What we have to take on faith tonight is that, in a 62-minute game, 18 fouls were committed. Not too hard. But we are also asked to take on faith that of those 18 fouls, 14 of them came in pairs — actually, make that “16 of them came in groups” — simultaneously, or while teams were still dealing with the last one.
This is a bigger leap, and it’s the only way to get around a game in which Syracuse and Bridgeport played five-on-three a grand total of six times.
That includes Bridgeport’s second five-on-three kill in overtime this month. It lasted just six seconds, but three seconds later, the game ended.
The penalty to Rob Collins in overtime would have been easier to believe — borderline, can’t kill him for calling it — if not for all that came before. But it’s over now.
Good start to the game. The penalties chopped it up, tired out the penalty killers on both teams, wore things down. The fault for that is left as an exercise for the reader.
LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: Bergenheim-Colliton-Nilsson
Marjamaki-Koalska-Masse
Regier-Smith (A)-Collins
Tunik/Hamilton (A)
D: Jarrett-Gervais
Caldwell-(Flache-scratch)
Rourke (A)-Pratt
Macri
SYRACUSE
F: Hartigan (A)-Pratt-Lindstrom
Murray-Simon (A)-Picard
Mauldin-Sarno-Motzko
Canzanello-Kolarik-(Sugden-scratch)
D: Johnson-MacMillan
Methot-Pushor (C)
Tollefson-Delmore
Macri came back, sometimes with Rourke, sometimes with Caldwell.
Sugden, arguably the reigning AHL heavyweight champion, hurt his hand last night, Lindsay Kramer reported up in SYR on his blog. Lindsay’s also slightly less nice to Dean Morton than I was to St. Laurent. It was Morton, of course, who gave Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 10 power plays to Bridgeport’s three in Game 3 of that 2004 playoff series; that night inspired this from Greg Cronin: “I don’t know what Dean was smoking.”
Star-studded weekend: Steve Stirling was in town Saturday, then Sudsie Maharaj, Dan Bylsma, Danny Marshall, Wade Dubielewicz (Monday’s birthday boy) and Chris Campoli Sunday.
Hartigan has points in 16 consecutive games, averaging two points a night.
Added randomly after watching Family Guy on tape: Where else on television would you get a reference to “The Music Man”… and an entire production number, no less?
Unless the desk suddenly needs me to fill space in the next couple of days, chats with Dubielewicz and Harlan Pratt will probably go into the weekly notebook. Since I’ll probably have very little else to talk about this week. Enjoy the break!