Bonuses: Albany liveblog

FUN FACT: Saturday’s was the Sound Tigers first shootout loss to the Hershey Bears. No, I mean, like, ever. This is the 10th consecutive season with the bonus round; Saturday was Bridgeport’s 65th regular-season game against Hershey and the 17th that went to overtime. They tied three of them (remember ties? I miss ties); Bridgeport won five of them with the clock running in OT against three Bears overtime wins, and the Sound Tigers had won five shootouts.

What almost makes this relevant: Today is the 65th game Bridgeport has played against the Lowell Lock Monsters/Lowell Devils/Albany Devils franchise. (The League doesn’t count the Lock Monsters as part of “this” franchise, but bear with me.) This is the only other team against which the Sound Tigers have played a substantial number of games — next up is Syracuse, 15 — without ever losing in the silly tiebreaker.

You can, however, take it hilariously further. Bridgeport has never lost beyond regulation to that LLM/LD/AD franchise. The Sound Tigers went 6-0-1 against Lowell’s teams beyond regulation with the clock running, plus 4-0 in the shootout; one Albany Devils-Sound Tigers game has gone OT, and Bridgeport won it in a shootout.

So, chasing (or staving off) history, today in the Capital District.

We’ll be listening to Josh Heller on AHL Live and following Corey, Pete Dougherty, the Diablos and whoever else we hit upon there. The box will be here; Hersey/Terry Koharski in charge.

Told that Brett Gallant and the other injured did not make the trip, which leaves 12 and 7 and 2 to choose from.

A happy Veterans Day/Remembrance Day, with thanks and thoughts for the many who’ve preserved peace and helped build this crazy Internet that’ll let us listen to and chat about a game from Albany on a Monday afternoon.

More closer to faceoff, 2 p.m.

–Anders Nilsson for Bridgeport. Meanwhile, neat look at Parker Milner’s mask.

–From up there:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Lee-Strome-Halmo
Sim (A)-Sundstrom (A)-Wetmore
Larson-Quine-Miller
Diamond-Clark-Johnson
D: de Haan (A)-Dalhuisen
Keenan-Mayfield
Pedan-Jackson
G: Nilsson
Reiter

ALBANY
F: Olesz-Sestito (C)-Whitney
Boucher-K.Zajac-Sislo
Pesonen-Pelley-Matteau
Boychuk-McKelvie-Hoeffel
D: McPherson-Kelly
Hrabarenka-Scarlett
Burlon-Helgeson
G: Kinkaid
Wedgewood

R: Hersey, T.Koharski. L: F.Murphy, Trempe.

Dalhuisen’s AHL debut for Cantin.

–Bridgeport may’ve had the puck deep more in the first 30 seconds today than it did in 30 minutes yesterday. (That’s an exaggeration. Not sure how much.)

–Joe Whitney gives the Devils a 1-0 lead on a three-on-two seven minutes in, 1-0 Albany.

–Shooting gallery on Nilsson after Bridgeport can’t get it clear. Pelley finally puts it in through traffic from the high slot. 2-0 Albany.

–Third game in three days; third time the Sound Tigers trail 2-0. Got them right where they want them.

–Perhaps not. Quick rush, Hrabarenka to McKelvie in front, tip-in for a 3-0 lead at 11:18. Time out, Bridgeport.

–Pedan gets one back, slipping one through a maze in front to make it 3-1 Albany with about three minutes left.

–Sim pokes one away from a defender, gives to Wetmore who puts it to the right to Sundstrom, and it’s 3-2 about a minute later.

–A bit of a Nick Larson diving penalty will carry over to the second period.

–Darn, just catching up on Twitter and reading about Steven Stamkos’ apparent nasty leg injury… and now just caught video on NESN. Darn. Hope he’s OK.

–The Sound Tigers had seemed to settle down a bit to start the second, but then a couple of Devils beat their guy, Matteau tries a wraparound, it went through to an open Dan Kelly at the other post, and it’s 4-2. (In other news, given Twitter, my broadcast feed is about a minute behind.) Shots, a little bit later, are 18-9 Devils, which makes it 5-0 Devils.

–McKelvie hits the post from the neutral zone. Huh.

–Strange bounce off a stanchion behind Nilsson — no harm, but for crying out loud. (Have we seen that crazy bounce from near the Zamboni door at AHY this year? We’ve seen other crazy bounces, but… Remember the one at the home runway? I don’t know what corner of my memory that came from; we haven’t seen that one in a long time. I’ll never forget Nathan Dempsey finding that one before Game 1 of the St. John’s series in 2002 and shouting to his teammates like a little kid about it. Awesome…)

–Bridgeport gets its first power play with 2:43 left in the second.

–Intermission fun: Mental Floss on unused nicknames that Washington’s NFL team can use. I like the Minot Why Nots. That’s one they can slip right into their fight song.

–Boucher makes it 5-2 early in the third. Pesonen flung it toward the net out of the left corner and it bounced to the slot.

–Mike Hoeffel takes down Dalhuisen early in the latter’s first AHL fight.

–Reports now that Stamkos has a broken tibia, which was sadly the logical guess from the video. Darn. By the way, we’ve seen plenty of evidence of his toughness, but him trying to get up on that was just another example.

–A Hoeffel interference minor, if nothing else, gets Bridgeport a second power play with 5:17 to go.

Albany 5, Bridgeport 2, final, snapping the Sound Tigers’ four-game non-real-losing streak.

–First star: Kelly. Second star: Pelley. Is there a Telly or a Nellie we can toss in there? (Norfolk didn’t have Trevor Smith, Rod Pelley and Devante Smith-Pelly all at once, right? I think we lamented that at one point. No, definitely not, mixing organizations there.)

–I wondered if, taking those mistakes out of the mix, it wasn’t a terrible afternoon. Scott Pellerin: Nuh-uh. “Tell you right now, you take those things out, it’s absolutely no difference,” he said. “We got outworked. We got outbattled. We got outcompeted.” He credited Justin Johnson, who was working hard, getting the puck to the net, being vocal, doing his job. “I can’t say that for anybody else.”

Three-in-three, rested opponent: “No excuses. No excuses.” Too many mistakes in the system led to odd-man rushes. Turnovers hurt. They settled down after the time out, talked about what they were doing wrong at intermission, then gave up another goal on the rush early in the second.

Just a clinker, from how it sounds.

Cantin was suffering some lingering effects from one of those myriad blocked shots last night, Pellerin said, which is why he was out.

So the first three-in-three ends 1-1-1. Back to work during the week.

Michael Fornabaio