Call the cops!*

If the mark of a good team is winning when it’s not at its best…

The Wolf Pack kept coming. They’re a solid AHL team, and they forechecked hard, kept pressure on, battled tirelessly, worked on Bridgeport’s defense (which was cut to five after Jamie Fraser took a slash across the wrists). They kept Bridgeport deep almost until Jessiman scored.

With one exception. 37-18-X. The fourth line more or less flipped it on the Wolf Pack.

“We tried to keep it simple, get it in their zone,” the returning Kip Brennan said. “I thought we did a good job cycling the puck on their D. That’s where we exposed them; their defensemen were weaker, and I thought we did a really good job.”

On their 12 shifts, Haley and Brennan and WingerX were up against Corey Potter and Andrew Hutchinson quite a bit. Could that work have contributed to the chaos that ensued at the end of Hartford’s seventh power play, when bodies were strewn all over the ice and Potter gave up the biscuit and Jeff Tambellini miraculously banked it in off Al Montoya for his sixth goal in four games?

All right, now, I’m speculating. But good teams do that kind of thing.

They don’t have anything really yet; they’re still in sixth place, and if that Dane Byers goal counts, this is a very different night. But they’re five points out of third now. At least, as long as they get out of town before the police come looking for those two points.

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

HARTFORD
F: Dupont-Anisimov-Parenteau (A)
Bourret-Pyatt-Korpikoski
Byers-Moore (A)-Jessiman
Ouellette/Murphy
D: Pock-Taylor
Baranka-Sauer
Potter-Hutchinson (A)

I thought you could argue that Byers kicked the puck in more than you could argue that the net was knocked off. Not saying that he did kick it in, just that it would have been a better argument.

Bentivoglio and Rullier will skate in the morning. Both said they were feeling better.

Trevor Smith and Micheal Haley are ECHL National Conference All-Stars; Peter Ferraro is a starter, and Todd Griffith and Ryan O’Marra were also picked. David Desharnais and tryouts Bryan Rodney and Aaron Slattengren get the call in the American Conference.

Tell you who needs the Christmas break: John Sullo. He’s doing both jobs again after Joe Franke got stuck at home in Indiana.

No. 1 star in Pittsburgh: Blake Comeau, a goal and an assist. Tim Jackman also had an assist.

Potulny vs. Potulny in the second period of Hershey-Philly, not to mention a third-man-in ejection for Steve Downie. Can’t wait for the video.

Brandon Nolan got the call from Albany and could make his NHL debut Saturday.

Garth Snow talks about Minnesota and what the Islanders thought of Okposo’s development. FWIW, the first non-concrete whispers I’d heard about any of this as a possibility? They predate Simon-Ruutu.

Jon Quick apparently won’t make his sort-of homecoming Saturday; he got sent down to Reading.

*-And not because of this.

Michael Fornabaio