talbot – High Ankle Sprain, Day-to-Day

THREE STARS:

1. CT – B. Dupont
2. CT – D. Grumet-Morris
3. PRO – B. McGrattan

ON ICE OFFICIALS:

Referee:
Terry Koharski (10)
Chris Brown (86)

Linesmen:
Todd Whittemore (70)
Bob Paquette (18)

NEXT GAME:

After a heavy travel schedule the past few days, the Whale get some much needed time off for recuperation before traveling up to Glens Falls looking to make it three straight Friday night against Adirondack at 7:30. Bob Crawford has the pregame a half an hour before the puck drops.

To watch the game live, you can purchased it for $6.99 at AHL-live.

For Ticket information for all home games, call (860) 548-2000.

Too far away or can’t make it? Listen live at WTIC.com or from your cell phone or computer visit www.twitter.com/howlingstoday for complete live in-game coverage of all games both home and away.

SCORE-SHEET:

Connecticut Whale 4 at Providence Bruins 1 – Status: Final
Sunday, February 13, 2011 – Dunkin’ Donuts Center

Connecticut 1 3 0 – 4
Providence 1 0 0 – 1

1st Period-1, Connecticut, Newbury 8 (Garlock, Dupont), 7:39. 2, Providence, McGrattan 4   17:28 (TXT_PS). Penalties-Garlock Ct (double minor – high-sticking), 3:29; Williams Ct (slashing), 10:05; McIver Pro (slashing), 10:05; Newbury Ct (fighting), 16:16; Cohen Pro (fighting), 16:16; Kolarik Ct (hooking), 19:06.

2nd Period-3, Connecticut, Dupont 11 (Newbury, Weise), 3:15 (PP). 4, Connecticut, Redden 4 (Williams), 15:50 (PP). 5, Connecticut, Williams 24 (Kolarik, Kundratek), 18:29 (PP). Penalties-Alexandrov Pro (high-sticking), 1:53; Bickel Ct (fighting), 3:40; LaVallee-Smotherman Pro (roughing, fighting), 3:40; Soryal Ct (fighting), 9:07; McIver Pro (fighting), 9:07; DiDiomete Ct (fighting), 14:54; Bartkowski Pro (hooking), 14:54; LaVallee-Smotherman Pro (fighting), 14:54; Ling Pro (tripping), 17:27.

3rd Period- No Scoring.Penalties-Kennedy Ct (hooking), 4:47; Kolarik Ct (slashing), 6:51; Bodnarchuk Pro (interference), 12:58; DiDiomete Ct (fighting), 16:01; Roussel Pro (fighting), 16:01.

Shots on Goal-Connecticut 4-14-6-24. Providence 8-6-8-22.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 3 / 5; Providence 0 / 5.
Goalies-Connecticut, Grumet-Morris 2-2-0 (22 shots-21 saves). Providence, Dalton 7-7-0 (16 shots-12 saves); Schaefer 9-15-1 (8 shots-8 saves).
A-8,470
Referees-Terry Koharski (10), Chris Brown (86).
Linesmen-Todd Whittemore (70), Bob Paquette (18).