Comeback victory

It’s a start. (Feels like we’ve said that before.)

The guys who were out came back fine. Fraser even sets up the game-winner with a good shot that Ben Walter deflected in.

The power play worked, Tambellini from the corner and that winner late.

The penalty kill worked, killing off six opportunities.

They worked, period. A couple of scrambly shifts, maybe, but none of those where’d-they-go stretches that had plagued some of those recent games.

And tonight we’re hanging on a Cleveland score so as to say this: Bridgeport is now 26th (Lowell, Hamilton, Lake Erie, all on tiebreakers) out of 29.

It’s a start.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Regier-Walter-Bootland
Comeau-Colliton-Haskins
Brennan/Haley
D: Fata-Ford
Spiller (A)-Rullier
Fraser-Wotton (C)

BINGHAMTON
F: Zubov-Nikulin-May
Weller-Hennessy-Dimitrakos
Donati-Mapletoft-Mauldin
Kudelka-Hamel (C)-Yablonski
D: Kinch-Carkner (A)
Nycholat-Lee
Amadio (A)-(Waugh-scratch)

Bingo lines quickly became:
Zubov-Hennessy-Dimitrakos
Hamel-May-Nikulin
Donati-Mapletoft-Mauldin
Weller/Yablonski

…with Amadio and Kudelka sliding in to spell one of the top-four defenseman at odd shifts. I lost track of them after May’s departure, but I thought I saw Hamel-Mapletoft-Mauldin a lot; might just have been a power-play thing.

Bryan Trottier is in town for the weekend, so he was on the bench with Capuano and Bingham. Bernie was sitting up here next to me for two periods. “Just like old times,” he said — that’s where he was, doing video, for the first half of last season.

Bridgeport was set to return to the funky-fresh orange sweaters, but Bingo wears red on the road, so no-go on that. There wasn’t a No. 12 sweater ready in white, so Tyler Haskins wore 42.

First-time-for-Bridgeport referee (Kyle Rehman) and linesman (Derek Wahl). Certainly not first-timing: Marty Demers.

Rullier disagreed with the major/game misconduct call, said it looked on video that he had hit May’s shoulder. That struck me as one of those slippery-slope calls: The big issue is, is it a penalty or not? As long as you call it boarding initially, as Rehman did, then you have to make it a major after May’s head is hurt. And because it’s a head injury, it’s got to be a game misconduct.

Albany got pounded tonight with just 14 skaters. Ladd, Gove, Bayda and Borer were all out after playing Friday. (Albany was coming to Bridgeport from Glens Falls tonight, so there should be a game here, one way or another, tomorrow.)

Today was the last day for AHL teams to sign players who are/have been playing in Europe. Bridgeport was quiet. NHL teams may still sign them and assign them to the AHL, subject to NHL bylaws.

Home teams have won every shootout since I ran that little shootout study Tuesday…

Thought on the way home last night: Trips to Bridgeport’s second-, third- and fourth-closest opponents (Springfield, Worcester, Providence): 4. Trips to Norfolk: 4. Love this schedule.

I’m kind of surprised this hadn’t happened already.

Map freak or history geek, this is awesome: Political maps of Europe every 100 years, from 1 AD through seven years ago. (Found through Infonaut.)

Michael Fornabaio