(Team) at Bridgeport (repeat)

Someone joked that I should just cut and paste last night’s story as tonight’s gamer. It comes kind of close in some ways, not taken off the hook by Johan Sundstrom’s first goal since his teammates included Travis Hamonic and Colin McDonald*.

They needed more (Sundstrom kind of summed it up nicely, so I’ll plug the gamer; give it a read when it shows up, hopefully in print on your doorstep). They didn’t get it.

They held the Falcons to one in the last 40 minutes, a once- and maybe twice-deflected Tim Erixon goal in the second, and the credit for settling things in for Bridgeport seemed to be directed toward a Halmo-Wetmore-Bruton shift about five minutes into the second. The Sound Tigers had had some possession working, but then Halmo won a battle with Erixon, carried behind the net, ignored some people calling for the puck, kept working, got a good shot off, kept it deep a bit.

“I think we’re all alike,” Halmo said. There’s “physical presence, cycling it down low, we’re the same type of player. We know where we are. We know what our role is.”

They did some inspiring, and we’ll see if it takes hold. With this wacky schedule, they have a week to work on it.

….

The goal broke a 145:04 scoreless streak. The power-play drought stands at 0-for-18, elapsed time 32:04. And since I was asked on Twitter: No, there’s a ways to go. An 0-for-25 doesn’t get you into the franchise’s top-10 longest power-play streaks.

The lines started out different and then kept getting more different. In the second, it was mostly because Justin Johnson didn’t play, so the 11 forwards mixed (there was some consistency, mostly Lee-Strome-Quine until after the fifth power play, when Bruton got a shift there). In the third, it was just a lot of different things. One interesting one that seemed to stick, united for the final power play and kept together for their last few even-strength shifts: Lee-Sundstrom-Strome.

“They showed some energy, especially on the power play,” Pellerin said. “They had some good chances.”

Sundstrom seemed to enjoy it. Pellerin said he’ll look over video before determining which way to go from here.

A goal for Sundstrom (nice move by Wetmore amid three power-play defenders to find him alone, too). In all, he went 26 games without one: Three after the last one, which knocked around the front of the net in Providence and went in off him Jan. 11; then the injury; then 20 more after the injury; then the first three this year. It’s a relief, Sundstrom said. “Something I can work off,” he said.

He’ll carry it back to the rink Tuesday, because they’re off Monday. More Tuesday, then, unless warranted.

*-That was “Last Hurrah” No. 2 of 3.

Michael Fornabaio