Photo courtesy of Scott Slingsby
Viatcheslav Voynov is solid, aggressive, quick thinking and unselfish. Called Slava by his teammates and fans, Voynov is in his second season as a defenseman for the Monarchs. This 21-year-old was a second round pick in 2008 for the Kings organization, and he has gone above and beyond his call of duty. Last season, Voynov accrued 10 goals and 29 points in 79 games for Manchester.
This season, he leads defenders in scoring and already has 40 points and 12 goals. He almost never turns pucks over, but in crucial moments he finds the open space to attack and the intuition to score. Voynov sees the ice completely, knows where his teammates will be at all times and isn’t afraid to use his tremendous slapshot to light the lamp. His +/- score so far is 17, the highest on the team and a strong indication of his abilities as a puck-moving defenseman. Voynov also had the honor of playing in the AHL All-Star game for 2011 in Hershey and helped to lift the Eastern Conference team to an 11-8 win over the Western Conference. Though Voynov’s first language is Russian, we had a chance to talk to him with the help of a Russian translator, Glen Frieden.
no commentsWhile Saturday night’s game featured new players making big impacts in their new jerseys, the feelings shared for each other were the same as ever- hatred. A sentiment like that in a game leading up to the post season for two teams who could eventually meet means one thing: physical play. And that’s what fans got in this match up- fights, big hits, and scrums after whistles. One guy who knew this all to well was Johnny Boychuk- a man with a personal vendetta with the Penguins’ Matt Cooke. Boychuk in this one, like every time he faces the Penguins, was all over Cooke, attempting to run him through the boards on every opportunity. But the physical game the Bruins would bring on this evening would prove to not be enough to overcome the Penguins in this match up as the home team would fall short in overtime, 3-2.
The Bruins started this affair of strong, putting together a 1st twenty minutes of play filled with hitting, strong breakouts, and a flurry of opportunities. While they were kept scoreless by Fleury, they did show why the team had been unbeaten in seven straight. The keys to the Bruins in this period, as it has been in their previous games, was to keep their feet moving. The speed added to this line up by Peverley and Kelly along with the quick transition brought by Tomas Kaberle, made the breakout and play in transition exceptional for the Bruins. On many of rushes, the Bruins succeeded in turning the Penguin defenseman and brought plays right to the net. No opportunity was better in the first than Michael Ryder’s drive through the zone to deke Fleury and attempt to put one home on the down goalie. Fleury would come up big for his team on this one though, getting his left pad back into place and denying the Bruin forward.
The last time anyone in Boston saw the Bruins, they were giving up a late lead against the red-headed stepchild of the Northeast Division. The 4-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs was the last game those Bruins would lose as a unit, as Peter Chiarelli hit the phones hard, shipping away prospects, picks and Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart to get the long-desired Tomas Kaberle and add Rich Peverley and Chris Kelly.
With the new members of the Black and Gold in tow, the Bruins left for a six-game road trip which they swept, winning every game in regulation and besting the NHL-best Vancouver Canucks in the process. And when the suddenly re-energized squad finally hit TD Garden ice, the changes were apparent.
There, in the first period, was a skating game that hadn’t been seen in the previous 65 games. There was an improved physicality used to throw the Tampa Bay Lightning off of their game. And there was Mike Smith, standing on his head as the Bruins assaulted him with pucks and bodies alike.
But at the end of the day, it was the old guard that got the job done.
Steven Kampfer made up for an earlier mistake that led to a Steve Downie goal when he scored the tying goal at 6:06 in the second on a designed play that had him move the puck from the right point to the center and fired a slapshot stick side past a prone Smith. The rookie’s fifth goal tied it at one, but Kampfer didn’t have much to celebrate as he left the game early after taking a big hit in the corner late in the third.
Tempers started to flare later in the period, as Milan Lucic and Eric Brewer went at it after Lucic and Nathan Horton had already been assessed minor penalties. Brewer didn’t throw a punch, but took a few good hooks from Lucic, who spent two of the next five minutes watching his teammates kill off a 5-on-3 Tampa Bay advantage that never really amounted to much.
Neither team was able to generate any offense off the power play, as the Bruins went 0 for 3 and haven’t scored a man-advantage goal in five games. Tampa Bay was 0 for 4, despite having scored five times in 14 opportunities coming into the game.
Bruins head coach Claude Julien called the kill the “turning point” of the game.
The physical play ultimately tilted the ice in the Bruins favor, as Lucic gobbled up a loose puck from under a dogpile of Bruins and Lightning in the Tampa Bay crease and lifted it into the back of the net above a helpless Smith. The goal gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish, as Tampa’s struggles with the man-advantage continued once they pulled Smith for the extra attacker.
“Everyone was on the ice including their goalie so I just shot it high and hard and it went in,” said Lucic, whose 28th goal of the season is both a team- and career-high.
After a six-game road trip which saw the Bruins gain the attacking zone with relative ease, Tampa Bay coach Guy Boucher’s trademark 1-3-1 trap gave Boston problems again, just like it did in their first meeting of the year, a 3-1 Tampa win. The Bruins dumped and chased more in one game at home than they had in six games on the road, but still managed to secure the win.
“We tried to get their system figured out tonight. I think they played a little better, they were more defensively sound,” said Bruins forward Brad Marchand, who spent a majority of the game getting under the skin of Tampa forward Viktor Hedman. “It’s part of their game, they can’t beat us easily if they can’t get under guys’ skin, try to get them off their game.”
If anyone took that rule to heart, it was Horton, who after being dropped by the Lightning’s Dominic Moore in the first period followed the Tampa center back to the bench to give him a piece of his mind, and had to be forcibly directed to his own seat by the linesman.
“I don’t even remember what I said to him,” Horton admitted after the game. “I just know that I was mad because he hit me.”
Horton, who’s never been a part of something like the Bruins have - seven seasons in Florida produced exactly zero playoff berths - is enjoying the ride as much as he can. When asked if he’s ever been a part of something like this, Horton flashed his signature ear-to-ear grin and noted that while it was exciting, there’s still work to be done. “We’ve won seven in a row, and we’ll try to be perfect the rest of the way, too.”
While Horton may not have dropped the gloves, he was successful in bringing the physical presence that has made his line with David Krejci and Lucic so successful, and that has made the Bruins as a team such a strong contender late in the season.
Tampa came into the contest as the fourth-least penalized team in the league, lacking a heavyweight to trade punches with the likes of Lucic, Horton, Shawn Thornton or Adam McQuaid. The Bruins’ ability to take the physical play to the Lightning and set the tone for the game gave them the upper hand when all was said and done.
Setting the tone is something the Black and Gold has done well of late. In the six games since these Bruins started playing together, they’ve allowed only seven goals, including just three against two of the League’s top-five offenses. They’ve done it by skating and they’ve done it by being physical, and they’re quickly starting to look like a team that might be around for quite a few more months.
Photo courtesy of Scott Slingsby
There’s something to be said about a mother’s intuition. In December we talked to Colten Teubert’s Mom, Shauna Poppy, and though she said she’d love to visit Manchester again, she never knew where Colten would be playing. Sure enough, Teubert's career as a Manchester Monarch was halted yesterday when he was traded to the Oilers Organization--along with a first-round draft pick in 2011 and a conditional draft pick in 2012--for forward Dustin Penner. At only 20-years-old, Teubert is making some trades of his own: he's packing up his snowy New Hampshire condo and California dreams for a plane trip to Oklahoma City and a contract with a homeland team.
Colten had become an integral part of the Monarchs defense and a physical contributer. He was a first round pick for the Kings in 2008 and was selected 13th overall. Though he tallied 2 goals and 8 assists this season and has a shockingly hard slapshot, he is primarily a stay-at-home defenseman. He's solid in front of the net and hardly ever turns pucks over. At 6'4" and 195 pounds, he's a big body with some speed a lot of grit. Teubert isn't afraid to skate hard into the corners, commit to checks or mix it up on occasion. Like any player, there are things you'd like to see him do more of, but what he will bring to the Oiler's organization is an aggressive defensive mindset. He'll report to Oklahoma to play with the Barons in the AHL, and with the trade deadline being just a week shy of his 21st birthday, Teubert is just beginning his professional career. His future is bright, his potential enormous. While the Oilers gave up offensive consistency in Dustin Penner, they invested in guys like Colten who will help the organization develop in the next few years to come.
Though Colten is a jokester with his teammates and his family, he's serious and focused on the ice and in the locker room. There's no doubt he got the brightness of his personality and his blond hair from his mother Shauna, who is sweet, friendly and like most hockey moms, doting. Though she was once the mother of a King, she won't have to use her passport when she goes to watch Colten as an Oilers uniform in the next few years. Good luck in Oklahoma City and Edmonton, Colten. Thank you for all your hard-work in Manchester and your contributions in a Monarchs Country. We talked to both Shauna and Colten about growing up in British Columbia, making sacrifices for the game and Colten's missing teeth.
no commentsWhen I was looking for a picture to include with this post, I found this one from Khudobin's birthday couple of years ago. He had just played an absolutely electric playoff game and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him as he accepted his first star honors.
Anton Khudobin. Photo by Fred Trask
We've posted a lot of player and game pictures over at The Third Intermission, but this is probably my all time favorite because Anton is just... Anton. It was a glorious moment to be in the building.
Whatever anybody wants to say about him, there is no question he’s made an impact on fans everywhere he’s played, and I know he’ll make an impact on Providence fans, too. Anton, whom we nicknamed Dimples (though his mask says Dobby, but last time I looked, he‘s not a House Elf) for pretty obvious reasons, is from Kazakhstan, but spent his formative years in Russia.
If you’ve watched Nabokov much, you’ll find that Anton’s style is similar. Narrow stance, plenty of old school stuff (pad stacks and scrambles, ahoy!), but a solid technical repertoire to take care of the easy saves. He’s a small guy so he spends a lot of time challenging well outside of his crease. He’s pretty fearlesss and knows he has to do this to cut down the angle.
He’s charismatic. A little flourish on glove saves and he does this thing on dump-ins where he dives out and slows it down with his stick along the goal line rather than letting it bounce off the kick plate. It’s just one of many charming little Khudobinisms.
He’s also a funny guy and the beat writers there are going to love him. He says what’s on his mind, even if it doesn’t fit the hockey clichés. And frankly, his accent makes stuff that’s just marginally amusing into pretty hysterical. He’s got a great goldfish brain in that nothing really sticks to him. He’s happy-go-lucky, always smiling. He’s confident to the point of cocky sometimes, but when he’s YOUR goalie? That’s just a recipe for fun.
He will give you a hundred heart attacks a game, because he’s scrambling and diving and battling, but while it may look unorthodox, he finds a way to get ‘er done. Also…. He’s really really good in shootouts. Like… REALLY. And just fun to watch. Super patient, confident, and just does incredible things in shootouts thanks to his acrobatic athleticism.
If there’s a major knock against him, it’s that his focus is inconsistent. He’ll stand on his head and spin plates and sing show tunes one minute, and lets in a beach ball the next. But I attribute a lot of that lately to basically knowing there’s no place to move up in the Wild organization since they signed Dennis Endras to be Nik Backstrom’s backup in Minnesota next year.
What I’m saying is, Anton plays best when he’s hungry and I think a change of scenery will induce that hunger in him again. He’s got a whole new bunch of folks to impress and being in a barn like the Dunk, filled to the rafters as it was when I saw Binghamton play there in January, will put the wind in his sails again. And if that happens, there will be no stopping him.
Milwaukee Admirals (NSH)
Milwaukee remains on top in the West Division with 76 points along with four ather Division teams ruling the Conference. The Admirals have a one-point edge over Houston, whom they defeated on Tuesday 5-4. In his AHL debut, Anders Lindback earned the win stopping 31 shots. Lindback is playing his first season in North America and has played 21 games in the NHL with Nashville. Just 24 seconds into the game, Houston took a penalty and allowed Andreas Thuresson at 1:19 to score his seventh goal of the season, second on the power play. Chris Mueller's unassisted goal at 10:20 was his 17th of the season. The remaining scoring, all in the third period, started with Brett Palin at 4:19 then two by Matt Halischuk at 7:50 on the power play and again at 9:43.
Grant Lewis had a three point night and five different Admirals scored Wednesday to defeat the Oklahoma City Barons 6-1. Anders Lindback stopped 32 shots in his second straight win. Gabriel Bourque at 5:01 of the first got the scoring started for the Ad's. Grant Lewis at 19:02 and Ryan Flynn at 19:55 rounded out the first peeriod scoring. In the second period, Ryan Thang at 9:16 and Lewis at 13:29 scored his second goal of the night. Andreas Thuresson's goal at 16:18 in the second was the final score.
no commentsAdirondack Phantoms (PHI)
The Phantoms had a seven-game point streak going into Friday’s matchup with the Hamilton Bulldogs, but the Canadiens’ affiliate spoiled the streak, winning 4-1 against the Phantoms. Hamilton scored three unanswered goals in the last two periods of the game after Danny Syvret scored the lone Phantoms tally in the second period. The Phantoms struggled on the penalty kill, allowing two Hamilton power play goals in five chances.
Saturday, the Phantoms picked up two points, but just barely. Thanks to a strong performance from Michael Leighton, the Phantoms downed the Worcester Sharks 2-1 in a shootout. Greg Moore saved the day twice in the game – he scored the only Phantoms goal in regulation and also the shootout winner for Adirondack. Leighton made 37 saves in the win. Moore said of Leighton, “He was phenomenal. He’s been strong for us since he got here.”
Sunday, the Phantoms picked up a more decisive win in a 5-2 game over the Binghamton Senators. A three-goal explosion in the third period lent a hand to the Phantoms’ success. The five goals were scored by five different players: Logan Stephenson, Zac Rinaldo, Ben Holmstrom, Mike Testwuide, and Denis Hamel.
On trade deadline day, the hero of Saturday’s game, Greg Moore, was sent along with draft pick Michael Chaput (currently in the QMJHL) to the Columbus Blue Jackets organization in exchange for Tom Sestito. Sestito is to be assigned to Adirondack. In him, the Phantoms get a big body in the mold of the Flyers organization.
The Bruins completed a four-player trade on Sunday evening, sending Brian McGrattan and Sean Zimmerman to Anaheim for David Laliberte and Stefan Chaput. The P-Bruins don't lose much in this trade - Zimmerman has been a -5 so far on the season and hasn't contributed much on the scoresheet, with four assists in 23 games. McGrattan, aside from racking up 97 PIMs, isn't a huge loss either - the right wing has four goals and one assist in 39 games. McGrattan, who earned himself a two-way contract off a training-camp tryout, never really panned out for the Bruins, despite having played an entire NHL season for the Flames last year.
The loss of Zimmerman is an interesting one - he was the last remaining piece of the trades that sent Jeff Lovecchio, Jordan Knackstedt, and Levi Nelson away for Juraj Simek and Zimmerman back in the beginning of the season, after Simek decided to return to Europe.
The players being brought in from Anaheim haven't been there for long. David Laliberte and Stefan Chaput are both QMJHL products who were brought in from Philadephia and Carolina, respectively, within two days of each other in late November 2010. They were both immediately assigned to Syracuse.
The 22-year-old Chaput, from Montreal, Quebec, was drafted by the Carolina Hurricanes 153rd overall in 2006, out of the Lewiston MAINEiacs. His younger brother Michael still plays there, and his father is the governor of the team. He was a member of the MAINEiacs' star-studded 2006-2007 lineup, a team that included Jonathan Bernier, David Perron, and the Monarchs' own Marc-Andre Cliche. After a 2008-2009 season with Carolina's AHL affiliate Albany River Rats in which Chaput only played 15 games, he had a solid 2009-2010 campaign, scoring 10 goals and 28 assists. This season hasn't been his best, as he's only scored three goals and had seven assists in a combined 47 games for Charlotte and Syracuse.
25-year-old David Laliberte, from St-Jean-Sur-Richelie, Quebec, was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers, 124th overall, in the 2004 Entry Draft. He played five seasons for the Rocket of the QMJHL, including their final season in Montreal in 2002-2003. Laliberte was in the Flyers' system for three years, and spent time at all three levels - primarily the AHL, but also earned himself a 27-game stint with Wheeling of the ECHL in 2007-2008, as well as an 11-game callup to the NHL Flyers last season, in which he scored two goals and logged one assist. This season, he has eight goals and 10 assists for 18 total points in 48 combined games for Adirondack and Syracuse.
While the acquisition of these two players hardly provides a scoring punch, it could make things interesting for the baby Bruins, whose odds of making the playoffs become slimmer each week. With the addition of the hulking Boris Valabik, it's possible that management felt Zimmerman wasn't useful anymore, since the two seem to play the same highly-defensive defenseman role. Can these two forwards replace the offensive gap left by Joe Colborne? Possibly, but more likely that gap will be filled in across the board as other players are asked to step up. Whatever the case, it'll be interesting to see how these new players mesh with the team.
no commentsAdirondack Phantoms (PHI)
Through the first two periods of play, it was a subdued matchup between Adirondack and Syracuse Wednesday with just a goal apiece. In the third period, the Phantoms staged an offensive onslaught, scoring three in a row to win the game 4-2. The win tied the Phantoms with Syracuse for seventh place in the East division, the first time that the Phantoms have been out of dead-last place. The Phantoms are optimistic about turning things around. Defenseman Logan Stephenson said, “We want to climb as deep out of this as we possibly can.”
The Phantoms managed to gain a point against Connecticut on Friday, but ultimately lost to the Whale in a shootout. Johan Backlund was solid in the Phantoms net, stopping 22, having had his shutout bid spoiled with less than three minutes left in regulation. Head Coach Joe Paterson was unhappy to let their 1-0 lead slip away late in the third, saying, “We should have had the other point. We got tremendous goaltending by Johan Backlund, the penalty kill was excellent, it was a great situation. We can’t have a player running around trying to even the score with two minutes left in the game and get caught out of position and then they end up scoring on us.”
Bridgeport Sound Tigers (NYI)
The Bridgeport Sound Tigers have not won a game since January 22nd and it is their only win so far this calendar year even after this past week. Friday night they were blanked by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins by a tally of 2-0. Goaltender Joel Martin made 25 saves in the loss as the team went 0-for-6 on the power play. Saturday night the Sound Tigers were strong in the first period but the Manchester Monarchs scored 6 unanswered goals to top them 6-2. Martin stopped 9 shots in the opening period as Justin DiBenedetto and Eric Castonguay, who signed a PTO earlier in the day, each notched a goal to put the Sound Tigers up 2-0. In the second period the Monarchs scored 5 straight goals starting just 26 seconds into the period. Martin was pulled after letting in the 4th goal allowing Riley Gill to make his Sound Tigers debut. Gill made 19 saves in roughly 33 minutes of play.
Gill got the nod to start in Sunday afternoon’s match up against the Portland Pirates but did not last even a minute as if to set the tone for the 6-3 loss. Gill let in 2 goals on the first 2 shots he faced in the opening stanza at 13 seconds and then 41 seconds before being replaced by Martin (18 saves). The period ended with Bridgeport down 3-1 after Jean Bourbeau was awarded and scored on a penalty shot. Rob Hisey and Tomas Marcinko both scored in the middle stanza to keep the Sound Tigers on the tail of the Pirates but they still trailed by a goal after the period. The team could not find the back of the net in the third period while Portland could to get the win.
