The first road game happens to be a little farther away than we go nowadays, so we’ll be listening in and dropping comments here occasionally.
The links off the Crunch website imply we can hear Dan D’Uva at this link (Edit: seems not: try here, headphones next to Bridgeport). We’ll be following Corey, Lindsay Kramer and Dan on Twitter.
The box will be here. Unless Chris Bruton has progressed more quickly than expected, Bridgeport has one forward to scratch, and from the week’s indications, it’s from a pool of Brett Gallant, Jason Clark, Alan Quine and Justin Johnson.
Meanwhile, Larry Brooks first reports that Rick DiPietro has signed a PTO with Charlotte. The Checkers are in the midwest right now, at Rockford this afternoon and at Chicago tomorrow, carrying a PTO tandem of John Muse and Allen York with Carolina’s injury problems in net.
And have been reminiscing all day about Marcia Wallace, our Edna and Carol. (Watch the “ha!” montage.) RIP.
More as gametime approaches.
–I’m guessing — assuming I’m not forgetting some exhibition game — that tomorrow would be Rick DiPietro’s first sporting return to Rosemont Horizon since Game 5, 2002. It has been a long 11 years since then.
–Right now that radio station is playing nothing but commercials. We’ll correct if necessary.
–Changeup: Corey says Nick Larson is the scratch. Should be Nilsson vs. Kristers Gudlevskis (AHL debut).
–Lines, from Corey:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Lee-Strome-Sundstrom (A)
Persson-Wetmore-Halmo
Diamond-Miller-Quine
Gallant-Clark-Johnson
D: de Haan (A)-Cantin
Ness (A)-Mayfield
Pedan-Jackson
G: Nilsson
Reiter
R: C. Brown. L: DeMizio, Oliver.
–ESPN failing, but Phil writes in to let me know it’s available on AHL Live with the headphones next to the Sound Tigers.
–Trade of early power plays; sounds like de Haan had a good chance late in Bridgeport’s try, and the Sound Tigers also hit a post soon after.
–Big Nilsson save on a Kucherov breakaway.
–I’ve lost audio four times in the first 11 minutes. Curious if anyone else is having trouble. (Well, kind of.) Bridgeport to its second PP on a Cote hold.
And now a long five-on-three coming for Bridgeport on one of those annoying delay-of-game minors.
–A good kill for the Crunch, but Bridgeport goes back to the power play.
–That ESPN audio is up now, and sounds better than AHL Live, so we’ll suffer through this power play again; it’s a little behind the AHL Live version. Oh well.
–Joey Diamond chatting with Joey Mormina. Please, someone, have a picture of that.
–Sounds like Bridgeport had as many shots as Syracuse on those three minors.
–Dan mentions that Bridgeport had the first three shots of the period, Syracuse had the next seven and Bridgeport had the last couple. That kind of matches the last game and one or two others: A decent-to-good start, a stretch where they were on their heels, and a good finish. This whole comparison is ruined by the fact that Syracuse got the last shot here to make it 8-5 after one, but oh well. No score.
–Neat story from the intermission interview. Utica had a 1-0 lead after three rounds of the shootout last night. D’Uva asks Tanner Richard if he noticed Utica goalie Joacim Eriksson celebrated after stopping Geoff Walker, the third shooter, apparently thinking it was an NHL-style three-round shootout. Richard chuckles and says he has to be honest: He thought it was over, too. Funny. But he scored in the fourth round and kept it going.
–Gudlevskis comes up big on a scramble to start the second; Cote puts one under Nilsson the other way after Dana Tyrell wins a dump-in to negate an icing. 1-0 Syracuse 49 seconds into the period.
–At 2:31, what sounds like a good Syracuse shift ends with Vladimir Namestnikov’s fourth goal. Gallant and Eric Neilson go about 30 seconds later, and it sounds like a great one.
–Well, the box says the goal and the fight were 30 seconds apart. The tweets and the call sounded like it was right off the draw. I kind of trust the tweets and the call. Plus, I thought I heard Dan say the five-on-three was 1:43; the box would indicate it was 1:33. Seen this before. Anyway.
–Syracuse’s fourth power play (Persson, for kneeing Neilson) produces off the draw, a Matt Taormina goal. It’s 3-0 with about five minutes left in the second.
–Shots are something like 15-4 in Syracuse’s favor in the second. Second periods had been pretty good for Bridgeport overall through the first five. Not so tonight.
—Edit: Coming into tonight, Bridgeport had outscored opponents 6-4 in the second period but was outscored 16-6 otherwise.
–Rankin on a breakaway makes it 4-0 soon after; Bridgeport kills a power play, gets one of its own, then gives up SHG No. 5 to Paquette with just seconds left in the period. 5-0 Crunch. Shots 22-9 in the period. Ugly.
–Sixth time Bridgeport has allowed five goals in a period, the regular-season record. They allowed six to Hershey in the 2009 playoffs, Game 3.
–Kenny Reiter starts the third period. At least the sixth time Bridgeport has changed goalies in back-to-back games (though one of those was the one-second delay-tactic attempt last year against Providence).
–The time on the Namestnikov goal has been changed to 2:51, which means the fight at 3:00 basically was off the draw, so, there we go. Excitement pulses.
—Gallant-Neilson, courtesy of @IslesEnforcers. It’s not bad.
—Syracuse 5, Bridgeport 0, final. Gudlevskis makes 22 saves for a shutout in his AHL debut.
–Scott Pellerin said they were chasing too much in the second, didn’t establish the forecheck like they did in the first, didn’t capitalize on their early chances and then were trying to come from behind. He said they talked about changing goalies late in the second but wanted to try to get to the intermission; two goals later, it was 5-0.
The power play was 0-for-7. “I’m not blaming it on the power play by any means, but we have to execute,” Pellerin said. “Bogy’s doing a really good job working with them, showing them all they have to do. Players we expect to do certain things have not been able to do them. We have to keep showing them, keep teaching them, to develop those players. … At the end of the day, we have to make plays.” Five-on-five isn’t exempted from that, either.
They are back to work Monday. More then unless warranted.