Worcester Sharks Move Into 1st Place with 4-2 Victory over Portland Pirates
By Ryan Bayer
February 13, 2012; Washington, DC, USA; San Jose Sharks right wing Tommy Wingels (57) skates with the puck against the Washington Capitals at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-US PRESSWIRE
The start of the new 2012-2013 AHL season has not gone well for San Jose Sharks farm team The Worcester Sharks. The AHL Sharks were 0-3-0-1. Worcester’s first win did not come until October 26 when they outscored The New York Islanders AHL affiliate The Bridgeport Soundtigers with a decisive 5-1 victory. The game winning goal was scored by Sharks forward Curt Gogol. The Worcester Sharks looked like they were turning the page in young AHL season with their first win. However, after their first win of the season they had become victim to their division rival’s The Manchester Monarchs who are affiliated with Los Angeles Kings with a 5-1 loss. After loosing to the hands of The Monarchs, Worcester went on to win their next games with a 5-2 victory over Bridgeport with the GWG by Danny Groulx and tightly contested 3-2 victory with the GWG by Bracken Kearns over The Providence Bruins AHL affiliate of Boston. Following to their small winning streak, Worcester headed to St. Johns, Canada to take on The Ice Caps AHL partner to the newest NHL franchise Winnipeg Jets. This contest became The Worcester Sharks first overtime loss with a 3-2 loss. Losing to The Ice Caps in overtime, Worcester went on to win the next games against Manchester which became their first shootout win of the season and 3-1 win over Portland (Coyotes AHL affiliate). The Worcester Sharks second short winning streak of the season was short lived when they lost to The Connecticut Whale by a 6-2 blowout. The Sharks needed to get over their worse lose of the season by turning their focus towards taking on The Providence Bruins. This was another one of those tightly contested games with Worcester winning their second shootout of the season with a 4-3 win.
Tonight on November 14 Worcester squared off against The Portland Pirates. Portland opened the scoring of the game when Pirates forward Rob Klinkhammer scored at the 1:08 mark of first period. The Pirates lead was short lived when Worcester Sharks scoring forward Sebastian Stalberg scored on the man advantage at the 3:37 mark of the opening stanza. Both teams went to dressing rooms tied at 1 apiece. During the second period, Pirates winger Klinkhammer scored his second goal of the game to put The Pirates ahead 2-1. The Worcester Sharks were kept off the score-sheet during the middle frame. That did not phase The Sharks in any way because the previous two games they had to come from behind. Worcester went into the third period with a mission. They kept peppering the Pirates netminder Mark Visentin with shoots on net. Their hard work in the third period was rewarded at the 11:09 mark, when James Sheppard beat Visentin with a clinker goal off the post to tie the game up at 2 goals apiece. Shortly after Sheppard tied it up for The Sharks, Tim Kennedy scored a 60 footer past Visentin to put Worcester up 3-2. Everything seemed to be going The Sharks way until they took a late penalty with less than 2 minutes left of the game. Portland pulled their goaltender to make it a 2 man advantage but Worcester was up to the task to defend their net and put on strong showing of defense to keep Portland from scoring. Sharks defenseman Matt Irwin scored an empty netter to seal the deal for Worcester. That hard fought victory moved Worcester into first place to claim the top seed of The AHL’s Atlantic Division with a 7-5-1-1 record.