Former Captain Impresses in NHL Debut

In just his second NHL game, Pittsburgh Penguin Noah Welch ’05 did the unthinkable: he beat his own netminder, Marc-Andre Fleury, and notched a goal for the opposing Montreal Canadiens.

An all-star in his first season with Pittsburgh’s top minor league franchise, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Welch was tapped to replace suspended NHL defenseman Eric Cairns for three games in late March. And wouldn’t you know, Welch’s own-goal made SportsCenter’s “Not Top 10”—in fact, it was the No. 1 blunder of the day.

“It happens,” Welch laughed in retrospect. “Well, maybe not too often—I guess I was pretty antsy.”

Guarding the goalmouth against the streaking Alexei Kovalev, Welch tapped at the puck in the crease and slipped it past his own keeper, rather than out to the corner boards he’d been eyeing.

“An honest mistake,” he said, “but I had to laugh it off and leave it on the ice. Just one of those things, I guess.”

Less than two minutes of game-time later—the goal credited to Kovalev came 19:40 into the second period—Welch scored for his own team, putting to rest any concerns that such a public gaffe might shake his confidence.

All in all, the rookie enjoyed a solid first stint in The Show, a trio of games from March 24-29. His one tally and three assists were the second-best offensive output by a Pittsburgh player during that stretch, and his plus/minus of +2 was tops for the team.

“Three games, it doesn’t mean much,” he said, “but we played some pretty good teams, and now I know I can play at that level.”

And though his objective is to stay with the parent club for good, Welch admitted that “to get called up still fulfilled a life-long dream.”

His AHL coach delivered the news just after practice on March 23, and Welch had only a handful of hours before he left the Baby Pens behind.

“I just packed as much as I could,” he said. He didn’t know how long he’d remain in Pittsburgh, and there was no sense in playing the defeatist and only packing for one game.

The next night, the Penguins surmounted a two-goal deficit—Welch assisted on the game-tying score—and Pittsburgh won in overtime on a Sidney Crosby goal.

In the following game, a 6-5 loss to Montreal, Welch managed a goal and an assist to counter his own-goal, and he tallied another dish in a 5-3 loss to Florida.

“Great for my confidence,” was all he’d say of the four points in three games.

But once Cairns was eligible to return, Welch was back to Wilkes-Barre, where longtime friend and college roommate Ryan Lannon ’05 also mans the blue line.

The pair headed straight to the professional rinks after graduation last June, and their Baby Pens leapt out to a 20-2 start. Currently 47-17-5-5 with a guaranteed playoff berth, the team could clinch its first-ever division title with a win tonight.

Welch, a second-round draft pick in 2001, was voted a starter in the AHL All-Star game this January, and he and Lannon are a combined + 26 on the season. And the latter, an eighth-round pick in 2002, was just named the team’s 2005-2006 Man of the Year for his contributions to the northeastern Pennsylvanian community, including his “adoption” of a second-grade class.

Not a bad first professional season for either, and all the sweeter now that Welch has gotten a taste of the big time.

“It was definitely a goal that I had in mind,” he said. “At least one game—I just wanted that. But my goal next year is to make the [Pittsburgh] team right out of training camp.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.