Stay out of the box. Score on the power play. Kill penalties. Simple recipe. Hard to do. Harder when you’re not sure what’s what. Things were kind of all over the place tonight, what was a call, what wasn’t, whether the puck went straight over the glass or off it first (Jack Skille, inside voices!).
Bridgeport went 0-for-7 on the man advantage, including all but eight seconds of the last 4:08. It allowed two power-play goals, helped by errors in lane coverage, Scott Pellerin said. Toss in a second period that went nowhere, and actually a last two period where not much happened that wasn’t in transition, and it was a recipe for something else.
“In any game, you’re looking for consistency. It’s never easy,” Pellerin said. “You’re just trying to understand the flow of the game so you can correct your players.
“We have to kill penalties. We have to do a better job on the power play.”
Whenever those opportunities presented themselves. The first five minutes or so were a combination of a lot of them. Tim Miller flung Jon Sim into the endboards; Miller got two, though it’s a safe bet Bridgeport was hoping for five (Sim went to the room in apparent discomfort, but he was back before play resumed and got the second shift.) Miller comes back, comes together with Mike Dalhuisen, gets a yank around the shoulders from Brett Gallant, and Bridgeport’s down a man. Bridgeport goes out on a three-on-two short-handed… and Scott Mayfield gets called for a slash behind the play.
Five-on-three. Moved it around. Goal.
A couple of goals got them back into it, but special teams and that second period put them in a deep hole. There were good moments, and a good first period, but not enough.
“It comes down to their decision, how they want to play, practice, their preparation,” Pellerin said. “Some guys have to make that decision every single day or there’s going to be changes.”
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(Sorry for the old-school after-the-drive blogging. WorkCompy was nonresponsive.)
Dalhuisen took a hard fall at the end of his fight with Cody Bass, going down head-first. No immediate update.
First AHL goal for Dallas Jackson in Game 37.
Fine AHL debut for Mike Cornell, with an assist, possibly another (Jackson said Cornell’s pass led him ahead), and a fight, along with a pretty solid evening in both ends. Kept things simple. “He and Keenan are almost clones,” Pellerin said. “They make good plays. They’re team guys.” And they’ve got an edge.
Speaking of former northeast Catholic prep-school stars, Edmonton sent Mark Arcobello to Oklahoma City for what hopes is a temporary lineup necessity. Hope.
Enjoyed the Gallant-Langkow-Wiles line. They worked hard, forechecked hard — pretty sure Marchessault heard Gallant’s footsteps, which let Gallant take the puck and set up Langkow in the first period for yet another big Jeremy Smith save — did their job in semi-limited time, though Wiles played some on the power play and Langkow killed penalties. “(The PTOs) bring that speed, that intensity, that compete level, being hard to play against,” Pellerin said. “They had a couple of opportunities early.”
Riley Wetmore picked up some extra time later on, getting onto the second line and the second power-play unit; he replaced, respectively, Kirill Kabanov and Wiles on those trios.
I’m not positive if it went off the (blanking) glass or not, but when the silly automatic rules get messed up, it feels even worse, no?
Prescout. The Pack went in 0-3-0-1 in the previous four. More then.