It's Gonna Take a Miracle

Wait, no, it’s not, even on Faith Night.

Know what it was going to take? Stuff like the first few shifts tonight. Bentivoglio and Haskins came out hitting, and Nikiforov was getting in there, too. Marcinko was a whirling dervish. Fritz went to the net a few times and drew a penalty once. Morency drew a penalty being, well, Pascal.

It established something, even if that only was “this isn’t Friday night at Hartford again.” And with all the penalty fun, it made for probably the most entertaining scoreless 20 minutes you can find.

Nikiforov scores a pretty one for his first up here (“I was saying, ‘Niki, a little toe-pull would be nice right here,'” Jack Hillen said. “If he did it, it was gonna be sick.”), but there’s work at the foundation of the whole thing, Bentivoglio going to the net, Haskins and Hillen in the neutral zone, Lee supporting it, Nikiforov to take the thing back and read where to walk it.

The winner’s another one, Haskins winning a one-on-two along the wall, Colliton going to the net, Walter making sure to get it off even though one black jersey slides in front of him and two more are converging.

And Nathan Lawson is, you know, Nathan Lawson. He finally has the minutes to pop up on the AHL’s list of top goalies; his 1.86 GAA and .933 save percentage are both second to Cory Schneider’s (1.73, .935).

Bridgeport’s four-game home losing streak against Portland and its six-game winless streak overall against the Bucs came to an end. A nutty end, but an end.

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Bridgeport’s opponents are 3-for-15 all-time on penalty shots. They started 0-for-8, then went 3-for-4 (Keith Aucoin scored two of them), and are since 0-for-3. Bridgeport, meanwhile, is 4-for-11 all-time but 0-for-the-last-5.

And if you suffered through the whole, long post on the Brady Boudreau link Monday, you might remember that this isn’t the first time there have been two penalty shots in the same period in a Sound Tigers game. First time there’s been one for each team, but the second time for two in a period.

This was the 20th-ever crowd announced over 7,000 in this building. It’s one of seven of those 20 that wasn’t against Hartford. And those fans got two penalty shots in six minutes, they got a delay-of-game penalty for a guy knocking the net off to prevent an open-net shot, and they got a game-winner with 14.4 seconds left. Yeah, don’t you dare ask for your money back on this one.

Portland’s power-play goal snapped a season-long 17-for-17 streak for the Sound Tigers’ penalty kill.

Len DiCostanzo is 4-1 as a backup, with wins in the past four.

Haley and Lessard appear likely to skate in the upcoming week. When they’ll play again is a different question, but skating is a start.

Kevin Dineen mixed in a few other centermen with Mancari and Darche in the second and very early in the third; a lot of Whitmore, with a bit of Kennedy, maybe I missed one, before going back to Zagrapan.

Penguins won; Bingo won; Philly lost. I’m slackin’ on the links tonight.

Dave Andrews in the house tonight. Thankfully; it’d have been a lonely end of the press box, otherwise.

Yann Danis with 37 saves tonight.

Given the story at the end of this Tris Wykes post, I’m never going back to Scope. In fact, I may never go back to Norfolk.

Fun with the new president from Richard’s Poor Almanack.

And RIP, Ingemar Johansson.

Michael Fornabaio