Bridgeport’s video work last night into today included the usual; a look at Syracuse’s power play, sure, and a look at the chances they didn’t capitalize on last night at Albany. But it also included something different.
“We went over all the goals we’ve scored this season,” Scott Pellerin said. “On a loop, we just showed us scoring goals.”
“(The clips showed) driving to the net, getting pucks to the net, traffic to the net, banging in rebounds,” Brock Nelson said. “Things we need to do to score at this level.”
They added seven to the montage Sunday afternoon. Casey Cizikas’ breakaway; Jon Landry’s five-on-three blast through Riku Helenius; Johan Sundstrom’s wide-open rebound after John Persson’s couple of whacks on Nathan McIver’s point shot, deflected by Max MacKay; Colin McDonald’s similar goal on his own tip of Brock Nelson’s point shot; Nelson at the back door for McDonald’s pass; Persson, with an open cage, after Dustin Tokarski got taken out by his own defenseman; McDonald to finish it, the third (in effect, the fourth) power-play goal
They scored first. (They even defied the odds and scored fourth.) They caught a break or two. They were outstanding early on the penalty kill, scored on the power play.
They beat a pretty good team. A pretty good team finishing a three-in-three, but still.
“It still wasn’t our best game,” McDonald said. “I thought special teams won us the game. It’s a starting point.”
…..
McDonald notched the 33rd four-point (or better) game by a Sound Tiger. He’s the sixth to do it with two and two (though Tambellini was at 2-2 before he made it 3-2 with the overtime winner, April 4, 2008).
McDonald on his first goal, on which Brock Nelson was covering for a defenseman at the left point: “I didn’t think he saw me. He swears he saw me in front.” McDonald tipped the shot and buried the rebound, speaking of traffic in front.
The 14th game with seven or more goals for Bridgeport, including one in the 2002 playoffs. First since February’s eight-goal night in the Water Main Game.
Casey Cizikas didn’t play the third period; upper-body injury. I didn’t see it happen, but supposedly it’s different from his earlier upper-body injury. He was unavailable to the media afterward, which was a shame, as he’d have been the man to talk to about the first 10 minutes. Bridgeport killed three penalties, and on those three, he had a short-handed goal and two or three blocked shots. Set the tone. “We knew coming in it was going to be one of those games that’d be really focused on special teams,” Pellerin said. “I wasn’t really too happy to have to do it in the first couple of shifts, at the start of the game, some stick in fractions.” But they were strong on the kill, and the goal started them on their way.
The team is off tomorrow and then buses to Portland, so they’ll vanish from our view for about a week. We’ll liveblog the roadie off the radio and keep up to date as best we can.
MVP Cory Conacher didn’t play a lot of the second and third periods. Despite playing their third game in three days, the Crunch went with three lines for a good bit of the second and third.
Keith Kinkaid got his shutout tonight in Hartford.
And finally, Why can’t we read Swedish? Maybe we can! (Or not.)