Whale Even the Series at Two

The two teams meet for Game 5 Wednesday night in Bridgeport at the Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard. The teams have to play there because of a scheduling conflict at the XL Center.

The eventual game winning goal came as the result of solid two way play by rookie forward Scott Tanski.

Tanski was inserted in the lineup in Game 3 for Christian Thomas based in part of his regular season efforts against the Admirals and it paid off handsomely. Norfolk was breaking in on a two on one chance, but Tanski back checking lifted the stick of left wing Pierre Cedric-Labrie  squashed the opportunity and then got the puck out of the zone and helped start a Whale offensive rush that resulted in a goal.

Once in the Admirals zone, Tanski came around the right wing boards as the dump in by center Kelsey Tessier hit the backboards, went off the skate off winger Tommy Grant who got to the area before his Admiral counterpart and back into the slot and Tessier and Jean Philippe Cote jostled for the loose biscuit. Tanski then swept in like a vulture, took the puck dropped back to the top of the  left wing circle and fired it past Dustin Tokarski at 3:56 of the second period.

"I just came out and saw Timmy (Erixon) was pretty open (in the slot) and he was yelling for (the puck), but I knew it had kind of squeezed through Tess' legs and knew there was some traffic in front of the net, so I wanted to put the puck on the net because I knew Tokarski was down. I don't think he saw it, so I just tried to make the best opportunity to shoot and it went in," commented Tanski.

Tanski seems to have absorb the concepts head coach Ken Gernander and the coaching staff have been preaching all year.

"Ever since I came here and signed, I have tried to improve my game and that's what G has been preaching get back low and backcheck. When we get pucks in deep (on offense) and come back is when were most successful," remarked the winger with flowing, curly bright red hair.

The fact that Tanski, an unsigned training camp walk on and made the team has been willing to accept the sacrifice of sitting out games was not lost on his head coach.

"It wasn't an easy position to be in, to play all season long and be out of the lineup, but his work ethic has been good and he has been enthusiastic supporter of the team.  He's a heart and soul kinda guy. If a guy goes the other way and sulks, its detrimental to the team and he's not going to be back in the lineup. If there is such a thing as karma, this was good karma," said Gernander .

The Whale penalty killing was superb and perfect in blanking Norfolk six times, but one key critical point was late in the second period when forward Jordan Owens and Ryan Bourque made successive blocks and as they exited the ice Bourque  rapped his stick on the ice.

"Owens and Bourquie those shots blocks. Those are the plays that can rally a team when they see guys lay it on the line like that to get their job done." said Whale head coach Ken Gernander.

They did it again early in the third period on a four on three penalty kill stopping any quality chances and when got a clean shot away goalie Cam Talbot answered the bell.

He robbed Czech winger Ondrej Parlat at 9:08 of the second period all alone in front just after denying fellow Czech Radko Goudas with 9:21 left. The chances he faced were few, but Talbot because of strong play from the defense and support from the forwards had clear view of the pucks which he didn't in game three and the team corrected that defect.

Early in the third period Talbot used his glove hand to snatch a potential goal away from defenseman Mike Kostka.

The coaching staff was toying with maybe changing goalies, but Talbot got a surprise after game three which gave him a boost of confidence—a very public display of confidence in him from the team GM and New York Rangers assistant coach Jim Schoenfeld in front of the media in the locker room.

"That meant a lot to me personally. I don't think I've ever seen him do that, pull a guy away from the media and pat him on the back, but that meant a lot coming from a guy with his stature. That was huge for me and kind of gave me a big confidence boost. I wanted to give the coach a reward for putting me back in there," said Talbot.

Talbot made 19 saves on the night , now is 5-2 in the playoffs with a AHL second best  1.92 goals-against average, and league best .943 save percentage and is heading into a building (Bridgeport) were he posted the first back-to-back postseason shutouts in the franchise's 15-year history identical 3-0 shutouts.

"I tried to play a little more aggressive because I knew they were going to try to put shots through screens. I felt if I was a little bit more aggressive that more pucks might hit me and took away a little bit more of the net. So the biggest thing for me was to try to cut down the angle a little more and give them a little less to shoot at."

The Admirals scored on only one of the few Whale breakdowns of the evening at 7:42 off the third as Admirals won the draw in their zone and were able to advance the puck up the left wrong boards and Alex Killorn passed the puck to Slovak Richard Panik who beat Talbot as he drove to the net shortside for his first post season goal.

The Whale got the two goal lead they were looking for as the Admirals pressing to get the tying goal saw Slovak Marek Hrivik find Russian defenseman Pavel Valentenko with a perfect pass for a two on one break and Admirals defenseman Mark Barberio went down on the ice and Valentenko patiently held onto the puck went around the prone Barberio and found Casey Wellman screaming down the right wing and he buried his fourth of the post season at 16:48 for the 3-1 lead.

Snake bitten center Kris Newbury finished off the scoring with a 190 foot shot for his first of the post season in seven games of action into an empty net at 17:51.

Notes: The Admirals Tyler Johnson a big force in Game 2 in Norfolk sat out the game and Phillip-Michael Devos was put in his place…Despite a tough night on the defensive side of things Whale big rookie rearguard Dylan McIlrath won high praise for a late game scrap with Scott Jackson who hit the much smaller Ryan Bourque with an elbow (amazingly the refs missed, but the whole building saw)…Newbury finished with four shots on goal to lead the Whale and Michel Ouellet had four for the Admirals…Swedish defenseman for the Whale Tim Erixon finished with a plus 3

 

Advanced player search

Tweets by @eurohockey