Icecaps may have found cure for what ails them
Comeback win over Albany could be ‘trigger’ to turn their season around
It was Nurses Night at Mile One Centre Saturday, with hundreds of RNS, accompanied by family and friends, taking in the American Hockey League game between the St. John’s Icecaps and Albany Devils.
Good thing, too, what with a game that — in its course — was the kind producing more than the usual amount of queasy stomachs and racing pulses.
There was no heartache on this night, however, for the Icecaps and their fans, although for a while, that’s exactly what looked would happen for a second straight game.
The Icecaps, who had coughed up a two-goal, thirdperiod lead to the Devils on Friday in a 3-2 overtime loss, did the same in the rematch. Only this time, Albany actually took the lead late into the third. But in one thrilling 33-second span, the Icecaps managed to transform a dire situation into perhaps their biggest win so far in their 2016-17 American Hockey League campaign.
At Mile One Centre, linemates Charles Hudon and Chris Terry scored on back-to-back shifts late in the third period as the Icecaps rallied for a 5-4 win over the Albany Devils to take three out of four points from a two-game series with the visitors.
“Definitely,” answered defenceman Zach Redmond when asked if the win could qualify as a turning point for the Icecaps, who have been stuck in a rut in 2017, going 8-10-5 since the start of a new year.
“These are the kind of games that can turn a season, (with) the timing of it, too. We have 20 games left and are in a push for the playoffs. We can look around the room and kind of have that in our back pocket — ‘Remember the Albany game where we came back?’”
St. John’s (25-23-8) holds fourth place and what would be the final playoff berth in the AHL’S North Division, and sits three points in front of the Utica Comets, who have a game in hand. Had the Icecaps not rallied as they did Saturday, they and Utica would have had identical points percentages today,
St. John’s led 3-1 heading into the third, but goals by Luke Gadzic, Petr Straka and Peter Lappin — none of which could be called scintillating — put Albany in front with five minutes left in the third.
By that time, déjà vu dripping with dread had taken hold of many, especially those who had witnessed what happed Friday.
But apparently not the Icecaps.
“It was different (than Friday) for sure,” answered Hudon after being asked the team’s attitude after going down 4-3. “Usually, we’d be (quiet) as a fly on the bench. This time, we all stepped up. We all kept believing. We showed great stuff.”
Hudon showed his particular stuff a couple of minutes after Lappin’s go-ahead goal, getting behind a couple of Devils’ defenders, taking a perfect 100foot pass from Redmond, and unleashing a rocket shot past the glove hand of Albany goalie Mackenzie Blackwood at 15:07. It was Hudon’s 21st tally of the season, one that temporarily gave him the team’s goal-scoring lead.
That’s because on the following shift, Terry — Hudon’s linemate — scored his 21st of the season, the beneficiary of a wonderful setup by Nikita Scherbak.
Scherbak’s recent performances have often been mystifying, but in this instance, he only mystified the Devils, moving the puck through the offensive zone and towards the net, drawing defenders towards him before slipping a backdoor pass to Terry, who slid it into a wideopen net.
It turned out be the gamewinner, although the Icecaps and their fans had to get through a tense couple of minutes as the Devils sent Blackwood to the bench for an extra attacker, and then had their game-tying aspirations boosted when St. John’s captain Max Friberg was tagged with a tripping penalty with 30 seconds left.
But St. John’s and goalie Yann Danis hung on to record a win that evened the team’s homeice record at 12-12-4 overall this season and 2-2-2 on a homestead that finished up with Saturday’s game.
“You kind of felt the bench,” said Icecaps coach Sylvain Lefebvre when asked if he sensed anything different, anything special before the rally. “We were down a bit, but the leaders stood up and said, ‘It’s not happening tonight.’”
Lefebvre also ratified Redmond’s assertion about the potential overall importance of the victory.
“They’re all important,” he began, “but always hope for some sort of trigger that will kind of turn a season around and hopefully, this was it.”
Notes
Terry also had two assists Saturday, giving him 50 points on the season, and putting him alone in second place among AHL scorers … Immediately after the game, work began to transform Mile One into curling mode for the Tim Hortons Brier beginning later this week. The Icecaps will practise at the Mount Pearl Glacier before leaving town for a six-game road trip beginning Friday in Rochester