Start to finish, a fine job by Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, which bottled up Bridgeport all over the ice and denied the Sound Tigers time and space and ice, and maybe won almost every shift.
The Sound Tigers talked about it all after the game, about the starts, about not thinking they can flip the switch on and off. (Especially with those words, Capuano after this dark night sounded a lot like Stirling after some of those dark nights, five and a half years ago.) About coming to play.
Five games is a small sample size; three home games, just as small. But the starts have to be better. They have to stay out of the box, or at least not give referees an excuse to put them in.
Tonight, the start just compounded. They fell behind. They took penalties. The passes weren’t sharp. The power play was almost outshot until the last few opportunities. (“We had good zone time. We can’t give up opportunities to shoot,” Capuano said.) They got caught up-ice, caught flat-footed, caught in bad situations. That Keystone-Kops breakout in the first period, the one that led to the Fata tripping penalty: That’s when you got the inkling what kind of night this was going to be.
Well, that and the fact they’d just put their first shot on goal a shift before, at 6:01.
LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: Bentivoglio-Walter-Jackman (A)
Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Colliton
Regier-Johnson-Comeau
Brennan/Labelle
D: Fata-A. MacDonald
Kohn-Spiller
Fraser-Wotton (C)
WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON
F: Minard-Taffe-Kennedy
James-Smith (C)-Wallace
Jensen-Brent (A)-Boogaard
(Bonvie-scratch)-McLean-Filewich
D: Lannon (A)-Lovejoy
Goligoski-Engelland
Ardelan-D’Aversa
Best news of the night is that Joey MacDonald and his wife had a baby girl named Kendall. MacDonald is supposed to be coming back here tomorrow (a day off).
Second-best news of the night: The ice is coming out for the circus. They needed a fire extinguisher several times to work on that patch inside the Sound Tigers’ zone. Dave Spannaus looked like a fireman.
No Stone. No Letang. (No Bonvie, but that’s a little different — Jonathan, in his postgame blog, says Bonvie has a broken finger.) Filewich on the fourth line. If Richards was looking to get their attention, maybe he did.
Well, it’s been good to see Wilkes-Barre. See you again in February. (That could be a fun blog contest*: How many guys who played Saturday will also play Feb. 1, when these teams meet next, in Pennsylvania?)
Mirtle embeds this Jonathan Toews goal that’s a little bit of fun.
Saw the Purinton suspension play tonight; haven’t seen it online yet, but it reminded me of Matt Johnson-Jeff Beukeboom. Scrum, guy comes in and punches another guy in the back of the head. Trouble.
*-No prize. Just respect.