Tough place to play sometimes, I said to Kevin Poulin. He kinda shrugged. (Maybe he was already composing this tweet.) They handled the Whale easily, scored early again. Still, some moments early where it looked as if, with half a step more, the Whale might have jumped on top, or tied it up, or made a game of it somehow.
“Obviously we have a history against those guys,” Poulin said. “It’s always fun to come here and play against them — to play against them, period.”
He looked like it the past couple of days. Scott Pellerin pointed out that Poulin handled the puck pretty well, which sounds curious considering the first-period pass off I think Aaron Ness that caromed to Kelsey Tessier, who hit the post on the open net from about 75 feet. (Would’ve been a three-on-five goal.) But he did.
“I felt great after (Wednesday’s) game,” Poulin said. “We went right back at it, playing the same team. I had confidence tonight.”
Hartford came at them, had chances early. “They really put pressure in the neutral zone, a couple of changes structurally,” Pellerin said. “We made the adjustments. They created a lot of turnovers on us.” But Poulin kept them out; teammates cleared rebounds.
The shutout was Poulin’s first since Jan. 7 at Portland, part of his team-record shutout streak of almost 222 minutes.
He knew it.
….
Pellerin on Marc Cantin, who left the game after a hit from Dylan McIlrath (elbowing minor): “He got hit pretty hard. We wanted to be cautious and make sure he’s OK.” See how they all look tomorrow. Brett Gallant fought McIlrath coming out of the box; he remained on the bench, but he was banged up a little after the fight and didn’t play again, though it sounded as if he could’ve if he had to. Made for a shortened bench at both ends, but the PTO guys all stepped in and did their jobs.
Speaking of, first AHL goal for Chad Costello. He gave all the credit to Matt Watkins’ pass. But he still beat Steven Delisle to get it.
Bridgeport’s third shutout in Hartford: March 19, 2004 (Wade Dubielewicz, 33 saves); Feb. 18, 2009, the Sean Avery game (Nathan Lawson, 23). Both were 1-0 games.
Steve Oleksy with his first Hershey goal tonight. Edit: Four assists for Milford’s/Fairfield Prep’s/Yale’s/the world’s Mark Arcobello tonight, helping Taylor Hall to a hat trick. Jordan Eberle has 20 goals. He and Justin Schultz have about seven million points.
Portland-Providence postponed. Preponderance of precipitation.
(Hope I don’t find that outside.)
And RIP, Fontella Bass and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.