My first “who to talk to” instinct was Colton Gillies. He walked out of the room with a bit of a muffled scream after this one, so I felt like the instinct was going to work out.
“Heartbreaking” came up once or twice.
“The feeling in the room, at least, is we’re so close,” Gillies said. “Hopefully you can see it, too. Every game, we’ve played well, and then we make just a little mistake, and it’s in the back of our net.
“It’s tough. We need to get some bounces. This is the hardest-working team I’ve ever been on. The guys deserve a lot of credit, but it’s tough. It’s easy to go to the rink every day when you’re winning.”
There are seven longer winless streaks in team history, but this seven-game regulation losing streak now ties for the second-longest losing streak (nine, January-February 2011) in team history. The team hadn’t even had a lead in the third period since its last win, and even then it blew that lead before winning in overtime. (This was the first time it lost after leading after two.) The team hadn’t had many leads at all.
But it grabbed one early. Bridgeport was all over the Falcons in the first five minutes. It was incredible, and I mentioned on Twitter it looked pretty much like the template they wanted to work from all year. It started with Matt Carkner, Cory Conacher and Gillies getting the puck deep, and they went to work from there.
“That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Gillies said. “We want to spend most of the time in their zone and shut down their top players. At the same time, we’d like to produce more as well.”
At 4:42, Carkner scored. Springfield woke up. It tied it at 7:07 on a rebound after Will Weber was left alone for the initial shot.
“The (Springfield) first goal of the game, we worked so hard, we overbackchecked,” Brent Thompson said. “We left a guy in the slot, not because the guys weren’t working.”
The Falcons took a lead, poking in a rebound. Bridgeport tied it, then took a lead on a power-play goal (snapping a second-consecutive 0-for-14).
“It was a great hockey game. They weathered the storm at times. We weathered the storm at times,” Thompson said.
Springfield weathered it just a bit better, breaking Bridgeport’s heart yet again.
…….
Thompson was hopeful Matt Lashoff (who appeared to be walking around) was just day-to-day. If necessary tomorrow, they’d put Scooter Vaughan back on defense and reevaluate Sunday, which has pretty much been the plan the whole way. They went with five defensemen tonight. Speaking of defensemen, Jesse Graham had an assist tonight in Game 4 for him and Kevin Czuczman in Florida. He scored a goal Wednesday.
The only gripe with Ryan Hersey’s officiating: Calling the hold on Michael Chaput (he more or less tackled Reinhart) with 6.whatever seconds left. “Killed Bogy’s percentage,” Thompson said. “I thought it was one of the best-officiated games of the year. The flow, getting four lines going.” I snuck the word “glorious” in on Twitter, so I’ll agree. Didn’t catch anything but the aftermath of the Cowick call for goalie interference, but the two against Bridgeport players were no-brainers. “That’s the game we’ve been waiting for,” Gillies said. “It’s nice when you’re not in the penalty box the way we usually are. We get a chance to get everyone going.”
Matt Carkner’s last AHL goal was against Bridgeport in 2009. Check out who was backing up Nathan Lawson. (He seemed to get a kick out of hearing that.) That was also the night of this Fritz-Yablonski epic.
Two assists for Jaime Sifers.
Right back at it tomorrow. (And as noted back in August, no game for Sunday opponent Wilkes-Barre/Scranton tonight.)
Elsewhere, Pascal Dupuis on playing through it, when “it” is an embolism that could probably kill you.
Gothamist (via Second Ave. Sagas) on a subway signal tower.
And you’ll not be surprised I was a pretty fervent Trekkie as a kid. Growing up into a fan of The Simpsons and Fringe let me see a few more great performances from him. And I’ll never forget going to the Boston Museum of Science in the late ’80s, settling in for an Imax movie, and hearing Nimoy recite “Who Put the Bomp” to show off the sound system. (“How’d they get Leonard Nimoy?” asked a man’s voice in the intro. “He grew up three blocks from here,” Nimoy’s voice came back.) RIP.