“I think we’ve just found our game,” Kenny Reiter said. “How we played last night, we played the same way tonight.”
“We’ve come together,” Chris Langkow said, “and we’re just helping each other out through the process, being positive and just keeping it simple. … It’s a big stepping stone for us.”
It’s a big win, against a team flying high (Friday night aside), in a building that, whether the home team has been good or not, has been a very tough place to play for Bridgeport over the past four seasons.
They found a way tonight, with a bounce-back game from Reiter (“You’re working hard, but sometimes pucks are going in the net on you,” Reiter said. “There are ups and downs. … Hopefully I’m on the up”). They blocked some shots, got in lanes when they needed to and gave Reiter a look when they needed to. They got a call in the first period when Pierre Lambert waved off an apparent Springfield power-play goal for contact with Reiter.
They got a clear from Justin Johnson and an impressive play from Scooter Vaughan, beating Blake Parlett to race ahead and score the tying goal in the first period, just a couple of shifts after Springfield took the lead. And they got a solid winning goal, too. Dallas Jackson pinched to keep it alive. Riley Wetmore shot from the right faceoff dot. Langkow won the battle in front and, bam, Bridgeport had a lead.
And it held on tight.
“Even yesterday, coming back and working in the third period, outplaying them,” Langkow said. “That’s our identity.”
…..
Bridgeport won road games on back-to-back days on Jan. 27-28, 2012, at Adirondack and (in a shootout) at Syracuse. Since then, the Sound Tigers have played road games on back-to-back nights 13 times; this is the first time they’ve won both. (Odd number, but heck, I looked it up.) This is their second road winning streak of the season (early December at Adirondack and Utica, two days apart).
So are the goals just gonna pour out for Langkow now? Two in three games. “Sometimes it’s more a mind game,” he said with a grin.
Brett Gallant was out with an upper-body injury, but it sounds as if he’s possible to return tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, there’s a Fairfield basketball game at noon at the arena, hence the 5 p.m. start. Hopefully. If you remember, after the UConn women’s game, they were only starting to flood at 5 p.m. after a noon basketball start. In their favor: They expect more people to help out, they’ll have less on the floor to remove than they did for UConn, and they’ll leave a chunk of the boards and the glass up on the ends. Still, it’s a heck of a quick turnaround.
Speaking of tomorrow, Prescout. Five fights and a lead surrendered.
Kael Mouillerat had a decent night down the road from here tonight. He had four assists last Feb. 20 in his first visit to Hartford since the playoffs. He had a goal and an assist in his return to Bridgeport. That’s a routine 10 points in three games in Connecticut wearing an IceCaps sweater.
And RPI and Union ended in a fight tonight. (Blog post here.)