No need to yell: Hartford postgame

There’s no reason, Scooter Vaughan said, that this team should be forcing the coaches to blister the paint between periods, to get the blood pressure up.

They know what they’ve got to do. They’ve got to do it.

“The game’s played with passion, emotion, heart,” Brent Thompson said. “We have to harness that. … We played the first two periods lackluster.”

That cost them.

The Gillies-Sundstrom-Courtnall line had a few shifts that bucked that, scoring twice, both eight seconds into the second (fastest goal into a Bridgeport period) and to tie the game in the third.

“You look at the entire 26 games,” Thompson said, “and (that line) consistently (plays) the way the team should play.

“I thought Harry (Zolnierczyk) played a strong game. (Cory) Conacher had a lot of scoring chances.”

Conacher, shaking off some early rust, would’ve had another chance in overtime as Bridgeport caught the Pack changing. Aaron Ness’ pass to him was called offside. (Reaction to that in the gamer.) The Pack won the draw. The game was over.

So that’s one regulation win, now, in 12; seven points out of 24, another tough loss.

Still: “We’re very, very close to turning this thing,” Thompson said. “I believe we’re very, very close to turning this thing in the right direction.”

….

The discipline was “better,” Thompson said, but he sat C.J. Stretch late in the game after a penalty for the second game in a row. “There’s no more grace periods. … We can’t say anything to the referees. At the end of the day, it ends up hurting us,” Thompson said. ”

This appears to be Colton Gillies’ first regular-season two-goal game as a pro. His other two-goal game capped a comeback from 3-1 down to win 5-3 in Game 3 of the West Division Semifinals. The Aeros finished off a sweep of Peoria the next night on the way to the conference championship.

The first goal — Brett Gallant’s first since Feb. 21 — came off a faceoff win in the offensive zone. A faceoff win by defenseman-turned-winger Scooter Vaughan. Vaughan’s often working with the centermen after practice on faceoffs. “It’s something, obviously, playing D, you’re not looking at a lot of faceoffs,” Vaughan said. Doug Holewa, he said, mentioned it’d be worth it to work on them, especially being on the penalty kill in case Chris Langkow was tossed. It worked out well at even strength that time.

Norfolk has an extra day off after beating Springfield on Saturday. Ilya Bryzgalov with 22 saves. See if he or Dany Heatley is still there Friday.

More mumps. Considering switching to a safer profession.

Ehh. More tomorrow.

Michael Fornabaio