Order out of chaos

You know, some games get chaotic, and all they do is give coaches agita.

Some games get chaotic, and they’re the most delightful games you’ve ever watched.

This one was the latter.

You’ve got 82 shots, crazy rebound goals, crazy penalties (including one right after a goal, leading to another goal), crazy passes (sometimes even setting up goals), late heroics.

(And one anticlimactic shootout, but you know where I stand. This was the kind of tie that ties were made for.)

Begin with Joey MacDonald. He couldn’t have seen the first one. The others were pretty solid. And he made some big stops.

You’ve got Andy Sertich, with a nice lead pass to lead to the first and a good back-door read from Ben Walter for the second.

You’ve got work on the walls. Regier and Jackman winning the puck for Sertich’s goal. Micheal Haley getting there first to set up Kyle Okposo’s goal — which looks better on video than I thought live.

You’ve got Tyler Haskins with a beauty of a behind-the-back feed to Sean Bentivoglio for the first one.

You’ve got Drew Fata making a nifty move in overtime that didn’t pay off. You’ve got Bentivoglio giving Regier a feed at the right post in overtime that didn’t pay off.

You’ve got Scott Ford, making up for the turnover that led to the penalty that led to the first Portland goal, with the perfect stick save on Brett Westerling. If it’s 5-2, I might as well leave early and call Jack Capuano for a quote again. (When Portland outshot Bridgeport 11-1 after the Sertich goal in the second, the thought process was similar.)

And goodness gracious, you’ve got that last goal. Chaos: one man in goal, and 10 of the 11 other players on the ice within eight feet of him. And it’s like the organism breathes: They spread out, the puck comes back to Fata, Fata’s shot is going wide but hits something and goes on goal, and there’s Regier to bat it in.

Nights like that Philly game, you (and by “you,” I mean “I”) just shake your head. I’m not sure I can delineate the differences, but tonight… tonight, you kind of chuckle. They wanted more than one point, I’m sure, but stealing that one against that team was quite a night…

BRIDGEPORT
F: Bentivoglio-Okposo-Fretter
Keith-Smith-Jackman (A)
Haley-Walter-Regier
Bourne-Haskins-(Morency-scratch)
D: Fata-Ford
Spiller (A)-Sertich
Kohn-Fraser

PORTLAND
F: Birner-Ebbett-King (A)
Dingle-Dixon-Platt
Bouck (C)-Wirtanen-Ferguson
Mikkelson-(Miller-scratch)-Bootland
D: Festerling-Callahan (A)
Schneider-Leach
St. Jacques-Salcido

Not in the gamer due to time constraints: Wilkes-Barre had better luck in the shootout and picked up a point on Bridgeport. (Lindsay blogs on the pregame ceremony.) Not in the gamer due to space (rather talk about the other stuff): Albany beats Binghamton in overtime, so the Sens stay three points back and Albany goes nine ahead. (BPT has three games in hand, as do WBS and HER.)

Got to ask what’s up with warmups. Actual Bridgeport lines, in order of appearance: Keith-Smith-Jackman; Regier-Walter-Okposo; Bentivoglio-Haskins-Fretter; Haley/Bourne.

Jason Pitton is reported to be undergoing surgery Monday morning. Or maybe he’ll take 20 shifts and kill some penalties. Stay tuned. Mark Wotton should practice this week, too.

Francis Charron works his first Sound Tigers game. I didn’t much notice him (except when he was pointing like a madman, calling Okposo’s goal good before the net came off).

Here’s kind of a funky one. We’ve been talking all year about how the Sound Tigers are tough, and we’ve talked about some high penalty paces. Check this out, though. When Brennan was suspended after Game 50, they were on pace for 1,995 PIMs and 123 majors. After Saturday’s game, Bridgeport has 1,440 PIMs in 63 games. Over 80 games, that pace would take them to 1,829. The team record (2004-05) is 1,834. They’re doing OK in straight-up majors, though. With 88 — 85 of them fights — they were on pace for 112, which wipes out the team record of 95 (also ’04-05).

Sounds like chaos of a different sort in Philly.

If I were still 13, I would go nuts for this. (Not to say I’ve outgrown the interest, mind you; just nowhere really to put it.)

Look at this bracket. Hokey smokes. (On the man-who-beat-the-man theory, I had East Haven No. 1 for a while. Oh well.) Should be two interesting semifinals, though. Glastonbury’s hot; Conard’s good. And we know the Fairfield schools can make it happen at any given time. Sean Patrick blogs on the first round here, making the point that the FCIAC “is a paper tiger come tournament time.” I suppose you can try to argue that both ways: they were four one-goal losses in that bracket; but they were all losses; but Fairfield and Trinity Catholic are alive in DII; but Staples washed out in one game in DIII. You do (OK, I do) wonder if the huge and insular FCIAC hurts both the big teams (play a few more against the big boys, be better prepared for March?) and the small fry (St. Joseph went 5-1 against Div. III competition and 0-13-1 against everyone else, missing the DIII playoffs by five points). Plus all your usual-suspect reasons for parity (preps and junior, more and improved feeder programs). All that said, I’ll be very interested to see that Amity-Trinity score on Monday night.

That Tri-Town/Ridgefield game is the shocker to me. Tri-Town had some OK wins but nothing to make you sit up; its best game might’ve been an overtime loss to South Windsor (speaking of falling off tables — a shame for them) and as SPB notes in his comments, it had been 0-8 against Division I teams until taking out Avon in the qualifying round. I had taken them off my tracker at 1-6.

And I guess that’s why “that’s why they play the games” is a cliche.

Speaking of: blimey!

Cool stuff from Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze: Manhattan, 1609.

And finally, anybody else read the cartoon Cul de Sac? I forget how I came across it a few months ago, but I’m loving the sense of humor…

(Boy, this got old-school long. Now I remember why I started doing these at the barn…)

Michael Fornabaio