If you count playoff games, Hartford and
Providence logged precisely 200 meaningful matchups against one another in
their first two decades of simultaneous AHL membership, beginning with the Wolf
Pack’s 1997 debut.
In the P-Bruins’ first twenty-five years
of operation and the Wolf Pack/Connecticut Whale’s first twenty, the two teams
have been each other’s most frequent postseason opponents. Together, they have
aggregated twenty-eight Calder Cup contests, including four winner-take-all
tilts, in five series. Each team has won two of those mutual do-or-die games.
Each team defeated the other on its road to its first respective championship,
hosted the other on its banner-raising night the next fall and then met the end
of its title defense in a rematch the next spring.
That history, however, is only the
whipped cream and syrup on the rivalry sundae. Every element of this pairing
made it a magnet for mutual rancor as soon as the New York Rangers transferred their farm team from Binghamton to replace the departed NHL’s Whalers. With the
move, Bruins fans could hold on to their hatred for Hartford from what was then
a not-too-distant history of Boston-Whalers battles in the Adams Division. They
could enjoy a trickle-down edition of the Original Six rivalry between Boston
and New York.
That this particular franchise would
dare to bear a Hartford label and cross the Providence Civic Center was to add
another layer to its complicated history of Ocean State-Nutmeg State
connections. The Wolf Pack are, in fact, a distant reincarnation of the Rhode
Island Reds, who in their final year at the Civic Center were the farm team of
the World Hockey Association’s New England Whalers. The franchise subsequently
moved to Binghamton, where they lived on as the Broome County Dusters, then the
Binghamton Whalers and, ultimately, the Binghamton Rangers.
The B-Rangers officially heard their
death knell on June 4, 1997. The simultaneous announcement of the franchise’s
new location came one month after that tumultuous week in which the Whalers
finished their formality of announcing their own relocation to Raleigh before
the P-Bruins finished falling the Springfield Falcons in that franchise’s final
run as a Hartford child club.
Four months after learning of their
new team, Hartford fans could flocked to the Civic Center for their first-ever
minor-league game. But first, none other than the P-Bruins, featuring
first-year coach Tom McVie and rookie goaltender John Grahame, entertained the
Wolf Pack’s first road game and claimed a 5-3 victory.
It was hardly a harbinger for either
team, at least as far as that season was concerned. Hartford won its first home
bout with Providence on Halloween night, 4-2. Their next meeting was on
Thanksgiving, a 6-5 slugfest that went Hartford’s way and culminated in a slew
of skirmishes that had Bruins backstop Rob Tallas leaving his crease to engage
Dan Cloutier. The Wolf Pack netminder had two-handed Providence forward Scott
Morrow upon hauling in a last-ditch shot at the final horn. The ensuing brawl
left Cloutier helmetless, and as he was being escorted to the bench by a
linesman, a still-masked Tallas confronted him at the center line, reigniting
the full-scale scuffle.
The best that did for Providence, if it
had any emotional carryover whatsoever, was springboard it to a 5-2 home win
over the Saint John Flames the next night, then a 2-2 tie in its next two
meetings with Hartford. But the Wolf Pack would finish the season series with a
5-1-2 record. The P-Bruins settled for the two ties, brooked one overtime loss
and dropped the other four decisions in regulation. The past-his-peak McVie saw
his Providence tenure end after finishing eighteenth out of eighteen teams in
the league. The Wolf Pack, led by a rookie playmaker named Marc Savard with
fifty-three assists and seventy-three points, tied the Falcons for first in the
New England Division and roared to the third round of the playoffs.
Naturally, the next year would be
the polar opposite for Providence, though the rivalry was rapidly cemented when
the Pack proved to be the only team capable of giving Peter Laviolette’s
black-and-gold behemoth regular trouble. The Bruins lost only sixteen games in the
1998-99 regular season. By Thanksgiving, four of their first six setbacks had
been each of their first four meetings with Hartford.
Nine nights after their second
consecutive Turkey Day tumble in Connecticut, they turned the tide, claiming a
3-2 overtime home victory. Including that evening, they triumphed in nine of
the next ten head-to-head bouts, including the playoffs and including five more
sudden-death decisions.
Going into a February 28 home date,
Providence was 41-13-3-2 on the season. The Bruins’ point total was eighty-seven
at that moment, with one quarter of the schedule still to come. The Wolf Pack
would not reach eighty-seven points until the end of the regular-season finale.
Little more than pride was on the
line in this matchup, and the Hartford visitors were looking primed to scorn
the jealous guardians of The Bear Den when they raised a 3-0 upper hand in the
first two periods. But in the closing frame, Joel Prpic got the home team on
the board at the 2:49 mark, Andre Savage cut the deficit to 3-2 at 9:17 and
Jeremy Brown drew a 3-3 knot with 7:16 to spare in regulation. In the ensuing
bite-size bonus round, Randy Robitaille tipped in Steve Bancroft’s feed to cap
the come-from-behind, 4-3 win. On a night when they appeared destined for a
rare pair of consecutive losses and being stuck on eighty-seven points, the
P-Bruins had perked up to earn their eighty-eighth, then their eighty-ninth
with still a little more than two hours before the calendar Zamboni razed
February in favor of March.
Conversely, the Wolf Pack secured
their eighty-sixth point by pushing the P-Bruins to another overtime, then
their eighty-seventh by scoring in that period on April 18, the last day of the
regular season at the Hartford Civic Center. Nine nights earlier, though,
Providence had already secured home ice for the whole Calder Cup tournament by
repressing the Pack in their final regular-season visit, 5-4.
Few, if any, were surprised when the
clubs reconvened for the New England Division Final as the subsector’s two
top-seeded teams. Granted, the gap could not have been much more cavernous,
with Providence having earned thirty-three more regular-season points. But on
the heels of four straight one-goal head-to-head decisions, the upset-minded
Wolf Pack wasted none of their assets or knowledge in the effort to derail the
historic juggernaut and nab their second third-round ticket in as many years of
existence.
On May 5, the first game of the
second round saw Providence leap ahead, 3-0, only to let that lead devolve into
a 4-3 deficit. Hartford successfully safeguarded its advantage until Antti
Laaksonen drew a late knot. The first full-length sudden-death stanza failed to
produce a winner, but in the fifth period, John Spoltore, an out-of-the-blue production
machine from the ECHL’s Louisiana Ice Gators, started a sensational stretch by
inserting the clincher for the Bruins.
Spoltore and regular-season MVP
Randy Robitaille each turned in a multi-point effort in Game 2, with Spoltore’s
goal again deciding the outcome in a 5-3 final. That would be the only two-goal
margin of victory in the series.
Spoltore tallied twice in Hartford the
next night, including another overtime conversion for a 5-4 victory. John
Grahame regained his groove in goal for Game 4, limiting Hartford to a single
strike, while Robitaille tuned the mesh early at the other end and later fed
Jeremy Brown for all of the sustenance the Baby B’s would need. A 2-1 squeaker
finished a deceptive, but uplifting four-game sweep at the halfway mark of Providence’s
eventual Calder Cup victory.
None other than the Wolf Pack were
the guests when the Bruins bookended a blissful summer by raising their banner
to the Civic Center rafters on October 8, 1999. As part of the preceding
championship ring roll call, one man in enemy garb came out to join the party
before any of his new teammates were invited. Defenseman Terry Virtue, having
signed with the Rangers during July’s free-agency frenzy, was now with
Hartford.
As it happened, a separate summer
transaction went the other way. Veteran goaltender Kay Whitmore, who had played
eighteen games for the Wolf Pack in 1998-99 and had also started his career
with the Whalers, was now a P-Bruin. With Grahame getting his first series of
call-ups to Boston, Whitmore ultimately logged the most crease time for
Providence with forty-three appearances in 1999-2000.
The situation with Grahame was but a
spoonful in a stormy scoop that robbed Peter Laviolette’s pupils of any
continuity. A record seventy players donned a Providence uniform that season in
the face of constant call-ups and injuries. As a testament to the chaos,
another former Wolf Pack player, Peter Ferraro, led the team in regular-season
scoring with a mere forty-six points in forty-eight appearances. That chalked
up to thirty-two games without the team’s top producer.
Head-to-head, Hartford capitalized
on that tempest. After a 1-1 tie on banner night, the Wolf Pack won the next
three meetings and ultimately took the season series by a lopsided count of
7-2-1. They also supplanted the P-Bruins as the league’s regular-season
champions. But in each team’s final tune-up before the playoffs, Providence
proved the rivalry was back in balance by nabbing a 2-1 overtime victory at
home.
Squeezing into the bracket and crossing
over into the Atlantic Division, the 2000 P-Bruins started reminding everyone
of their 1999 predecessors by sweeping the Quebec Citadelles (nee Fredericton
Canadiens) and Lowell Lock Monsters. The Pack won a more competitive
first-round series over Springfield, overcoming a 2-1 deficit to knock off the
Falcons in the best-of-five set, then won the New England Division playoff
title with a 4-1 series rout of Worcester.
The result was a rematch of the
previous New England Division final, this time with the Eastern Conference
crown at stake. And as if the cities and franchises did not offer sufficient
storylines already, there were two key common threads in this year’s matchup.
Both teams had a Calder Cup-winning coach, with Laviolette facing Hartford’s
seasoned first-year bench boss John Paddock, who had steered the 1984 Maine
Mariners and 1988 Hershey Bears to glory. Both teams had a Calder Cup-winning
goaltender in the presumptive positional matchup, with Grahame poised to face
J-F Labbe from the 1997 Hershey Bears.
Grahame’s involvement, however, was
delayed by a last-season bout of influenza. In his stead, the Wolf Pack faced
their old friend Whitmore, who was also a Calder Cup ring-bearer from the 1991
Springfield Indians, with whom he had also won playoff MVP honors.
With that caliber of crease-minding
and the wariness on both benches of each other’s firepower, Game 1’s result
surprised few. In an impromptu best-of-three staring contest in front of his
home crowd, Labbe got the better of Whitmore in a 2-1 victory. None other than
Bruin-turned-Wolf Pack blueliner Terry Virtue supplied the deciding strike.
Grahame was ready to return three
nights later, and he stole a pivotal Game 2, along with the illusion of home-ice
advantage, in a 4-1 triumph. Back in Providence the following weekend, he
outlasted Labbe for a 5-4 regulation and 3-2 double-overtime victory. Andre
Savage ended a valiant come-from-behind effort, the Bruins having erased 3-1
and 4-2 deficits, with 3:05 to spare in regulation in Game 3 before 9,250
viewers.
Two days later, when defenseman Jeff Wells
slugged his sudden-death strike home to end a long Sunday afternoon at the
Civic Center, the Bruins were one win away from derailing the top seed and
setting up a rematch with Rochester. (The Amerks had punched their ticket the
night before, completing a decisive sweep of Hershey.)
But none other than Labbe had been
in the same situation before, his 1997 Bears having trailed Springfield by the
same deficit at the same stage of the playoffs. He and the rest of Paddock’s
pupils rallied in a way not unlike Bob Francis’s comeback cubs of 1997 or Bill
Armstrong’s of a year later or Bruce Cassidy’s of 2013. After a
seventy-two-hour interlude and a change of scenery, Hartford held off the
handshakes with a 3-2 win. A back-and-forth 5-3 Wolf Pack win in Game 6
prevented Providence from clinching in its house.
With that, another Sunday afternoon
showdown lurked, and the anticipation translated to an announced crowd of
10,623 at the Hartford Civic Center. In addition, just as it was for Game 4 the
week prior, the NESN broadcast crew was there to beam the action into
interested households. There were bound to be plenty of those whose allegiances
were pure New England, pure New York or anywhere in between.
Bruins fans from one side of the
virtual Hartford Wall, Blueshirt buffs from the other side and sheer Hartford
diehards were all on the edge of their seats for the ensuing three-plus hours.
The host party set an immediate tone via Brad Smyth, whose bid Grahame got a
piece of but nonetheless found its way through at the sixty-three-second mark
of regulation. But Grahame kicked out the Pack’s other fourteen first-period
stabs and held forth long enough for Ferraro to smuggle home an equalizer in
the middle frame.
Landon Wilson, a veteran of the
P-Bruins’ 1997 Game 5 victory in Worcester and 1999 championship, raised the
next upper hand by converting an end-to-end rush in the third minute of the
third period. With only 17:12 to spare, Providence was back in command.
But none other than old friend
Ferraro, the reigning Calder Cup MVP for the Bruins, gave two accidental gifts
to his previous employers. Future Boston Bruins enforcer P.J. Stock thwarted
Ferraro’s clearing attempt and pinballed home the second equalizer of the day
near the midway mark of the closing regulation stanza.
In the ensuing overtime, which Labbe made
possible by stoning Joel Prpic on a tantalizing last-minute odd-man rush,
Ferraro was among those looking to recover the puck and regroup. But old friend
Virtue corralled the biscuit first and let loose on a low-flying rebound
attempt. It biffed the blade of Ferraro and eluded Grahame on its way home,
sending Hartford to the final round and its eventual title.
Ten years later, longtime Hartford
play-by-play announcer Bob Crawford, who had called the P-Bruins games in
1994-95, ranked Game 7 at the top of his list of Wolf Pack memories. As he elaborated
to Bruce Berlet in a story on the AHL’s website, “It was the culmination of
such a great comeback in the series, arch rival, series-winning goal in
overtime. It’s the one I always keep flashing back to as the most goose
bump-inducing moment. We were dead in the water in that series: Down 3-1 in the
series, down 3-1 in Game 5 with time running out in the second period and down
2-1 in the third period of Game 7. It was a real resurrection, and for it to
end like that was the most amazing moment for me, my greatest career moment.”
He added, to explain why the
subsequent six-game Calder Cup Final victory over Rochester was the runner-up
memory, “I almost remember this less than the Virtue goal because of the
circumstances of the Virtue goal.”
In the aftermath of his clinching
strike, and a gracious embrace from old coach Laviolette at the center-ice
handshake line, Virtue rubbed the salt into the Providence faithful’s wounds
all the more. His take on the magnitude of the play and its spot in his memory
bank, as quoted by Berlet in the Hartford
Courant: “It’s something I’ll never forget and ranks right up there with
winning the Calder Cup and playing my first NHL shift beside Ray Bourque, my
childhood idol.”
That’s right. Cutting off the
P-Bruins title defense was on the same shelf for Virtue as actually
participating in the 1999 title run to begin with. That ought to have signaled,
if not reaffirmed, just how mutual this fast-flaming rivalry had become.
To complete the role reversal from
1999, the P-Bruins were on the docket for the game that followed Hartford’s
banner-hoisting ceremony on October 7, 2000. They crashed the party with a 9-4
victory, and would win each of the first five meetings of the season. The Wolf
Pack were equally rabid when they finally got their next turn at payback,
though, running up an 8-1 tally in their sixth encounter two nights after
Christmas. By the end of the eighty-game slate, each side had won five
head-to-head meetings, which amplified the intrigue for when they met as the
second and third seeds in the New England Division semifinal.
If the Wolf Pack’s banner presentation
completed a reversal of roles from the previous year, then that postseason
three-match punctuated it. Just like their rivals had done to them in 2000, the
P-Bruins of 2001 would cut off Hartford’s title defense by winning three
consecutive elimination games, taking the best-of-five first round, as was
detailed two chapters ago.
While all of the invariable makings
of a rivalry remained in place after those three epic years, Providence and
Hartford did not meet in another playoff round until 2007. With that being
said, it felt like a refreshing throwback when they did. By that point, the
P-Bruins brand was fifteen years old while the Wolf Pack were celebrating their
tenth anniversary.
Just like in 2001, Hartford was
second and Providence third in their division. But by now, the AHL was
following a (short-lived) practice of running a best-of-seven first round. Just
like in both 2000 and 2001, Boston was out of the Stanley Cup playoffs, giving
its child club no shortage of reinforcement. But the Rangers had regained
relevance, and so the Wolf Pack were missing two regular-season studs in
forward Ryan Callahan and defenseman Dan Girardi. Callahan, for what it’s
worth, had appeared in eight regular-season meetings with Providence in 2006-07,
scoring five goals.
Going into the playoffs, Hartford did
still have its top overall producer in Nigel Dawes while Providence countered
with David Krejci as its offensive pilot. Both men played a prominent part in
Game 1. Krejci claimed credit for the primary assist on the Bruins’ only goal,
which was sandwiched by two Hartford tallies assisted by Dawes. With three more
unanswered strikes, Dawes finished his night with two goals, a playmaker hat
trick and a 5-1 blowout for his team.
After being scorched and chased in that
opener, Bruins backstop Hannu Toivonen returned to form in Game 2. He limited
his hosts to two goals, with one coming off the stick of Dawes. At the other
end, Krejci had his turn as the hothanded playmaker, setting up the first two
scoring plays and an empty-netter en route to a 4-2 victory.
The next three games, all slated for The
Dunk, were all necessary now. But Hartford dashed any hopes of a quick, happy
ending for the Providence audience when Dawes outscored Krejci, two assists to
one, in Game 3. Amidst that microcosm, future NHL mainstay Brandon Dubinsky
bagged an unassisted goal for the eventual clincher in a 5-2 romp for the Wolf
Pack.
Krejci’s sixth point and sixth helper of
the series figured into the first dose of insurance when the Bruins answered
with a 5-1 lashing. But after being held scoreless for the first time in the
tournament, Dawes hushed the Dunk in Game 5, burying the decider in a 1-0
goaltenders’ duel. Krejci’s only scoresheet submissions on that pivotal
occasion were a pair of penalties for goalie interference and roughing.
Facing back-to-back elimination road games
on back-to-back nights, the Bruins set a favorable tone when defenseman Dwayne
Zinger struck first in Game 6. Six minutes later, Krejci collaborated with Sean
Bentivoglio to set up T.J. Trevelyan, who gave Providence a 2-0 edge to take
into the first intermission.
The Wolf Pack offense and Bruins forward
Martins Karsums proceeded to trade a pair of tallies before Marco Rosa
finalized the 5-2 victory for the visitors. Bentivoglio, Karsums, Krejci and
Trevelyan all constituted the evening’s multipoint club while Dawes was
silenced for the second time in the series. In addition, when Karsums restored
the two-goal lead to 4-2, Hartford coach Jim Schoenfeld had swapped out starter
Al Montoya for Chris Holt.
With raw momentum on his team’s side, Ben
Walter tallied twice in the first period of Game 7. None other than Dawes
struck first for his team in between, but Toivonen channeled the Grahame of
2001 by stopping the other thirteen first-period shots he faced.
Pascal Pelletier gave Providence the
multi-goal edge of the game early in the middle frame. But in a pattern that
doubtlessly evoked toe-curling memories of 2000, the host Wolf Pack
reinvigorated the Hartford Civic Center by filling the 3-1 pothole. Dawes’
second point of the game accounted for an assist on the 3-3 equalizer with
16:14 to spare in regulation.
Same setting, same laundry, perhaps. But
it was a new era with new personnel and a new result. On this springtime Sunday
excursion to the Connecticut capital, the P-Bruins would take the final turn of
command. Walter completed his hat trick to give them their third lead of the
game, then Dennis Packard followed up sixty-two seconds later with a dose of
insurance that preempted the impact of Dane Byers’ late power-play conversion.
All that did was give Providence a 5-4 victory rather than a 5-3 one.
With a helper on Walter’s second goal,
Krejci finished the seven-game series with nine points, all of them assists. He
went on to add seven more points in a six-game second-round loss to Manchester.
In turn, Hartford was the adversary in the only Calder Cup playoff series
Krejci would ever win. He played his last AHL game on December 29, 2007, before
becoming a permanent presence in the Boston lineup. But that first-round
performance earlier in the calendar year was a harbinger of things to come, as
the prolific playmaking pivot would lead all Stanley Cup playoff producers in
the 2011 championship and 2013 runner-up rides.
Eight years would elapse before Southern
New England enjoyed another Providence-Hartford playoff card. But the year that
constituted the middle of that interlude offered the most intriguing
non-postseason development in the chronicles of the rivalry. In 2010, former
Whalers owner Howard Baldwin reentered the scene and tapped into widespread
regional nostalgia. As part of his effort to convince the NHL to give his old
market a second whirl, he oversaw the Wolf Pack’s midseason morph into the
Connecticut Whale. The change took effect halfway through a home-and-home
intrastate post-Thanksgiving series with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. A week
later, a crowd of 7,004 caught the Dunkin Donuts Center’s first glimpse of the
rival’s makeover.
After five indoor meetings under the new
banner, the border foes made history at another one of Baldwin’s initiatives,
the Whaler Hockey Festival. The two-week extravaganza involved virtually the
full scope of hockey at every level in Connecticut, with a slew of games taking
place at East Hartford's Rentschler Field.
The final day, Saturday, February 19,
2011, included a matinee scrimmage between the Boston Bruins and Hartford Whalers
alumni squads. The nightcap constituted the second annual AHL Outdoor Classic,
with the Whale and P-Bruins following the act of the Syracuse Crunch and
Binghamton Senators from a year prior. As it happened, the affectionately
dubbed Whale Bowl’s 21,673 ticket sales barely edged the Syracuse game’s count
of 21,508, giving it the new league record.
Nursing a 2-0 deficit at the first
intermission, Providence roared out for three unanswered goals in the middle
frame. The Whale’s second win saw them turn their 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 in a
matter of fifty-nine seconds. That difference stood for another Zamboni shift
before Jamie Arniel, who already had two assists on the night, buried the lone
goal of the third stanza.
Overtime failed to yield a winner, but it
did have the newly acquired Boris Valabik of Providence join Connecticut’s
Brodie Dupont in the boxes for coincidental minors. The ensuing shootout saw
Bruins center Max Sauve break a scoreless knot in the bottom of the fourth
inning before Michael Hutchinson stopped his fifth consecutive challenger,
preserving the come-from-behind, 5-4 win for the visitors. One year after the
parent club had won the NHL Winter Classic in overtime, the Baby B’s had won
their first-ever outdoor tilt in bonus action themselves. And they did it
amidst an event that was designed to evoke memories of a franchise that had
long functioned as Boston’s little brother.
After their change on the fly, the Whale
lasted two full seasons before Baldwin abandoned his experiment. During that
time, Providence went 14-7-2 against its Hartford rival, which returned to its
Wolf Pack persona in the autumn of 2013. On November 10 of that year, the old
brand’s first visit back to The Dunk was a multifold highlight package.
The Baby Blueshirts were back to their
status as a standalone entity in Hartford hockey chronicles. They were back to
matching their parent club’s colors, and thus reinforcing the feel of the miniature
Boston-New York battle. And on this day, those who like a little pugilism on
their puck action enjoyed more than just the P-Bruins’ 6-0 romp on the
scoreboard.
A second-period sugar rush made for the
bulk of the damage, as Providence swelled its 1-0 edge to 5-0 in that stanza.
Wolf Pack coach Ken Gernander opted to replace goaltender Jason Missiaen with
Scott Stajcer for the third frame. But the relief outing would last all of six
minutes and twenty-eight seconds.
At that point, two seconds after
Hartford’s Connor Allen and Providence’s Tyler Randell were boxed for fighting,
and with frustration for the visitors exacerbated by the lopsidedness, a line
brawl broke out immediately off the draw outside the Hartford blue line. All
five skaters from each side immediately joined the fray, and within a minute,
Stajcer ventured onto Providence property, where Subban cast aside his stick,
gloves and lid to oblige. Stajcer would throw the majority of the punches, but
did not land many, as Subban maintained a firm grasp on his opponent’s jersey.
Eventually, the two agreed to call it a stalemate, patted each other on the
back and dispersed to their respective dressing rooms. Both joined Bruins
blueliner Mike Moore, who was ejected for a third-man-in violation.
How do you like that? Just as Tallas and
Cloutier did the first time Bruins fans were getting acquainted with the Wolf
Pack, Subban and Stajcer offered up a goalie fight in the Wolf Pack’s first
visit to the Bruins after their Whale sabbatical.
In all, twelve men combined for eighteen
infractions and eighty-five penalty minutes on that single sequence. Hartford’s
Stu Bickel logged the only minor penalty for instigating, which gave Providence
the power play. With Niklas Svedberg spelling Subban and the overcooked
Missiaen back in the Hartford net, Alexander Khokhlachev promptly converted the
man advantage to finalize the 6-0 victory.
The eight-year gap between
Providence-Hartford playoff cards ended on the heels of an unusually light
2014-15 regular-season series. Playing in separate divisions after the AHL
realigned to form a six-division circuit, the bordering state capital rivals
clashed but four times.
With that being said, the hockey gods
recompensed those hankering for a real renewal of the Baby Bruins-Baby
Blueshirts blood feud. Hartford took first place in the Northeast, and automatically
garnered the Eastern Conference’s third playoff seed with it. Finishing a
distant second to a Manchester juggernaut in the Atlantic, Providence would
claim the sixth slot in the bracket.
At the start, in the middle and at the
end, the ensuing best-of-five matchup would bear shades of the best-of-seven
from 2000. Stellar defense and efficient goaltending amounted to a combined
eighteen goals between the two teams in the series. The higher-seeded Wolf Pack
would draw first blood at home, the B’s would retort and then take a commanding
lead on an overtime goal at their place and Hartford would rally to win another
sudden-death game, along with the series, in the rubber bout.
Former Brown University standout Yann
Danis garnered Game 1’s first-star distinction, with occasional help from the
pipes behind him and the praetorian guards in front. His only error, which had
Zach Trotman straying from the point to feed a gaping backdoor on the power
play, came after counterpart Jeremy Smith’s two mistakes on the night.
Even-strength supremacy, plus an empty netter for good measure, gave Hartford
the 3-1 win.
Danis handled all nineteen of the Bruins’
bids through the first forty minutes of Game 2. Smith was again barely a cut
below that performance, as old friend Chris Bourque’s unassisted goal
constituted the only point for any player through the second intermission. But
the Providence power play perked up again in the third, and Paul Carey’s
conversion precipitated Alexander Khokhlachev’s eventual decider less than two
minutes later.
The tight 2-1 triumph in Hartford on the
last Saturday of April gave way to another low-scoring affair on a Sunday night
in Providence. In relief of Smith, a well-rested Malcolm Subban shook of an
early icebreaker and kept the deficit manageable until Khokhlachev got the
Bruins on the board in the waning seconds of the middle frame.
Danis took the better part of the barrage
in the final forty minutes of regulation, and again in first overtime, wherein
Providence went on an 11-4 run under the “SOG” heading. When that failed to
produce a winner, the Bruins pelted Danis another eleven times in the second
full-length sudden-death stanza. Danis still would not blink, but neither did
Subban, who worked his greatest sweat of the night with sixteen saves in the
period.
Those among the 5,289 ticketholders with
the patience to stay, even as the game spilled into the final hour of the
calendar day (and on the eve of another work or school week, no less),
witnessed a dose of history. When the third overtime melted fifty-six seconds
off its clock, it surpassed Game 3 of the 1999 Calder Cup Final as the longest
playoff tilt in P-Bruins history.
With two more saves on as many unanswered
shots, Subban ensured it would go for another minute. But when the Wolf Pack
regrouped and tried to execute a breakout from their own end, Bruins forward
Colin Stuart held up opposing defenseman Dylan McIlrath in neutral territory.
Seth Griffith scooped up the loose puck, deked around a diving Mat Bodie at the
left circle top and dinged a low-flying snipe past Danis from the slot.
After precisely forty-two minutes of bonus
action and forty-seven shots on each net, the Bruins had a 2-1 win and a series
lead by an identical score. For one night, Subban was John Grahame and Griffith
was Jeff Wells all over again.
But the hockey gods were not done with the
faithful remake of the 2000 series. The Bruins missed their chance to close the
series at home, as the more-tested Danis got the better of Subban in another
2-1 decision. This time, just like in Game 1, Providence mustered its only
sustenance on a power-play conversion after conceding Hartford’s pair of
deciding goals.
The more seasoned Smith was reinstated for
Game 5, and after a (not surprisingly) scoreless first period, the hot-handed
Griffith returned a favor to Stuart from Game 3. Stymying a clearing attempt
along the far wall of the attacking zone, Griffith thrust the puck to the porch
of Danis’s net, where Stuart was waiting for his chance to ram it home. He did
just that to extend Griffith’s point-getting streak to four games and the
Bruins the initial lead at 7:55 of the middle frame.
In defense of that lead, vital Bruins
defenseman Joe Morrow exacerbated the tension by incurring a double-minor for
high-sticking. In the final minute of that sentence, and after several other
heart-stopping episodes, the Providence penalty killers failed to pick up a
loose puck in the crease, allowing and unchecked Chris Mueller to swoop in and
bank home the equalizer.
The closing frame was more of the same.
The P-Bruins again took a lead in the eighth minute (via Tommy Cross), only to
invite Mueller to fill the pothole on a power play. The timing of Mueller’s
second tally could not have been more deflating from a black-and-gold
perspective. He one-timed a cross-ice feed from the right circle and past the
shoulder of a sliding Smith with fourteen seconds to spare in regulation.
That killer last-minute equalizer
reinvigorated the XL Center mass of 5,486, which was merely enjoying a
foreshock at that point. In the fifth minute of the ensuing overtime, Wolf Pack
defenseman Tommy Hughes eluded every Bruins backchecker, caught up to his own
rebound on Smith’s doorstep and backhanded it home.
With that, dating back to 2000, Providence
and Hartford were dead even in all-time head-to-head playoff series (two wins apiece)
and playoff games (twelve each). They now each had two turns winning a
winner-take-all tilt after facing elimination in one or more prior matches of a
given series.
As with the Providence-Springfield saga,
it looks like the more things change — bragging rights, personnel, uniforms and
even nicknames for a while — the more they really do stay the same. It is easy
to empathize with forlorn Whalers fans. Many Bruins buffs from Boston and
elsewhere would even welcome the return of their little brother, if possible.
But those who have enjoyed the Rhode Island-Connecticut
element, the Bruins-Rangers dimension or both will likely wish the
Providence-Hartford AHL matchup never changes its fundamental nature.
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