From: jca2@cec1.wustl.edu (Joseph Charles Achkar)
Subject: Blues lose to Whalers 5-2
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 16:47:30 GMT


11/18/92  BLUES LOSE TO WHALERS 5-2
-----------------------------------

The game was not televised anywhere, here's a report from the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch newspaper.  
By Dave Luecking.

*  JOSEPH LEFT EXPOSED, ANGRY, 3 GOAL SPREE BY WHALERS BURIES BLUES

    HARTFORD, Conn. -- Remember that nightmare sequence the Blues recently had
against Edmonton?  They gave up three Oilers goals in the first 12 minutes of a
game at The Arena.

    That was nothing compared with what happened Wednesday night at the
Hartford Civic Center.

    The Hartford Whalers scored three goals in a span of 1 minute 41 seconds
early in the second period en route to a stunning 5-2 victory over the Blues.

    Andrew Cassels and Pat Verbeek scored the first two goals in a 20- second
span from 5:30 to 5:51. Then, Mark Janssens scored the third at 7:11.

    ``Bang. Bang. Bang," Blues defenseman Jeff Brown said.

    And the Blues were dead.

    The loss spoiled what could have been a successful trip -- the Blues tied
Toronto on Monday -- and extending their winless streak on the road to 0-7-1.

    Worse, they lost to one of the National Hockey League's worst teams.
Hartford ranked ahead of only expansion Ottawa in the overall standings going
into the game and had a winless streak of 0-8-1. They hadn't won at home since
a 5-1 victory over the Senators on Oct. 22.

    The Whalers were 1-8-1 at home and ranked second-last in the league with 42
goals. Even with the victory, the Whalers haven't reached double figures in
points.

    They're 4-13-1 for nine points, tied with San Jose for 22nd in the 24-team
league. At least the Blues' terrible sequence against Edmonton came against a
halfway decent team. It also resulted in a 4-4 tie.

    ``This shows that when you play a  team, you have to be ready to play," the
Blues' Rich Sutter said. ``We played down to their level, and look what
happened in the second period. We had three major breakdowns that led directly
to goals.

    ``No matter who you play, you can't allow that to happen."

    But the Blues did, and it led to a nightmare for Blues goalie Curtis
    Joseph.

    * Goal No. 1: With the game tied 1-1, Joseph handled Patrick Poulin's drive
from the left-wing boards with no problem, leaving the rebound out for
defensemen Murray Baron and Rick Zombo, who promptly got tangled up.

    Zombo tried to play the puck, but Baron's skate got in the way, and
Hartford's Tim Kerr tipped the puck toward the net. Baron tried to clear it
with his backhand, but the puck went to Cassels in the slot.

    Using Baron as a screen, Cassels shot the puck over Joseph's right
    shoulder.

    ``I was battling it," Zombo said. ``It hit a skate. It's very frustrating."

    * Goal No. 2: Twenty-one seconds later, Geoff Sanderson took a pass from
Murray Craven and buzzed around Brett Hull, Brown and Garth Butcher before
giving it to Verbeek in the slot.

    Sanderson and Verbeek were two-on-none against Joseph, and Verbeek had
enough time to switch the puck from his backhand to his forehand before beating
an angry Joseph.

    After Blues coach Bob Berry called a timeout, Joseph berated his teammates
once he joined them by the bench.

    ``I don't blame him one bit," Sutter said.

    * Goal No. 3: Whatever Berry said in the timeout seemed to work. For a
while. The Blues pressured deep in the Hartford zone, but as luck would have
it, Janssens stopped Zombo's shot at the right point, and Terry Yake sent him
off on a breakaway.

    Joseph came out to challenge Janssens, who shot quickly and beat him high
to the glove side at 7:11.

    ``My mistake," Zombo said. ``I've got to get it through the first guy. A
couple mental letdowns, and the puck ends up in our net. The unfortunate part
is we have control of the mental part of the game."

    Joseph had control of himself after the game, declining to comment rather
than saying ``something I might regret later."

    Berry said everything that needed to be said, angrily pounding his fist on
a table, tossing a pen and kicking a roll of tape for emphasis.

    ``This is not acceptable," he said. ``For whatever reason, we didn't give
that team respect. I don't know why that is. If that's lack of intelligence,
that's what it is.

    ``Some guys play their hearts out and other guys go with the flow. If it's
soft, that's fine. It's very, very discouraging for myself and the assistant
coaches."

    Berry's diatribe continued.

    ``We made an attempt to go back to the basics, and obviously we didn't go
back far enough," he said. ``We make it tough on ourselves. We don't do the
things like get the puck deep and applying pressure in their end, or relieve
the pressure in our end by dumping it out. I mean, these aren't end-to-end
rushes we're asking people to do.

    ``And when you're on the ice for 1:15, and you're dead tired in your end
and you get the puck, and instead of icing it so you can have five fresh guys,
you go back in your end, you don't deserve to win a game."

    The Blues didn't deserve it, but they made it close. Bob Bassen cut the
lead to 4-2 at 10:15 of the final period. But Rich Sutter's apparent goal a few
seconds later was disallowed by referee Lance Roberts, who said Bassen was in
the crease.

    Instead of trailing 4-3, the Blues were down 4-2 in a game they 
eventually lost 5-2.  After the game Sutter was enraged about the call.

    ``He said Bass had half of his foot in the crease," Sutter said. ``It's not
the right call at all. He blew the call. Bass wasn't close to being in the
goalie's way."

    Sutter contended that a Whalers player might have pushed Bassen into the
crease. ``There was a guy standing on top of him," he said.

    He also wondered why similar calls haven't been made earlier this season.

    ``It's gone on for 20 games this year, and all of a sudden he calls it
where a guy has a half of his foot in the crease and is 3 feet away from the
goalie," Sutter said. ``He's totally wrong. It's the wrong call. It epitomizes
what he is, too -- where he's at. I don't know why he's . . . It's a joke.

    ``I'd like to see his report card after the game, let alone ours."

    Sutter's apparent goal came just 15 seconds after  Bassen had cut
Hartford's lead to 4-2. Then, just over a minute later, Roberts penalized
Bassen for crashing against Hartford goalie Sean Burke.

    ``We got ourselves back in the game, and  makes a call like that," Sutter
said. ``It should have been 4-3 with 10 minutes to go, but then it's 4-2 and
they're on the power play. Their guy knocked Bass into the goalie and Bass gets
a penalty for it."

    Sanderson closed the scoring on a two-on-one break with Verbeek with 5:25
to play. The loss dropped the Blues to 6-11-3 for 15 points.

    Sanderson, Janssens and Yake, who had Hartford's first goal, each had a
goal and an assist.

    Hull scored the Blues' first goal.

    ``We were brutal," Butcher said. ``For some reason, we get up for the teams
that are playing well and expect to show up and win against teams like this.
That's wrong. The league's too close to do that type of thing.

    ``We played like we should be able to show up and win. And obviously,
that's not the case."

    Defenseman Curt Giles suffered a bruised left knee in the first period
Wednesday night and sat out the second and third periods.

The Blues hadn't lost in Hartford since a 4-0 setback March 24, 1988.

    Defenseman Lee Norwood and Russians Vitali Prokhorov and Vitali Karamnov
were scratched by the Blues. Hartford scratched Randy Cunneyworth, Paul
Gillias, Jim Agnew and Doug Houda. Center John Cullen served a one-game
suspension for two stick violations.


BOXSCORE
--------

WHALERS 5, BLUES 2

BLUES          1      0      1 -- 2
HARTFORD       1      3      1 -- 5

FIRST PERIOD

    H -- Yake 1 (Konroyd, Janssens) 2:58

    B -- Hull 9 (Wilson, Ron Sutter) 9:57

    Penalties -- Butcher (B), roughing, 10:11; McKenzie (H), roughing, 10:11;
Kypreos (H), roughing, 19:32.

SECOND PERIOD

    H -- Cassels 2 (unassisted) 5:30

    H -- Verbeek 5 (Sanderson, Craven) 5:51

    H -- Janssens 3 (Yake) 7:11

    Penalties -- Poulin (H), high-sticking, 8:19; Sanderson (H), hooking,
13:06; Zalapski (H), holding, 19:50.

THIRD PERIOD

    B -- Bassen 4 (Brown, Korolev) 10:15

    H -- Sanderson 8 (Verbeek) 15:35

    Penalties -- Bassen (B), high-sticking, 5:24; Bassen (B), goalie
interference, 11:56; Bozon (B), roughing, 17:26; Verbeek (H), roughing, 17:26.

    Power-Play Opportunities -- Blues 0 of 4; Hartford 0 of 2.

SHOTS ON GOAL

BLUES         7      11      12 -- 30
HARTFORD     10       9       8 -- 27

Goaltenders -- Blues, Joseph (4-9-3; 27 shots-22 saves); Hartford, Burke
(3-8-1; 30-28). Referee -- Lance Roberts. Linesmen -- Pierre Champoux and Jean
Morin. A -- 8,740.

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