The nice thing about
wait it’s what time?*
blogging after the drive home is you may remember bits you’d forgotten, like how Bridgeport kept dunno-how-many pucks in the zone in the first period but, something like dunno-how-many-minus-one times, they didn’t make Philipp Grubauer make a big save. Or even a save.
They’ve picked up the defense somewhat. And now the offense is somewhere behind.
At least three breakaways tonight denied, with a rebound hitting the post. The power play, trading chances with the Bears, goes 0-for-4.
It is, as everyone I talked to tonight said, a matter of inches. An inch. Kenny Reiter held up two fingers to illustrate. Scott Pellerin said it’s the size of a piece of bubble gum.
“My message in the locker room before the game was dealing with adversity,” Pellerin said, “finding ways to use the adversity in a positive way. … Tonight, they did everything I could have asked them to. They played for one another. They worked hard. The belief in one another showed.”
They shut the Bears out for 62 minutes and change. Then Jon Landry’s stick broke on a shot, the Bears broke out, Landry went to the bench, Ty Wishart came on, Garrett Mitchell fought off both Aaron Ness and Wishart to the left corner, both defenders went to him, Mitchell put it behind the net to Jeff Taffe, Ness was picked off by the net, Nelson had backed off a bit (seeing that both defensemen were there, perhaps; it was basically two-on-three down low for a moment), Taffe fired it back to Mitchell, Mitchell one-timed it before Wishart could do anything about it.
Kenny Reiter certainly couldn’t have. The other benefit to writing post-travel is that the gamer’s up. It contains a couple of ridiculous Kenny Reiter stats. The team’s been better defensively and all; Rick DiPietro’s numbers aren’t so far off in his past four starts. But DiPietro has three wins.
….
And so, six points back with 16 to play and a whole lot of teams in the way.
Was saving this tidbit for a possible shootout: Reiter has two professional shutouts. They came, obviously, for Fort Wayne this season. Oct. 19 at Kalamazoo, 25 saves. Jan. 16 at Evansville, 36. There’s a kicker, you’ll guess. The Evansville shutout was a 1-0 win. The Kalamazoo shutout? A shootout loss.
So finally there’s an addition to Bridgeport’s scoreless-in-regulation list after seven years. March 6, 2004, vs. Hartford, 0-0 (Dubielewicz 26/Valiquette 32 in his first game back in Bridgeport, though Greg Cronin insisted an Eric Manlow shot went in under the crossbar midway through the third); April 10, 2004, vs. Philadelphia, 0-0 (Dubielewicz 28/Neil Little 26, the tie that clinched the East Division for Philly); March 20, 2005, at Albany, 1-0 loss (Ahren Nittel 4:01 OT on a power play after a dicey Chris Campoli trip); Jan. 29, 2006, vs. Syracuse, 1-0 loss (on a five-on-four in overtime, Mark Hartigan). And now tonight. At least there weren’t any power plays.
Pellerin said he again had no word on any transactions to come. By a very quick and unscientific count, I had Huxley and Hill for three and five shifts, respectively; all up front for Hill. Kabanov mixed in somewhat more. Junior seasons begin to end this weekend (college seasons, obviously, some even earlier), but I’ve got no specific intel on anybody.
Edit: 10,825 is the fifth-largest road crowd at a Sound Tigers game (fourth regular-season; first is the Wolves’ Cup-clincher) and the seventh-largest ever for a BST game anywhere.
Colin McDonald issues his thanks.
Prescout. This one didn’t go so well for Scott Wedgewood and the Devils.
And a horrible story from out in Pennsylvania: Seton Hill (Greensburg, Pa.) University’s women’s lacrosse team’s bus crashed Saturday morning, killing the driver, Joseph M. Guaetta; coach Kristie Quigley and her unborn son. RIP.
*-Really, remember when I used to do this all the time? Drive home from Portland, hepped up on coffee, do the blog entry**, go to bed around 6? Was younger and pre-concussion then, I guess. See you in like an hour and a half.
**-Just to call it out, you see the interesting name for Portland, right? One of his two AHL games before… Right. OK.