Huet again backstops Monarchs to victory

By JIM FENNELL
Sunday News Staff
December 1, 2002

There may be no such thing as a sure thing in sports, but the Manchester Monarchs had the closest thing to it last night as they beat the Philadelphia Phantoms, 4-1, in front of a crowd of 8,765 at the Verizon Wireless Arena.

Simply put, the rest of the AHL has been unable to win at the Big V when the Monarchs have Cristobal Huet in net and the first goal of game on their side.

They took a 2-0 lead on power play goals by Tomas Zizka and Dane Jackson and clinched it with a pair of third-period tallies by Chris Schmidt. The rest was left to their goaltender.

Huet continued his impressive debut season with the Monarchs, stopping a season-high 40 shots to run his record to 8-2-2. The 27-year-old Frenchman is now 6-0-1 at home. And, as good as that number is, the Monarchs padded a couple of other impressive stats.

They are now 7-0-1 when they score first, 7-0 on the back end of consecutive games and, after cashing in on two of four power play chances, are converting on a league-high 26 percent of their man-advantage opportunities. But most the impressive stat will show up in the standings.

Combined with Worcester’s 11-0 drubbing of Providence last night, the Monarchs (12-4-3-1, 28 points) moved within two points of the first-place P-Bruins in the North Division standings.

“Our motto at the beginning of the year was Whatever It Takes,” Monarchs coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We’re not overly big, we’re not over tough. We’ve got some great puckhandlers, and we’ve some really good character and leadership. I don’t how far it’s going to take us, but we’ve only go four losses after 20 games.”

The Monarchs can wrap up a productive, if not grueling weekend, this afternoon at 4:05 when they host former UNH star goalie Ty Conklin and the Hamilton Bulldogs, the top team in the Eastern Conference. Combined with last night’s win and Friday night’s last-second tie at Worcester, the Monarchs have a chance to pick up five points in three days.

“I think it would be huge,” Boudreau said.”We play Hamilton again Wednesday. They’re at the end of a seven-game road trip where they’ve won the last five. Them and Worcester are the two most talent-laden teams in the league.”

The Monarchs got on the board first for the eighth time this season when Zizka scored his sixth goal of the year on a power play at 2:26, off assists by Derek Bekar and Scott Barney.

Huet (pronounced You-ay) was serenaded by the calls of “Youuuuuu” as he frustrated the Phantoms (8-11-1-2) with stops from every imaginable angle. He was at his best in the second period when he stopped Kirby Law on a shorthanded breakaway attempt and then stymied Ben Stafford on the rebound.

After the Monarchs made it 2-0 on Jackson’s power play goal at 9:10 of the period, Huet came up big again as the Phantoms — 0-for-6 with a man advantage — failed to score during what amounted to a six-minute power play.

With Bekar in the box for four minutes, Philadelphia’s Matt Zultek got two quick shots off in the crease after an errant clearing pass hit Monarchs defenseman Joe Corvo in the back of the skate. Huet stopped both shots.

Seconds after that penalty was up, Eric Healey was sent to the box for an elbow, and Huet made the highlight reel again with another stop on Zultek.

Huet nearly fanned on an attempt to swat the puck from out behind the net, and the puck ended up on the back of the net. Zultek popped the puck into the crease and was just about to take a poke at it, when a lunging Huet was just able to get enough of his stick on the puck to clear it away.

“That was huge,” Boudreau said, crediting assistant coach Bobby Jay for his work with the penalty-killing unit. “But we’ve got to stop taking dumb penalties, especially with a short bench. And usually when you have great penalty-killing, you’re best penalty killer is your goalie and that was the case today.”

Law spoiled Huet’s shutout bid at 5:25 of the third period with a clean shot just inside the blue line, but the Monarchs wrapped things up with a pair of goals by Schmidt, including a empty-netter with 1:27 left.