(Time-warped to keep it off the front page)
As mentioned back here, I usually write some kind of filling-space article (“punk story”) before each playoff game, just in case of overtime. Just because I can, here’s, like, way too many from years past. Some might have run in first edition, I don’t remember… (Many deadlines were later back then, too.) Read, reminisce and laugh.
4/28/02, for Game 2 vs. St. John’s:
BRIDGEPORT — In an AHL season full of parity, nowhere was competitive balance more in evidence than the Canadian Division.
Two points separated first through fourth, and talented teams like Hamilton, St. John’s and Manitoba earned relatively low seeds, sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.
Bridgeport Sound Tigers coach Steve Stirling has the reason, though. The Canadian playoff teams, including Bridgeport’s Eastern Conference semifinal opponent St. John’s Maple Leafs, spent too much time beating up on each other.
“You really can’t look too carefully at the standings,” said Stirling, whose team carried a 1-0 lead into Saturday night’s Game 2.
“They (St. John’s) played Manitoba eight or 10 times, Hamilton and Quebec eight or 10 times. The record, you have to figure out, is a little misleading. They played quality opponents.”
In fact, the season series among the four Canadian playoff teams were remarkably close. Only one season series among those four clubs was decided by more than one game; Hamilton had a 7-4-1 edge over the Leafs.
St. John’s beat division-winner Quebec 2-1-5 and split eight games with Manitoba. Hamilton was 3-3-2 against Quebec and beat Manitoba 6-5-1, and Manitoba and Quebec split eight games.
“All the teams are very deep,” Maple Leafs defenseman Nathan Dempsey said. “There were a lot of callups with every team, but every team competes throughout its lineup.”
While Saint John, the fifth Canadian team, slipped out of playoff contention with a poor March, the other four teams were jousting for position throughout the last month of the season.
“Those kinds of games help prepare you for the playoffs,” Dempsey said.
The season ended April 7 with Quebec one point better than Hamilton and St. John’s. Manitoba was another point behind. Going into April 6, there were scenarios by which all four teams could still finish first, second, third or fourth.
“It came right down to the last game of the season for us,” Maple Leafs right winger Bobby House said. “If we beat Quebec in regulation, we’d have had the bye in the qualifying round, the top seed in the division.”
The teams tied instead that night, and when Manitoba subsequently lost to Grand Rapids, the Leafs were seventh. The seed has worked out for them, though; they swept Providence in the qualifying round, then beat Lowell in five games in a brilliant comeback in the first round.
HIGGINS OUT — The Sound Tigers reported that center Matt Higgins suffered a neck strain Friday night in Game 1 on the play that resulted in the Maple Leafs’ second goal. Konstantin Kalmikov replaced him in the lineup, making his Bridgeport debut. The Maple Leafs got leading scorer Donald MacLean back from Toronto and scratched center Jonathan Gagnon.
5/19/02, for Game 5:
HAMILTON, Ontario — Every once in a while, one tough guy or other might give Eric Godard that extra “wanna-go” shove.
Godard will still drop the gloves when he has to, but more often than not lately, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers right winger just goes back about his business.
Particularly in the playoffs, that business has been much more than fighting. Godard has been involved in the play, has wreaked havoc with defenses in front of the opposing net and been a solid contributor to the Sound Tigers’ playoff run.
In the Eastern Conference final, which Bridgeport led 3-1 over Hamilton going into Saturday’s Game 5, Godard was plus-3 with two assists. He had four assists in 12 overall playoff games, matching his assists total in 67 regular-season games.
“Everyone’s playing well out there,” Godard said. “I just try to get the puck to the guys who can score, and we’re getting the bounces.”
In Friday night’s 4-2 Game 3 win, Godard played a key role in the go-ahead goal that began a three-goal second-period outburst. He created traffic in front of Bulldogs goalie Marc Lamothe, allowing Chris Armstrong’s strong backhander to get into the net. Godard picked up an assist on that play.
Godard had been splitting time with Jason Podollan alongside Raffi Torres and Justin Mapletoft before the goal, and he didn’t get a lot of playing time once the Sound Tigers got a hold on the game, but he had done his job already.
“Everything we ask of him, he goes out and does,” Bridgeport coach Steve Stirling said. “He has the mental makeup where he can go a whole period and not play, and I know he can go out there and get the job done. That says a lot about him mentally.”
Three times in the first four games, Stirling started Godard alongside Torres and Mapletoft. The result was a high-energy, banging line that set a hard-work tone right from the opening faceoff. Those were Bridgeport’s three wins.
Torres and Mapletoft have emerged as two of the premier rookies in the postseason. Mapletoft has three goals and three assists and is plus-6 in the first four games, while Torres has two goals and three assists and is plus-5.
“When they get that forecheck going, it’s great,” Godard said. “They (force the other team to) cough the puck up and get the cycle going.”
Godard, meanwhile, has joined in that effort without taking penalties, besides his two fighting majors. He has no minors yet in the playoffs and is one of Bridgeport’s five skaters not to take a penalty that gave the opposition a power play.
“He’s a good reason why we’re here. He just came into his own,” Stirling said. “The bottom line is, the kid can play. He’s a smart player, and he plays within himself.”
Godard’s contributions have just emphasized Bridgeport’s depth. With contributions up and down the lineup, the Sound Tigers have won 10 of their first 12 playoff games.
In contrast, in this series the Sound Tigers have completely shut down the Bulldogs’ top line of Jason Chimera, Brian Swanson and Fernando Pisani. The trio has only two goals and two assists, none at even strength.
“In any given series, you can catch a break and shut a line down,” Stirling said. “The same thing happened to us in the Manitoba series. Our big line was quiet, but Podollan’s line picked it up. In St. John’s, the Mapletoft and Torres line picked it up.”
The difference, though, is that Bridgeport’s top line of Jason Krog, Juraj Kolnik and Trent Hunter had combined for six goals and 21 points by the end of the Manitoba series, and 13 goals and 34 points after St. John’s. They have six goals and four assists in the first four games against Hamilton.
In the first four games of the conference finals, Hamilton had just four goals at even strength. The Bulldogs’ second line of Jani Rita, Kevin Brown and Peter Sarno had three of those, and Brown was on the ice for the fourth.
5/25/02, Game 1 vs. Chicago. I don’t think this ever ran, and it was something I’d planned to write about almost all season…
BRIDGEPORT — Hockey is a sport that reveres its captains, that designates them with a big letter “C” on the left side of the sweater. If the Bridgeport Sound Tigers have such a patch, though, their fans have never seen it.
The Sound Tigers went through their inaugural season without naming a captain. Five players wore alternate captain’s “A’s” over the course of the year in rotation.
“It may have been good that they’ve shared the load,” Bridgeport coach Steve Stirling said, “because they’ve shared the load very well.”
Only defenseman Chris Armstrong wore an “A” in every game this year, playoff and regular season. He was just one of several veterans the Sound Tigers relied on for leadership on their way to the Calder Cup finals, which began Friday night and continue tonight with Game 2 at the Arena at Harbor Yard at 7:05.
“I think the importance of having an actual captain and two A’s is maybe a little overrated,” Armstrong said. “Leadership comes from a lot of different people and a lot of different guys. I don’t think, if we had a captain, it would have changed (Bridgeport’s leadership).”
Besides Armstrong, four other players — Dave Roche, Ray Schultz, Marko Tuomainen and Jason Krog — have each served as an alternate captain this year.
A first-year franchise that didn’t relocate from another location, affiliated with an NHL team in the Islanders that hadn’t had its prospects in one place in several years, there was no single Sound Tiger that stood out as a strong candidate for the captaincy.
“There was no one guy I knew really well,” said Stirling, who had coached Krog, Tuomainen and Schultz briefly in Lowell. “So I decided to share the wealth.”
The situation was a little unorthodox — all four teams the Sound Tigers have played in the playoffs had a designated captain — but it’s been done before. What can’t be disputed is its results, as Bridgeport finished first overall in the regular season and are playing for the league championship.
“I said (to the veterans), you may not have an A on your shirt, but I don’t care,” Stirling said. “You should feel confident to speak up, in the locker room or to me. Sometimes the best leaders don’t have a C or an A on their shirt.”
Stirling said he uses the various veterans to get a varied opinion on things like travel times or practice times, things that have, as he says, “no right answer.” The cross-section of the dressing room gives him a better idea of what the team is thinking.
“Instead of going to one guy, it’s nice to have five,” Stirling said. “I want them to feel good. I don’t want to do it and then have them… moan and complain.”
Stirling said the veterans each bring something different to the dressing room. Some, like Armstrong and Roche, are quieter players; others, like Schultz, are more vocal, while Ken Sutton will “pick his spots” to speak up, the coach said.
“I think we’re just lucky here with the chemistry we have, how well the guys get along on and off the ice,” Krog said. “We’ve got a lot of young kids. Some veterans are more vocal than others, and some are more lead-by-example.”
Even some younger players have stepped into key roles on the ice and been vocal off the ice.
“I think everybody in the locker room feels that at some point this year, they’ve done something within them to be a leader,” Armstrong said. “It doesn’t matter if he’s a first-year guy or one of the older guys.”
6/4/02 for Game 5 at Chicago. This ran for first and almost ran for all editions, but Yuri Butsayev scored just as Marc was about to send the final edition…. I dream of a long overtime that runs past all my deadlines, and this is as close as I’ve come.
ROSEMONT, Ill. — Chicago Wolves coach John Anderson still has a soft spot in his heart for Connecticut.
He was a part of the most successful Hartford Whalers teams during the franchise’s stay in the NHL, and he was the AHL’s Most Valuable Player in 1991-92 for the New Haven Nighthawks at the age of 35.
But it’s been mostly the Midwest that has brought Anderson success recently. In seven seasons as a head coach, Anderson has taken teams in four different leagues to six championship rounds.
He won three championships in his first six years, and was a game away from a fourth going into Game 5 of the Calder Cup Finals against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Monday night. If the Wolves didn’t win that game, they had two chances in Bridgeport to win the series coming later this week.
After a year in the Southern Hockey League, taking Winston-Salem to the finals, Anderson moved to Quad City of the Colonial League and won the championship there in 1996-97. He jumped to the Wolves in the IHL in 1998 and won two Turner Cups in his first three seasons.
“It’s tough to say any bad things (about Anderson),” Chicago captain Steve Maltais said. “Johnny’s come here, we hadn’t won before, and fortunately, we’ve won two Turner Cups with him and gone to the finals again.
“I look at Johnny’s track record, and it speaks for itself,” Maltais said.
Anderson had to adjust to a different league this year, as the Wolves left the dying IHL for the AHL last summer. Having more younger players sometimes requires more instruction, but as the quick-witted coach noted, they’re less likely to question authority, too.
“Our systems have stayed the same,” Anderson said. “There’s a little more patience in getting them going.”
Anderson might have learned some of that patience in 1991-92 with the Nighthawks, newly independent after the Los Angeles Kings pulled their affiliation from the city.
Anderson, who had suffered a painful leg injury the year before, applied only to become an assistant coach under Doug Carpenter. But he was told the team could not afford to pay him solely to coach; he’d have to play.
Play he did. In 68 games, Anderson scored 41 goals and 95 points. He was named a first-team All-Star and was the oldest MVP in league history.
“Pat Hickey was the GM there, and we had played with each other for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I had a wonderful time (in New Haven). Doug was great,” Anderson said.
“We played hard right to the end. We lost (Lou) Franceschetti and (Brian) Dobbin at the trading deadline, and there went our second line.”
The last Nighthawks team — the franchise played as the Senators the next year — finished third in the Northern Division and lost to Adirondack in five games in the first playoff round.
Anderson was also a member of two landmark Hartford Whalers teams. He finished the 1985-86 season with the Whalers as they upset the first-place Quebec Nordiques in the first round and then took eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal to seven games.
“If we hadn’t lost to Montreal, we had New York (the Rangers) next, whom we didn’t lose to that year,” Anderson said. “Then Calgary, we had split. We had a real good chance to do what Carolina’s doing now.”
Anderson said he’s glad to see Whalers teammate Ron Francis get another shot at the Stanley Cup, and he gave Carolina GM Jim Rutherford credit for sticking behind embattled coach Paul Maurice.
“They’ve done it right,” Anderson said, adding he sees some similarities between the way the Hurricanes were built and the patient way Chicago’s parent Atlanta Thrashers are building.
Two years after scoring 75 points in 1986-87 for the Adams Division-champion Whalers, he was gone from the NHL. He admits he left bitter, but he adds he’s disappointed in the way that team was dismantled.
“Can you imagine, we end up losing in the (division) finals, and they want to hold a parade for us?” Anderson said. “That town was in love with the Whalers.”
4/19/03 for Game 3 at Manchester, recycled from Game 1:
It’s hard to imagine where the Manchester Monarchs might be without Travis Scott. Through constant roster changes, and as the team struggled through the first two games of their playoff series with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Scott has been the Monarchs’ anchor
Scott, a 27-year-old, seventh-year pro, went 8-2-1 in his last 11 games of the regular season, with four shutouts in that span. That led the Monarchs to fourth place in the conference and home-ice advantage for their best-of-5 series against Bridgeport, which the Sound Tigers led 2-0 going into Friday night’s Game 3.
Scott got the start in Games 1 and 3 of the series, a well-deserved reward for carrying Manchester down the stretch.
Cristobal Huet was called up to the injury-riddled Los Angeles Kings in February and did not return to the AHL until the end of the regular season. That left Scott and a variety of younger goalies, and it meant Scott was going to play, play, and play some more.
“I got a little fatigued at times,” Scott said before the series began, “but I’m fine right now. As a goalie, you want to play as much as you can.”
Scott played 16 games, nearly 900 minutes, in the month of March alone. On two of his few days off, he even came on in relief, getting hit with a loss in the second of those stints off the bench.
Still, he finished 23-19-5 overall with a .921 save percentage.
He was a hard-luck loser in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Sound Tigers, allowing two goals on 31 shots. In Game 2, after Huet was lit up for four goals in a period and a half, Scott came on and stopped 15 of the 17 shots he faced.
At the peak of the Monarchs’ roster fluctuations, when Los Angeles had just about half the Manchester lineup on recall, Scott suffered along with the team, going 2-10-3 between Jan. 24 and March 12. After that, though, he allowed just 16 goals in 11 games.
“You start 20 games in a row, play in 27 of your last 30 in some trying times, it shows he’s got a lot of character, a lot of heart,” Monarchs coach Bruce Boudreau said. “He’s a quality goalie. We’re lucky to have a guy like him. Without him, we wouldn’t have home-ice advantage, that’s for sure.”
Scott is part of a group from each team that shares a tie to the Lowell Lock Monsters. Boudreau and Bridgeport coach Steve Stirling worked together for two years in Lowell, when the Kings and New York Islanders shared the team as an affiliate. Stirling was an assistant under Boudreau in 1999-2000 and the beginning of the 2000-01 season.
Sound Tigers Stephen Valiquette and Ray Schultz spent time in Lowell, as did Manchester’s Dane Jackson, Chris Schmidt, Richard Seeley and Scott.
Stirling spoke of no opposing player during the year more warmly than he did of Scott. Scott calls Stirling a friend and knows his friend’s team will give the Monarchs a tough time in what appears to be an evenly matched series. .
“They’re a tough team,” Scott said. “Steve’s got them playing great defensively. They’re a pretty disciplined team, too.”
2003 conference semis against Binghamton, ready with some changes for Games 3-6, never ran, on a kid we’ve come to know very well:
BRIDGEPORT — For Bridgeport Sound Tigers rookie defenseman Jody Robinson, the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Binghamton Senators have been a measure of the steps forward he’s taken this year.
In Game 3 at Bridgeport, he made his AHL playoff debut, playing a steady sixth defenseman role. In the first two games, though he was scratched, he got a reminder of where he came from when fans from Elmira, N.Y., came to nearby Binghamton to say hello.
Robinson played last season and much of this year with Elmira of the UHL before signing with the Sound Tigers on March 11.
“There were about, maybe a dozen or so (Jackals fans) that came down and talked to me before the game,” Robinson said. “It’s kind of nice, to see that people cared enough to come down and root for my new team.”
Robinson’s new team faced elimination Monday night in Game 6 of the best-of-7 series. He had dressed in Game 4 and 5 but did not play.
He took a regular shift, though, in Game 3 after Alan Letang suffered a sprained knee in Game 2 at Binghamton.
“Maybe there was a bit more pressure to play well and not make any mistakes,” Robinson said. “(The Sound Tigers’ defensemen) make it easier to come in and play when you’ve got such a good group of defensemen surrounding you.
“I just wanted to make the best of it and keep it simple.”
Simple is a virtue to Sound Tigers coach Steve Stirling, particularly for a sixth defenseman.
“He’s a steady defensive defenseman, no more, no less. His stick skills are average, but he doesn’t try to do anything flashy,” Stirling said. “He’s such a simple player. When he keeps it simple, which he does more often than not, he’s effective.”
Robinson has had to impress to move up. He attended Mercyhurst College as it broke into Division I college hockey. From there, he went to the UHL, a step — some even say two steps — below the AHL.
“He’s just worked so hard to get to this level,” Stirling said.
Robinson can see the difference in play, and especially in the intensity AHL players show toward their jobs.
“They’re dedicated,” Robinson said, “committed to doing the little things on and off the ice they need to be better players.”
Stirling wasn’t sure what he would get out of Robinson when he took him on a pro tryout, after an endorsement from the coaching staff in Rochester, where he played nine games early in the season. He’s been pleased with what he found in Robinson.
“He’s stronger than I thought physically,” Stirling said. “He’s not afraid to fight. He’s a really soft-spoken kid, so he’s not going to go instigating fights, but he’s not going to back down, either.”
For instance, Robinson stepped in to battle Hartford’s Richard Scott in the second-to-last game of the regular season, earning praise from his teammates.
4/16/04 for Game 1 vs. WBS, recycled for Game 2:
BRIDGEPORT — Alain Nasreddine is on a different side in more ways than one this week.
Traded March 8 from the New York Islanders to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Nasreddine went from the Bridgeport Sound Tigers to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
Thursday night, his new team met his old team at his old home rink, the Arena at Harbor Yard, in the first game of the East Division semifinals.
“We knew it was going to happen. I figured we’d have to play eventually,” Nasreddine said. “We’re two good teams, so it’s either now or in the division finals. Might as well get it over with now.”
Nasreddine was often half of the Sound Tigers’ top defense pairing in his year and a half in Bridgeport; he’s become half of the Penguins’ top pair as well.
Unlike the last four years, though, Nasreddine is playing the left side. He moved to the right side out of necessity earlier in his career, and he stayed there with Bridgeport, playing mostly with Alan Letang in 2002-03 and Brandon Smith and Letang this year.
The left is his natural side, since he’s a left-handed shooter, but it’s unfamiliar.
“I struggled with it at first, when I first moved here,” Nasreddine said. “It didn’t take too long, especially because it’s my strong side.”
Coach Michel Therrien paired Nasreddine with Patrick Boileau soon after Nasreddine arrived with the Penguins. Both defensemen are Montreal natives, born in 1975.
Nasreddine said Boileau has been a help in the transition, communicating well — especially when Nasreddine accidentally finds himself on the wrong side of the ice.
“I know him for a long time, but I never played with him,” Nasreddine said. “We’ve had 17 games to get to know each other. He knows where I’m going to be, I know what he’s going to do.”
Those 17 games were big ones for the Penguins, also.
When Nasreddine got to the Penguins on March 8, they were in fifth place, in the middle of a mad dash among four teams for three playoff spots.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton went 7-4-3-3 in that span to claim third place by six points.
“We just climbed the ladder,” Nasreddine said. “As much as they knew they’d be in the playoffs in Bridgeport, we didn’t. … Every game was important.”
Now, the games get even more important.
The Penguins’ third-place finish earned them a date with the Sound Tigers, with whom they played a close season series.
Of the eight games, four went to overtime; one ended in a tie, but six of the other seven were one-goal wins. The only game that even approached a blowout was the first game between the teams, a 4-1 Bridgeport win in Pennsylvania on Oct. 25.
“You know it’s going to be a tight-checking series,” Nasreddine said.
“I think we’ve got a good chance to go a long way, and I’m sure Bridgeport feels the same way, as one of the top five teams in the league. It’s going to be a tight series. We’ll see who comes out.”
That first game was the only one Nasreddine did not play; it was the last game he missed after recovering from an offseason pinched nerve in his back.
He played four times for the Sound Tigers, then three for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, including one meeting in Bridgeport.
All of that is well behind him.
“It’s not like the regular season,” Nasreddine said. “I’ve got to leave aside the fact I’ve played with them for six or seven months (this year), and a year and a half, basically. This is my team, who I want to win with.”
4/21/04 for Game 4 at WBS, recycled for Game 5:
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Something lacks in the Bridgeport Sound Tigers when Kevin Colley is out of the lineup.
The versatile forward plays all three forward positions, adds some poise to the power play, and hits anything that moves in the opposite color.
“If you pick one player who personifies what we’re trying to accomplish as a group, it’s him,” Bridgeport coach Greg Cronin said. “He’s feisty, he’s intelligent, he works hard, he plays with an edge.”
That edge hurt Colley last week, when a check on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton defenseman Darcy Robinson left Robinson with a possibly series-ending concussion and got Colley a two-game suspension.
“It’s been pretty nerve-wracking,” Colley said Tuesday morning after the game-day skate at Wachovia Arena. “It’s hard to watch when you’re not in the lineup.”
Colley’s watching days ended Tuesday, when he returned to the lineup for Game 4 of the East Division semifinals.
“Now that the series is 2-1 (in Bridgeport’s favor), sitting out, seeing how they’re playing, I want to get in the lineup and get my teammates going,” Colley said. “They can feed off of me. It’s important that we get a win.”
In one drill in the morning skate, Colley skated on the left side with fellow hard-hitters Ben Guite and Steve Webb; call it the “Keep Your Head Up” line.
In Game 4, though, Colley was likely to move back to center, where he spent most of the first half of the season.
The second half, Colley has split between the wings, settling on the left at the end of the season on a line with Derek Bekar and Rob Collins. Sean Bergenheim had taken Colley’s spot the last two games, and with Bekar out with a concussion, Colley was set to slide into Bekar’s spot.
Where he played didn’t matter much to the 25-year-old New Haven, Conn., native, who was the MVP of last year’s ECHL playoffs after scoring 20 points in 17 games for Kelly Cup champion Atlantic City.
“I feel pretty comfortable at all of them, left, center, right wing,” Colley said. “Wherever Cro wants me to play, I can play that position as well as any other position. I’m looking forward to going back to the middle. You get a little more involved in the game, taking draws and everything.”
Colley’s return was vital for a Bridgeport lineup thinned out by injuries late in the regular season, a lineup that took another hit Sunday night when Bekar suffered a concussion on a Brooks Orpik check.
Bridgeport got one of their injured players, Blaine Down, back Tuesday night.
“(Colley) is a fight-till-the-last-second kind of guy,” Cronin said. “Downer is a similar player.”
Colley maintains Robinson turned toward the boards just before Colley reached him, making the check a hitting-from-behind infraction. Colley received a boarding minor on the play from referee Harry Dumas.
“The guy (Robinson) knew I was coming, knew I had a head of steam. It was his decision to turn at the last second,” Colley said. “It’s unfortunate he was hurt. I wouldn’t try to hurt anybody like that.”
4/24/04 for Game 6 at WBS:
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The Bridgeport Sound Tigers got good news Friday night when center Eric Manlow returned from a broken wrist.
But at the same time, Kevin Colley got suspended for at least the rest of the East Division semifinals, which continued with Game 6 Friday night at Wachovia Arena.
It’s the kind of thing Bridgeport coach Greg Cronin has battled since Christmas: Injuries, call-ups, personal situations and, in the playoffs, suspensions keep juggling the lineup.
“That’s why (Thursday) night’s game was so painful,” Cronin said.
Thursday night, the Sound Tigers played a lackluster game — Cronin said “I’m still in shock” Friday night — but still took the Penguins to overtime before losing 2-1.
“Sometimes, you think you played badly, you look at the videotape and you didn’t play that badly,” Cronin said.
“Watching the videotape (of Thursday), I thought we played worse. For the life of me, I can’t understand why we would play like that. And (the Penguins) weren’t that good early in the game.”
Bridgeport mustered no more than seven shots in a period.
“We had a nice break in the schedule if we could have (finished the series),” Cronin said. “We could get some healthy bodies.”
The injured list includes defenseman Cole Jarrett (back spasms), the just-returned Manlow (17 games lost to a broken wrist) and Derek Bekar (concussion in Game 3 here in Pennsylvania).
It also includes Justin Mapletoft (broken ankle), whose return isn’t imminent but could come in the next round.
The Sound Tigers’ power play could still turn momentum in their favor.
During the season, Bridgeport went 8-for-38 against the Penguins. In the first five games of this series, the Sound Tigers had gone just 1-for-18 and had failed on its last 10 chances over the last three games.
“We’ve got to shoot the puck. We’ve got to shoot it,” said Cronin, who coaches the power play and is often disconsolate when it’s not working. “We’re trying to get too fancy.”
The Penguins have often put three men up high on their penalty kill, a piece of a vicious circle: Bridgeport’s point men haven’t tried to shoot much, and the extra bodies in their faces deter them even more.
Even when the Sound Tigers get the puck down low, bad things happen to them.
Thursday night in overtime, the Sound Tigers had Jeff Hamilton open near the left post, Cronin said; a pass instead went to Brandon Smith in the right circle, and though a clean one-timer might have had a chance to beat goalie Andy Chiodo, the puck bounced on Smith, giving Chiodo time to get across for a blocker save.
Not to be lost in the disappointment of Game 5 for Bridgeport: The Sound Tigers remain one win away from reaching the second round for the third time in three years.
A loss Friday night would have forced a Game 7 Sunday afternoon in Bridgeport, the second home Game 7 in the team’s three-year history. The Sound Tigers beat Hamilton 3-0 in Game 7 of the 2002 Eastern Conference final, with Raffi Torres scoring with 1:27 remaining in regulation to break the tie.
And that’s the last one I wrote, since Game 7 was an afternooner.
The next one? Well, the notes are on the hard drive…