Springfield liveblog

Dodging snowflakes (though that’s not the primary reason… really somewhere around quaternary), we’re liveblogging from the living room tonight while the Sound Tigers are in Springfield. We’ll be listening to Chuck Scott on AHL Live (audio/pay-per-view).

This should be the box. (T.Koharski, Alarie/Colby, F.Murphy.) We’ll follow Paul among others.

Prescout here, Providence against Manchester, whose Sean Backman is producing.

Not entirely sure what they’re going to do with the lineup. There were some different looks this week.

–Oof: Quinnipiac goes down to Harvard in the ECAC semis.

–Simpson in goal, Chuck drops casually in the pregame interview.

–Chuck’s got Matt Carkner and four forwards scratched, which would indicate seven defensemen in. Zolnierczyk, Gallant, Sutter and Stevenson. That’d mean Mark Louis makes his Bridgeport debut. Scott Munroe for the Falcons.

–Bridgeport starts with Mouillierat on left wing with Quine and Halmo.

–Teams trade early penalties, and after everyone’s back, Jeffrey and McMillan work a give-and-go on a two-on-one, and McMillan scores at 5:55.

–Appears Louis is playing forward. He fights Corey Cowick on his first shift.

Preliminary indication, then:

BRIDGEPORT
F: Mouillierat-Quine-Halmo
Persson-Jeffrey-Collberg
Gillies-Sundstrom-McMillan
Vaughan-Langkow-Louis
D: Ness (C)-Pulock
Pelech-Mayfield
Czuczman-Reinhart
G: Simpson
Poulin

–Louis gets an extra minor for a hit on Tyrell.

–Brian Gibbons with the classic double minor for attempted spearing (Sideshow Bob, op cit, will have to go get the link eventually).

–Extended five-on-three for the Sound Tigers as Weber joins Gibbons in the box.

–Four forwards, including Jeffrey, plus Pulock. (They actually practiced the five-on-three yesterday.)

Sideshow Bob. The five-on-three ends with a late flurry and a Springfield clear. Munroe makes a stop on Collberg after Weber returns. Reinhart puts one wide, and the teams are back at full strength. Simpson makes a big save on Monardo, and Mayfield cannonballs into the net — neck into crossbar, maybe — with the rebound loose.

–The Falcons could finish the period on a five-on-three with 54.something seconds left and Mouillierat and Ness off. (Mouillierat returns seven seconds into the second, if not before.)

–Bridgeport leads 1-0 after one with an 11-9 shots edge. There’ll be a minute and change left on Ness’ penalty.

–The box says Bridgeport’s 0-for-3 on the power play. It should be 0-for-4, not that they need the further ding on their percentage. They’re 0-for-15, 1-for-32, 2-for-47, 4-for-62, 4-for-68, 5-for-76. Second period begins.

–On the bright special-teams side, as Bridgeport kills a Czuczman trip, the Sound Tigers have killed six in a row going back to the last one against Syracuse. That’s the longest such streak since the last trip to Springfield at the end of February (actually into the beginning of the WBS game on March 1). It’s modest, surely, but still. Still 1-0 Bridgeport, midway second.

–Tynan ties it at 12:16. His initial shot hit Czuczman, and Hoeffel tipped it back to Tynan again for a top-shelf goal. Pelech gets a cross-check soon after.

–Monardo called for slashing Simpson looking for a rebound with 1:23 left in the second. Sound Tigers’ fifth power play.

–Scooter Vaughan back at the second-unit point with Reinhart. There’d been some different things going on there in the past few games. Jeffrey with Persson and Collberg up front. The first unit is that starting line with Ness and Pulock.

–It’s 1-1 after two; Bridgeport’s got a 24-23 shots edge.

–Bridgeport kills off a Persson interference minor early in the third. This is the longest PK streak since a season-long 16-for-16 that included the two overtime wins early in February…

Hey.

–Wrote the other day about Pulock getting the timing back: He scores off a Jeffrey faceoff win at 3:57 3:37 of the third. A 2-1 Bridgeport lead.

–Jeffrey scores to make it 3-1 with 10:10 left. He had room to turn in the high slot and fire it past Scott Munroe, who was upset about something. The replay had John Persson in front with Munroe’s stick between his legs, but it wasn’t obvious how they got there. Either way, two-goal lead.

–Down in the Coast, South Carolina’s just being ridiculous. Bridgeport, meanwhile, remains up 3-1 after Simpson stops Monardo going hard to the net with a little over three minutes left.

–A scramble around Simpson’s net stays out, though Luke Adam, standing over him, tried to celebrate as if it was. Bridgeport runs out the clock: Bridgeport 3, Springfield 1, final. It’s the Sound Tigers’ first win by more than a goal since Jan. 9 in Portland (4-1), 26 games with only five one-goal wins.

–Most complete game in a while, I asked? (Well, first I asked if it was me, because that’s two wins in Massachusetts in a row I haven’t been at) Brent Thompson thought it was more of an extension of last weekend’s more-solid games with a result that followed this time. “The guys competed, sacrificed their bodies,” he said. “They sacrificed for the better of the team. They played a solid team game for 60 minutes and got the result they deserved.” Good pressure up-ice on the penalty kill, and that same sacrifice in their own end, blocking shots, getting in lanes.

Simpson “obviously played an excellent game. That’s two games in a row, and hopefully we can continue to grow and develop guys.”

He said he was happy with Louis’ debut: “He kept the game simple. He finished his hits. He’s got a good stick. He made good decisions.”

Matt Carkner: lower body, day to day, “kind of maintenance right now.”

But it’s a win. It’s been a little while.

More tomorrow (after high schools).

Michael Fornabaio