Portland liveblog: Breaking out

After his four-point game Sunday, Colin McDonald noted that he hadn’t scored a goal in a while: 11 games, since the Norfolk game in the morning. It kind of surprisingly goes deeper. A few games ago, when he and his linemates had gone a couple of games without scoring, I’d wondered what kinds of droughts, if any, he’d had last year.

After Game 22 of this season, his 20th, McDonald had two goals. And in the last 29 games of last season, since Jan. 25? McDonald had two goals. (Both were against Bridgeport, as it happened, as someone pointed out to me.) So that’s a 40-goal-scorer two years ago with four goals in 49 games.

Well, now it’s six in 50. Maybe this breaks him out a little. (And not that he wasn’t doing other things along the way, here or with the Penguins.)

(Another stat that slipped my mind until it came up today: Bridgeport now has two captains of eight who were born in New Haven. Not a bad percentage.)

David Ullstrom skated without contact this morning, Jamie reports. Apparently Chad Johnson is ready to go for the Pirates.

We’ll listen to Jeff Mannix (we got him here last year) and follow Jamie, Chris Roy, Paul Betit and the Pirates’ official, among others.

The box will be here. Refs: Jon McIsaac and Geoff Miller. This’ll be three out of the past four Bridgeport games for Miller; he and McIsaac worked the game last Wednesday in Hartford.

Phil’s not in Portland, but are you reading his blog? Should be.

A good overview piece in Grantland, pegged to Donald Fehr but touching on a few of the salient points as we, heaven willing, get to the endgame in this mess.

RIP, Danbury football coach Rick Davis. Much less-sad are the departures of local coaches Pete Stokes and three-time state champion

A nice Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class.

That’s a longish blog post before we even get to warmup. Sorry. More in a bit.

–It’s Anders Nilsson, tweets Jamie, for the fifth game in a row.

Indications are Bridgeport looks like it did to start the other day. Forwards, at least, as Jamie tweeted. (Jeff’s on the air, BTW.)

BRIDGEPORT
F: Niederreiter-Nelson-McDonald (C)
Persson-Sundstrom-MacKay
Backman-Cizikas (A)-Riley
Gallant-Watkins (A)-Halmo
D: Donovan-Wishart
Cantin-Landry
Ness-McIver
(Hill-scratch)
G: Nilsson
Poulin

–Things are on in Portland, and Chad Johnson starts out with a big save on Max MacKay in the slot.

–The Sound Tigers have controlled things, from all indications; Johnson has saves off MacKay, Niederreiter, Nelson and Cizikas that have gotten a rise out of Jeff’s voice. Getting late in the first.

Jeff quickly runs down the PORTLAND lineup:
F: Conner-Miele (A)-Hextall
Werek-Bolduc (C)-Brown
Dziurzynski-Shinnimin-Klinkhammer
Lane-Szwarz-Rechlicz
D: Ekman-Larsson (A) – Goncharov
Summers-Rundblad
Gormley-Louis
G: Johnson
Visentin

R: McIsaac, Miller. L: J. Andrews, Bathe.

Don’t know why I stuck the initial on Joe Andrews. Just in case, maybe, you think Dave has decided to give the lines a whirl.

A couple of fights — Lane-Cantin after a couple of Lane hits, and Riley-Louis off the draw — maybe spark the Pirates a little; Nilsson has to make saves on Miele cutting down the slot and Brown coming off the boards. But it’s scoreless after one.

–The Pirates have a few good chances in the first eight minutes or so of the second period, but Nilsson makes stops. Bridgeport’s third power play early in the period sounded like a good one, but Johnson kept the puck out. Remains scoreless.

–Bridgeport killed a penalty late in the second, and it remains scoreless after two. Looks like shots are 18-11 Bridgeport after two, 8-5 in the period.

–First time this season that a Bridgeport game is scoreless through two. There was no score after two in Game 1 of last year’s playoffs; it’s the first time in the regular sason since Nov. 26, 2011, at Manchester (the Monarchs went on to win 2-1 in a shootout).

–After a Backman hooking penalty, Alexandre Bolduc scores on a power-play rebound 5:34 into the third. 1-0 Pirates.

–Bridgeport comes right back on its own power play, with Niederreiter scoring on a rebound at 8:01 after Gormley took down Backman.

–And 61 seconds later, Backman gets taken down by Ekman-Larsson.

–No sooner does that penalty end than, it sounds like, Backman draws another. He giveth, he taketh away threefold. Bridgeport’s sixth power play and third in just over three minutes.

–Cantin called for a hook with 34 seconds to go in his own end. A Pirates shot hits the post with about five seconds to go. Bridgeport goes to overtime for the third time this year.

–Bridgeport gets through it, but it’ll go back on the penalty kill. Nelson got a stick up on Conner.

–David Rundblad scores late on the power play. Portland 2, Bridgeport 1 (OT), in a game where it sounded like Bridgeport deserved better through two but couldn’t get over the top in the third.

–“The intensity on the forecheck, the puck support, the overall game, I was very happy with the way we competed,” Scott Pellerin said. They just didn’t score early. The penalties came, they got one, the Pirates got two, and there it was. Given the three power plays in a row that Bridgeport had received, Pellerin said he could feel a call coming against Bridgeport, and indeed it came. (And then came another.) He said Nilsson was good; thought he was jostled a little on the initial shot on the Bolduc goal, then was screened as Rundblad walked it across and waited for traffic.

The team’s not skating tomorrow (the routine 12-hour bus ride will have a lot to do with it), and they’ll see how David Ullstrom does Thursday. Pellerin said Eric Boguniecki and Doug Holewa worked him hard this morning.

Michael Fornabaio