“It’s a way to get two points,” Scooter Vaughan said. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Hartford had a heck of a second period, was all over Bridgeport, and then Jack MacLellan brings the puck in, takes his time, sets up Griffin Reinhart to set up C.J. Stretch for a shot, and then Harry Zolnierczyk gets dirty at the front to find the puck and put it in, and he celebrates a 2-0 lead pretty darn emotionally.
“We haven’t really played with a lead that much,” Zolnierczyk said. “I think the guys are starting to feel things slowly turning around. At the same time, we’ve got to keep our foot down the entire game.”
And that was the problem. They didn’t, really. They lost battles. They were too cute in the neutral zone, Brent Thompson said. Hartford had a better third period (maybe partly inspired by a Justin Courtnall hit that left Mat Bodie woozy; the Pack wanted an elbowing call, but a conference of the four officials yielded nothing). They let Hartford get back in it and, ultimately, get a point.
“The big positive is we did get two points,” Thompson said. “We’re very happy with the result of two points. The improvement part, we’ll go, not the negative part, is we’ve got to clean up one-on-one battles and the defensive zone.”
Fortunately for them, Kevin Poulin was behind them. Coming back from his lower-body injury — he wasn’t talking about it, either — Poulin was spectacular.
“I got a lot of shots early in the game,” Poulin said. “I was ready. They made me battle a lot. I was ready for it.”
Poulin’s last save was on a Ryan Bourque wraparound in overtime. Bridgeport broke out, and Chris Langkow got to the net ahead of hard-backchecking Bourque to put in the rebound.
Not the way you want to win it. But they won it.
…..
And two overtime wins have got them back to within… seven points of eighth place. (On the bright side, they’re seven points out of sixth, too.) Points are precious.
Thompson said he wasn’t sure about Brett Gallant’s status for his bobblehead day, said Gallant will skate tomorrow. He said he expects Ryan Pulock to be cleared for contact “shortly,” and that Mike Halmo and Sebastian Collberg skated today.
The Big Club was banged up pretty good in Boston. No immediate sign of any moves coming from this direction.
Joked this was the best I’ve seen Ryan Haggerty play since Trinity Catholic. That’s a lie — RPI last year against Sacred Heart — but man, did he have some jump tonight. I forget who he got through for his second big scoring chance — Poulin pokechecked it away — but if it was the Ness-Reinhart pair, he beat the defense for the cycle. Nice to see him engaged and creating.
Prescout. Blew a 3-1 lead. (Two points for Steve Oleksy.)
Sacred Heart is unbeaten in six after beating Air Force on a late short-handed goal tonight.
And RIP, Billy Casper.