By Bruce Berlet
When Jeremy Williams finally realized his goal of playing in the NHL five years ago, he had Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain, 2006 Olympic gold medalist and future Hall of Famer Mats Sundin sitting beside him in the locker room.
“There’s not much of a better leader than that on or off the ice,” said Williams, who leads the Connecticut Whale in goals (21) and points (38) and will be the team’s representative in the AHL All-Star Classic. “Not in a negative aspect or because he was old (36), but he was always like a father figure, which was really weird. To the guys, he was that composed and that mature that you didn’t want to anger him or anything because you didn’t want him to be disappointed in you.”
Sundin, the first overall pick by the Quebec Nordiques in 1989 who retired in 2009, assisted on two of the first three NHL goals by Williams, who set a record by scoring in each of his first three games – in different seasons (2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08). In his one game with the Rangers against the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 24, Williams’ only claim to fame in 3 1/2 minutes of ice time was getting two high-sticks to the chin on his first two shifts without a penalty being called.
“It was, ‘Welcome to New York,’ ” Williams said with a smile. “(But) I’ve been very fortunate, and I don’t know if it’s all luck or just in the right place at the right time.”
How about a laser shot that would make Al MacInnis, Zdeno Chara or former Whalers defenseman Chris Pronger proud? It also makes Williams a threat from almost anywhere, especially on a one-time from the point or the circle on the power play. Williams should be in the hardest shot event for the Eastern Conference in the AHL All-Star Classic skills competition Sunday night and could be a serious scoring threat in the usually high-scoring, no-hitting All-Star Game on Monday night at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pa.
“His biggest asset is his shot and scoring touch, and he obviously has brought that (to the Whale),” coach Ken Gernander said. “He’s one of the league leaders in scoring goals, which will always make for an interesting type of player to watch in an All-Star type of environment.”
With as many as eight Whale players on recent call-ups to the Rangers, Williams also added some penalty killing to his repertoire. But he’s best known for his shot and has tried to help some of the Whale’s younger players, notably rookie Kelsey Tessier, about shooting the puck quickly.
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And accuracy is nothing new for Williams, who credited the trait to his early days playing hockey on a family farm in Glenavon, Saskatchewan, pop. 600, located about an hour outside Regina. Williams’ father, Kevin, made ice for Williams and his younger brother, Tristan, every winter, but it wasn’t exactly like Madison Square Garden.
“If you missed the net, there were no boards, so you’d better be hitting the net or we’d be searching for pucks in the snow,” Williams said with a wide smile. “My father would go out with the hose and spray it down for me and my younger brother. And if he didn’t have time to build a rink, he would clean off an area of farm water so it would freeze over. He would wait until he could drive on it with the tractor, push all the snow off and then spray it down with a little water.”
Williams said his game and how he acts in the locker room never really changes regardless of who’s on the team or on recall to the Rangers.
“I’ve always thought that everybody can talk,” Williams said, “but it’s more what you do on the ice is what the young guys and other guys on the ice are going to follow. I’m not saying I’m a great leader, but I try and help as much as I can. I try to talk to someone if I feel I can give advice. You can take it and listen to it and believe it, or you can take it and forget it. What you do with advice is up to you and whether or not you believe in it.”
Williams will be leaving for Hershey right after Saturday night’s game against the Atlantic Division-leading Portland Pirates, coached by former Hartford Whalers star and captain Kevin Dineen, another of the all-time best leaders in hockey history.
“It’s an honor to be named to an All-Star team,” Williams said, “especially on a team like ours with so many skilled, veteran forwards and some new, up-and-coming young guys. It must have been hard to choose one guy off our team just based on the amount of skill level we have.”
Williams was named a reserve on the Eastern Conference team by a panel of AHL coaches. At the time, he was tied for the league lead in goals with 20, and his 21 goals are now tied for fifth with former Wolf Pack wing Nigel Dawes, who is on recall to the Atlanta Thrashers. The Pirates’ Mark Mancari has vaulted to the goal-scoring lead with 27, seven coming in the last three games starting with back-to-back hat tricks. Wethersfield native Colin McDonald, son of former Whalers and New Haven Nighthawks defenseman Gerry McDonald, is second with a career-high 23, one more than Charlotte’s Jerome Samson and Oklahoma City’s Alexandre Giroux, the former Wolf Pack wing who is captain of the Western Conference team.
“I’m fairly happy with the way things have started,” said Williams, signed as a free agent by the Rangers on July 12 after setting career highs for goals (32) and points (63) last season with the Grand Rapids Griffins. “I’m pretty tough on myself. To me, I think I should have 35 goals already just based on the number of chances that I’ve had. For me, it’s just being reliable and making the right plays. Everybody is going to make mistakes – I make mistakes – but it’s limiting them and using brains over anything.”
Williams said he has benefited from playing with center Tim Kennedy, who has a pass-first, shoot-second philosophy that fits well with Williams.
“We have a little different styles,” Williams said. “I score goals just going up and down the ice, and Tim is a very skilled, shifty kind of guy. But the last few games, I feel we’ve really started clicking and understanding each other as players, so playing with him is really good, too.”
The Whale has been a bit topsy-turvy in Williams’ first season in Hartford, first because of so many new, young players, especially on defense, and more recently due to all the call-ups to the Rangers. That was epitomized by a nine-game winless streak that started a 1-9-2-1 drought from Oct. 20 to Nov. 17, that was immediately followed by a 12-1-0-2 surge that included winning streaks of six and four games and took the Whale all the way into second place in the Atlantic Division. The Whale (22-18-2-5) are now in third with 51 points, 10 behind leader Portland and nine back of second-place Manchester.
“We’ve been pretty good since that skid,” Williams said, “but I guess you’d rather have a nine-game losing streak at the start of the season rather than at the end, so that’s a positive that we learned from that. When a team is winning, everybody is just more confident and making better plays. Confidence is a huge part of winning and losing, and as long as you cannot get too high or get too low, it’s pretty good.”
Williams has certainly been pretty good in his first 47 games with the Wolf Pack/Whale and deserving of the All-Star notoriety.
Four players were added to the rosters Thursday. Forward Eric Tangradi and defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, both of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, joined the Eastern Conference roster, while Lake Erie Monsters forward Mark Olver and Texas Stars forward Francis Wathier were added to the Western Conference team. They replaced Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s Dustin Jeffrey (personal), Portland’s Drew Schiestel (injury), Lake Erie’s Ryan Stoa (NHL recall) and Texas’s Travis Morin (NHL recall).
Williams’ first All-Star coaches will be Mark French and assistant Troy Mann, by virtue of the Hershey Bears winning the 2010 Calder Cup for the second consecutive year. Rookie head coaches John Hynes of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Jared Bednar of Peoria will be co-coaches of the Western Conference team because their teams had the best record in their conferences as of Jan. 16.
The AHL Hall of Fame Class of 2011, to be inducted Monday at 11 a.m., is Mitch Lamoureux, Larry Wilson and the late Harry Pidhirny and Maurice Podoloff, who grew up in New Haven, graduated from Hillhouse High School and Yale and became the first person to be president of two professional league simultaneously (AHL and then NBA). AHL Hall of Famer Bruce Boudreau, former coach of the Bears and now coach of the Washington Capitals, will be the keynote speaker, and AHL graduate and 2008 Foster Hewitt Award winner Mike Emrick will be master of ceremonies.
AHL Live (ahllive.com) will show the skills competition (3 p.m.) and All-Star Game (7 p.m.) live, and NHL Center Ice will have the All-Star Game live. NESN will show the skills competition live, but the All-Star Game will be delayed until Wednesday at 7 p.m. MSG Plus HD will show the skills competition at 5 p.m. Monday, followed by the All-Star Game live.
Emrick, the lead announcer for NHL games on NBC and Versus as well as the TV voice of the Devils, will handle the play-by-play alongside Craig Laughlin, former AHL and NHL wing and longtime commentator for Comcast SportsNet’s live game coverage of the Washington Capitals. Bears broadcaster John Walton will be the rink-side reporter for the All-Star Game and will do play-by-play on Skills Night, when he will be joined by former AHL player and coach and current Comcast SportsNet studio analyst Alan May and NESN’s John Chandler with rink-side interviews.
AHL Live is also offering a special two-day subscription package for live streaming of the All-Star Classic.
REINFORCED WHALE HOSTS ATLANTIC’S BEST
Williams and the rest of the Whale have been reinforced by the return of defenseman Michael Del Zotto and forwards Kris Newbury, Chad Kolarik, Evgeny Grachev and Brodie Dupont from the Rangers. With right wing Dale Weise rejoining the team on Monday and center Ryan Garlock back after missing a game and a practice with the flu, the Whale returned three wings to their ECHL teams – Bretton Cameron (Stockton), Chris Chappell (Greenville) and Tyler Donati (Elmira).
The Whale can use reinforcements, with the Atlantic Division’s top two teams, the Pirates and Monarchs, coming to town. The Pirates (28-13-4-1) overtook the Monarchs (28-16-1-3) for the division lead Sunday when they beat Worcester 6-5 in a shootout while the Monarchs were losing 2-1 in a shootout with the Bruins. The Pirates increased their lead to three points Tuesday night as Mancari, the reigning AHL Player of the Week, scored his 27th goal in a 2-1 victory over the Norfolk Admirals. The Monarchs reciprocated with a 4-2 victory over the Admirals on Wednesday night as Marc-Andre Cliché, the Rangers’ second-round pick in 2005 who never played in the organization before being traded to Los Angeles as part of the Sean Avery deal, had two power-play goals and an assist.
The Whale is 1-4-0-1 against the Monarchs, losing three times in Manchester by one goal, once in a shootout. But they’ve also lost twice by three goals, including 3-0 at home on Jan. 2 when rookie Martin Jones made 39 saves for his first shutout of the season and former Yale forward David Meckler and Richard Clune helped set each other up in the third period. The Whale’s only victory was 5-1 on Dec. 11 when Mats Zuccarello scored twice, linemate Newbury had one goal and two assists and Chad Johnson made 23 saves. Zuccarello is on recall to the Rangers.
All-Star defenseman Viatcheslav Voynov leads the Monarchs’ balanced attack with nine goals and 25 assists, followed by left wing Bud Holloway (14, 19), center Oscar Moller (10, 20), left wing Dwight King (12, 15), centers Corey Elkins (13, 14), Justin Azevedo (12, 15) and Cliché (14, 12), and wings Brandon Kozun (10, 12) and Meckler (13, 8). Jones has had an excellent rookie season with a 16-5-0 record, 2.17 goals-against average, .930 save percentage and two shutouts. Jeff Zatkoff is 11-11-3, 3.13, .899 with no shutouts.
Hall of Fame defenseman Brad Park will make a special appearance Saturday night, when he will meet and greet fans and sign autographs before the game and then drop the ceremonial first puck before the Whale takes on the Pirates. Park also will play for the Bruins legends against the Whalers legends Feb. 19 at 4 p.m. at Rentschler Field in East Hartford before the Whale faces the Bruins at 7 p.m.
After playing the Pirates and having the brief All-Star break, the Whale’s four-game homestand ends Feb. 4 against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before they have a home-and-home set with Portland on Feb. 5-6.
WHALERS AND BRUINS LEGENDS FACE OFF FEB. 19
Park and fellow Hall of Fame defensemen Brian Leetch, a Cheshire native, headline the Bruins legends team that will play in the opener of the doubleheader that’s part of the “Harvest-Properties.com Whalers Hockey Fest” on Feb. 11-23 at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, where construction of the rink began Jan. 17 and snow removal will take place Monday. In case of bad weather, the Whale-Bruins game will be played Feb. 20 at the XL Center.
Other commitments for the Bruins team are Enfield native Craig Janney, former captain Rick Middleton, who played 12 seasons in Beantown and two with the Rangers, Reggie Lemelin, Ken Hodge, Don Marcotte, Rick Smith, Bob Sweeney, Lyndon Byers, Cleon Daskalakis, Jay Miller, Bob Miller (no relation) and Ken “The Rat” Linseman, who was a member of the Whalers for a few moments as he passed through in a multi-player trade with Philadelphia and Edmonton that included Mark Howe leaving Hartford for the Flyers. Derek Sanderson will coach the Bruins team.
Commitments for the Whalers team are WHA Hall of Famer Andre Lacroix, John McKenzie, whose No. 19 is retired in the XL Center rafters, Blaine Stoughton, John Anderson, Garry Swain, Bob Crawford, Chris Kotsopoulos, Jim Dorey, Jordy Douglas, Ray Neufeld, Gordie Roberts, Darren Turcotte, Nelson Emerson, Mark Janssens, Bill Bennett, Jeff Brubaker, Fred O’Donnell, Terry Yake, Scott Daniels and the Babych brothers, Dave and Wayne. Emile “The Cat” Francis, a coach and general manager with the Rangers and Whalers, will be back behind the bench again, and Norm Barnes and former captain Russ Anderson will be assistant coaches.
Celebrities scheduled to play with one of the legends teams include Michael Keaton, Alan Thicke and David E. Kelley, son of New England and Hartford Whalers coach and general manager Jack Kelley and the writer of the 1999 hit film “Mystery, Alaska,” which was produced by Whalers Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Howard Baldwin and his wife, Karen. “Mystery, Alaska” cast members slated to appear are Michael Buie, Scott Richard Grimes, Jason Gray-Stanford and Cameron Bancroft, along with Neal McDonough, Kevin Zegers and the Hanson brothers – Steve, Jeff and Dave – who were the comedic linchpins of the classic movie “Slap Shot.”
Tickets ($20 to $85) for the doubleheader can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com and the Bushnell box office in Hartford on Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m. or by calling the Whale at 860-728-3366. They also can be purchased online and printed immediately at Ticketmaster.com.
STRONG FINISH FOR KINGS’ QUICK
Hamden native Jonathan Quick capped the end of a terrific first half of the NHL season on Wednesday night, making 22 saves in regulation and overtime and then stopping all four shots in a shootout as the Los Angeles Kings rallied for a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks. The Kings got to extra time on Alexei Ponikarovsky’s goal at 5:47 of the third period, then Quick was perfect as he won his third consecutive game to improve to 22-14-1 with a 2.15 goals-against average, third in the NHL, .920 save percentage and five shutouts, third in the league.
“We knew going into the third period that we had to go out there and leave it on the ice,” said Quick, the former Avon Old Farms and UMass star who is 5-0 in shootouts this season. “We had nothing to save. … It was a real tight game and every play mattered. There were a lot of big hits and physical play around the net and in the corners, and you did get the feeling of a playoff game. The crowd was really into it, but in the playoffs, you don’t get the shootout.”
The Kings had lost seven of their past 10 home games, but Quick’s goaltending and Jarret Stoll’s second shootout-winning goal of the season enabled them to snap the Pacific Division rival Sharks’ four-game winning streak. It was the Kings’ final home game until Feb. 24, as they will travel all over North America while the Staples Center is occupied by the Grammys and the NBA’s All-Star weekend. … Rookie forward Marc-Olivier Vallerand and defenseman Blake Parlett, who were in Whale camp this fall before being assigned to the Greenville Road Warriors, played major roles as the ECHL All-Stars routed the Bakersfield Condors 9-3 in the ECHL All-Star Game on Wednesday night in Bakersfield, Calif. Vallerand tied for the highest point total on the team with a goal and two assists, while Parlett had the best plus/minus at plus-4. Stockton Thunder rookie forward Mark Arcobello of Milford and Yale University scored three goals and was named MVP. Greenville coach Dean Stork coached the All-Stars, and Road Warriors president and general manager Neil Smith, former GM of the Rangers, did color commentary on the TV broadcast.
