I guess this didn’t make it to the Web today. It looked something like this:
HARTFORD — Inches away from keeping their playoff hopes alive, if only for a few minutes, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers had luck turn around on them Saturday. They have just one game remaining this season after a 5-2 loss to the Hartford Wolf Pack.
Darien’s Hugh Jessiman scored the game-winner at the XL Center. The loss eliminated the Sound Tigers and clinched the final East Division playoff spot for Hershey.
For the second year in a row, and for the third time in four years, the Sound Tigers have missed the playoffs.
“It’s disappointing, for sure,” said fourth-year Sound Tiger Steve Regier. “You want to make the playoffs. To be here, to make it my second year here, then last year be so close, and this year, taking it to the wire, it’s disheartening, to say the least.
“The guys worked hard. It’s just hockey.”
Even if Hartford hadn’t won, Hershey’s Jason Morgan would have broken Bridgeport’s hearts again, this time from 300 miles away. Morgan scored the go-ahead goal as Hershey came back from an early 2-0 deficit to beat Philadelphia 5-2 at Hershey, Pa.
The Bears led Bridgeport by four points coming into the night, and both teams had two games remaining.
The Sound Tigers kept coming, though, and with the score tied 2-2, they just missed taking a lead early in the third; it would have come from the man who had six points in the previous two games. Trevor Smith took a pass from Kyle Okposo in the slot and laced a shot off goalie David LeNeveu’s glove and off the post.
Hartford came the other way, and Jessiman scored 13 seconds later.
Joey MacDonald — who stopped Lauri Korpikoski on a second-period penalty shot — made five acrobatic saves on a penalty kill to keep it 3-2. But Mitch Fritz scored his first goal in 107 games on a two-on-one with 9:16 to play. Korpikoski sealed it into an empty net.
At 9:14 p.m., the Sound Tigers were mathematically out.
“The reason we didn’t make the playoffs wasn’t (Saturday),” Regier said. “Earlier, a couple of months ago, we had a little bit of a slide going. You can’t really blame it on the last two games.”
It was an odd season. The team couldn’t hold a lead early in the season and plummeted to last place in the league by mid-December. It rebounded and was in fourth place briefly before dropping back again, failing to hold several early leads.
“To see where we were on Dec. 15, at the bottom of the AHL,” sniper Jeff Tambellini said, “the fact we clawed back, with a short roster all year, it’s a credit to these guys.”
A week ago Saturday, the Sound Tigers had a chance to cut Hershey’s lead to one point. But Morgan scored the tying goal on the way to a third-period hat trick, and Hershey won 6-3 at home to take a five-point lead.
“You can always look back and say ‘a game here,’ ‘a game here,'” coach Jack Capuano said. “We’re (eliminated) with one game to go. If you’d looked at the beginning of the season, if we had 40, 40-plus wins, you’d have thought it’d be good enough to get in.”
The Bears will face division champion Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the playoffs. The Phantoms, who rested no fewer than four key players, will face Albany.
Hartford grabbed an early 2-0 lead, keeping Bridgeport on its heels.
Tim Jackman put home a rebound with 13.7 seconds to go in the first period, cutting the lead in half. He tied it from the left circle 9:42 into the second.
The teams meet again today in Bridgeport to close the regular season.