Binghamton Senators' Hennessy named AHL Player of Week
BINGHAMTON -- No current Binghamton Senator has called the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena home for more consecutive full seasons than Josh Hennessy.
He's logged 314 career American Hockey League games, 234 of them in a Binghamton Senators jersey over the past three-plus seasons. He is second on the franchise's all-time list with 77 goals, and his 87 assists and 164 points both rank third behind Denis Hamel and Jason Spezza.
Sometimes, then, it's easy to forget he's still just 24 years old.
And while he'll leave the labels -- "prospect" being the operative one -- to others, Hennessy still has plenty to say on the matter, primarily with his stick and skates.
"I'm not the one to label myself, I guess," he said Wednesday. "Hopefully I'm still labeled a prospect by people. I certainly know that I'm capable of playing at the next level. I just need to play well enough, consistently enough, to deserve a chance to show that, which is obviously what I'm working to do this year."
Lately, that work has been hard to miss.
Hennessy, a center, will enter Friday night's home game against Syracuse riding his best four-game stretch with the B-Sens. He has at least one goal in each of the four games, and all told has six goals and three assists over this run.
After a quieter start -- he went 11 games without a goal from late October into mid-November -- he seems to be settling back into a confident groove, much like he did last February when he emerged as one of Binghamton's most dangerous weapons before breaking his thumb.
"He brings leadership," B-Sens coach Don Nachbaur said. "I think early in the year he was struggling a little bit. I don't think his game struggled. I think he struggled in terms of not putting up the numbers that he would want or that I was looking for.
"But boy, in terms of offense, in terms of bringing big plays at big times of the game, he's brought that. And obviously that's why he got the Player of the Week."
Indeed, the American Hockey League recognized Hennessy with its weekly honor on Monday.
And more important, there are those AHL standings, where the emergence of the Hennessy-Kaspars Daugavins-Erik Condra line has been another driving force behind Binghamton's blitz to second place in the East Division.
"I think our biggest thing is, we create a good amount off the forecheck," Hennessy said of the line. "We're able to read each other pretty well, and we kind of divide up the work in the offensive zone pretty well. And I think we trust each other as far as not missing an assignment on the forecheck. When we're on our game, we spend a lot of time in the other team's end, which obviously helps create offensive chances for us."
Shrugging off his goal-scoring drought back on Nov. 21, Hennessy popped out to the right-wing side of the Albany net and buried a loose puck. One period later, he broke in behind the River Rats defense to score his second.
He added two more goals Thanksgiving night against Adirondack, and he says this four-game stretch has resulted in part from confidence, from a few good bounces, and from feeling "a little more at ease than maybe I normally am at this time of year." He also credited his linemates, and the team's game plan to just put shot after shot on net.
"You always want to score," said Hennessy, whose plus-14 rating leads the team. "I knew that I had had some decent games (earlier this season), where maybe I didn't produce offensively. And I thought I played OK. I thought I skated OK. But it's always nice to get rewarded for it.
"That's my role on this team. I have to create offense. So whether people admit it or not, that's how I'll be measured. So it's nice to have some success."
Still, he acknowledges there's work to be done.
"My season won't be judged on the past five or six games," he said. "So I'm really going to try to consistently bring what I've been bringing the last couple of weeks. And then I'd consider it successful. I'm still not quite where I want to be. I think I've just been getting rewarded a little bit more, and like I said, a lot of it has to do with my linemates and the way the team's been playing."
This run carried through to Saturday, when he chipped in a goal and assist during Binghamton's five-goal, third-period outburst against Rochester.
On that night, the memorable moments actually began before the opening faceoff, as Hennessy's 17-year-old sister Jenni sang the national anthem.
"It was a cool experience," said Hennessy, who looked on from the home bench. "She was really excited. I'm sure I was more nervous that she was. I think she's used to it. She sings at all the high school football games and all the high school events back home (in Rockland, Mass.). So she's sung in front of some decent-sized crowds before. So I don't know if she was really nervous at all, but I was proud of her."
The last time Jenni sang in Binghamton, back on Feb. 18 of this year, Hennessy was in a car en route to Ottawa. This time, he was most certainly in the midst of working his way back into the discussion for another such ride.
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Hennessy is center of attention for B-Sens | pressconnects.com | Press & Sun-Bulletin
Sens' Hennessy takes weekly honors
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