Sinking the sinking ship

I’ve thought Jason Pitton looked a lot more involved the past few games. Given his long pause and dumbfounded look when I asked him about it, maybe he thinks otherwise. But he has four points in 13 games, and all are in the past three games.

“The way Pitts played tonight was the way he finished last year,” Jack Capuano said. “He’s going to the net. He’s got really quick hands. That backhand goal (on the breakaway), he can score that on an NHL goaltender. His attitude has been phenomenal.”

Pitton said he has been feeling good lately.

“I’ve been getting ice time,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot of opportunity on the PK. That gets you involved in the game quite a bit. We took too many penalties tonight, we had to kill a lot. It’s great that the unit was working well together.”

Pitton pointed to Fata’s blocking a bunch of shots. Regier’s always in there. MacDonald pointed to Wotton and Ford.

They had to kill three in a row in the second, and they got out with only one goal against, a nifty deflection. Then they gave up another nifty deflection. And then, as it was before, it was the Joey Mac Show. They worked hard around the net, they took advantage when they had to, they got some bounces. And they got the goaltending. And they got the win.

Helps when everyone you’re chasing loses, too.

Sorry for the brevity. Had to park in the other garage, and it closes in a few minutes…

WARMUP:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Walter-Okposo-Smith
Bourne-Regier-Colliton
Pitton-Haley-Jackman (A)
Morency
D: Fata-Ford
Fraser-Spiller (A)
Dwyer-Wotton (C)
(Sertich-scratch)

ALBANY
F: Nolan-Johnson (A)-Samson
Jensen-Angelidis-Dwyer (A)
Blanchard-Petruzalek-Blight
Gillies (A)-Rallo-Rechlicz
D: Rodney-Carson
Adams-Flood
Ward-Babin

Reconnecting with reality at faceoff, REAL BRIDGEPORT LINES, in order of appearance:
Okposo-Smith-Regier
Bentivoglio-Walter-Jackman (A)
Pitton-Colliton-Bourne
Haley/Morency

(Gamesmanship. Yikes.)

They mixed things up in the third, coming out of a PK, and to rest some guys. Bentivoglio was under the weather. Other guys are fighting it, too.

Nolan didn’t play in the third, benched for a turnover that led to the third Bridgeport goal.

Yesterday’s header was kind of obscure… “Bernie?” was how Fata described another of his teammates on the board, for a practice resemblance to assistant coach Bernie Cassell. Sorry if you were scratching your head.

Marc Robbins of WTNH-TV was on the bus to do a feature that’ll air the week after next.

Prescout. The Baby Pens lost Connor James and Chris Minard to Pittsburgh this afternoon. They’ve probably lost their dressing room to some basketball team or another until late Saturday afternoon. I’m heading over early to try to do something short on the changeover.

Phil Janack makes a good point about Albany PTO John Adams.

“Meet Your Rats” on the video board in the first intermission featured one Rat (David Gove) and mentioned one other (J.D. Forrest) who had been traded recently. Timely.

Brief (and good) BST goalie Cody Rudkowsky got a PTO with Grand Rapids.

Ol’ buddy Rich Bocchini notes the cancellation of the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League’s season, and how some Erie players reacted.

Michael Fornabaio