Fighting together

Well, if you’re gonna give ’em free admission, you might as well make it a game that’ll make ’em wanna come back.

Crazy fun, the mayhem and violence. (Though I heard some disheartening stories about what went on behind, and spilling into, the visitors penalty box. Hope that doesn’t happen again.)

Bridgeport stuck together all week. It stuck together tonight. “It was evident here tonight in how well we played as a team,” Scott Pellerin said.

And when they were given chances on the power play, they generated scoring chances. Travis Hamonic hit two posts. And they scored three times.

“Your power play’s got to win you games in this league,” Casey Cizikas said. “We did a good job moving the puck around. We got chances, lots of chances. … We were confident out there. We’re starting to make some plays.”

Perfect five-on-three play results in a Cizikas goal. “It was a great look by Mac (Colin McDonald),” Cizikas said. “He held on a second longer. … Great pass to me. I’ve got to bury those when I get them.”

You could maybe argue there’s some bad luck in there for Hershey. That five-on-three came from one of those slashing penalties, with the stick knocked out of Hamonic’s hands. They get the Cizikas goal, and then they get a quick regroup (I questioned on Twitter whether it was onside, but a replay shows it was, that the bump I saw off the line happened after they’d tagged up), and Nelson gets behind the net to center to a streaking Brandon DeFazio, and Bridgeport grabbed a lead with under 15 seconds left. “Faz was in the right spot at the right time,” Nelson said. “He made a great play getting in there.”

After all the mayhem, Tomas Kundratek continued it by following a driving Matt Watkins to the net and tossing Watkins into Braden Holtby. Nelson goes to the net to score his own PPG and break the tie for good.

….

Scott Pellerin didn’t have an update on David Ullstrom (lower body), wanted to talk to the training staff.

Ice took a beating during the week with a short power outage, was covered Friday for basketball, took two morning skates and a Wilkes-Barre/Scranton practice today before a college game, then an AHL game.

For argument’s sake, in team history, attendance at 12 weekend dates on the first or second weekend of November averaged 4,024; it was 3,691 over nine non-Hartford games (the three Hartford games, coincidentally, were all announced between 5,007 and 5,049).

From Justin Bourne’s Backhand Shelf blog: Cam Charron posits that Nino Niederreiter was incredibly unlucky last year in the Show.

Delayed prescout. The technical defending champs have tomorrow off but will be here Wednesday morning. (We’ve got to stop doing those the day after election day.)

Former Yalie Mike Matczak goes up to Manchester from Kalamazoo.

And finally, how I got Scott Pellerin’s pregame speech, typing on the fly, missing a smidgen late:

“On behalf of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers players and staff, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers front office, the New York Islanders organization and Webster Bank Arena, I want to welcome all of you to our home. We’re so pleased you were able to come here tonight, to watch this American Hockey League game between the Hershey Bears and your Bridgeport Sound Tigers. It gives all of us an opportunity to step away, reflect and deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

“The efforts, strength and perseverance this community has shown dealing with the hurricane have been an inspiration to our team. We hope you will enjoy this games here this weekend, stay warm, get something to eat and drink, charge your phone, cheer, but more important, spend time with your neighbors, your friends and family while you watch some exciting hockey.

“I’d like to thank all Webster Bank Arena staff, Bridgeport Sound Tigers president Howard Saffan and his front office staff, and all media outlets for their effort the last few days making this event, tonight and tomorrow afternoon. … This is our way to show we are all thinking of you throughout this time. Thank you all for coming and enjoy the game.”

Michael Fornabaio