Portland liveblog (1/2)

We’ll be listening to Paul on AHL Live. You could also listen to Jeff Mannix (audio / video) if you’d like the Portland side. We’ll be following Chris Roy, Paul, Jeff and the Pirates.

The box should be here (R: Mullen (whose brother was traded to Nashville yesterday); L: Bathe, Lovett).

Notesy pregame stuff went on a different post, complete with “Dogma” header reference, because it was getting seriously long. Lots of stuff going on. I got a haircut this afternoon, most notably.

–Gibson vs. McKenna. The latter has won 10 in a row.

BRIDGEPORT as we’re led to believe
F: Verhaeghe-Kearns (A)-Beck
Whitney (A)-Wright-Gomes
Florek-Holmstrom (C)-Halmo
Vaive-C.Jones-Markison
D: Burroughs-Pulock
Czuczman-Leduc
Cullity-Carkner
(Graham-scratch)
G: Gibson
Milner

PORTLAND per Chris Roy
F: McFarland-Schremp-Brickley
Rau-Grimaldi-Harper
Wilson-McKegg-Olson
Balisy-Megan-Simpson
D: Olsen-Regner
Gaunce-Weegar
Racine-Acolatse
G: McKenna
Brittain

R: Mullen. L: Bathe, Lovett.

That’s give or take how they ran in practice all week, with Sebastian Collberg and Jesse Graham the apparent healthy scratches.

–Arthur Staple on Adam Pelech.

–Bridgeport’s fourth line had a very good shift going, but finally Jones got knocked down behind the Portland net, and the Pirates rushed; defenseman Cameron Gaunce joined in to score from the left circle 3:31 in.

–Tussle between an assortment of players; Vaive and Racine nearly come to blows but are held apart. They’ll both go; four-on-four at 6:23.

–And it’ll become a long four-on-three after Czuczman’s sent off.

–Box-score math suggests an 84-second four-on-three. Gibson made an acrobatic save on McFarland from the left side to get Bridgeport through it unscathed.

–Bridgeport gets its first PP 12:12 in on a Harper goalie-interference minor. Pulock loses the handle off the draw, but Gibson stops Regner on a two-on-one.

–Pulock came off for the D-zone draw after that, with Burroughs coming on. He returned fairly quickly, though.

–Lost the feed briefly. When it returns, there’s a messy scrum in front of the Portland bench, and the Sound Tigers are furious. The reason why shows up when Joe Whitney is helped up and helped to the room with teammates holding him up so he doesn’t put any weight on his right leg. Yikes.

–Whitney, in delivering the hit on Shane Harper that began the whole thing, apparently gets a major penalty.

–Boarding major and a game misconduct for Whitney. Carker and Weegar get a major and misconduct apiece.

–It looks like Harper was kind of turning in front of the bench, almost a full 180, as Whitney delivered the hit. It’s hard to tell exactly what happened after that, but Bridgeport was very quick to jump in on Harper. Either way, about 4:50 of power-play time for Portland to start the second.

–Bridgeport killed the major with relative ease, even getting a decent shot in early in the period. Back to full strength.

–Looks like Vaive in Whitney’s spot on the power play. Well, as one of the five on that unit, anyway. He’s in front. Pulock up top, Verhaeghe, Kearns and Wright on as well.

–Verhaeghe’s first AHL goal ties it midway through the second. Kearns won a left-circle draw and went to the net; Cullity dropped to Beck for a shot from the blue line that either McKenna stopped or Kearns knocked down, but Kearns tipped it right for Verhaeghe to whack home. But then Beck is soon after called for an elbow, and the Pirates score on their third power play. Wilson scores on a rebound. Bridgeport wanted the initial shot blown down for a high stick, but the officials talked and apparently said it was OK.

–Camera work’s been dicey. Lost the feed four or five times. We’ve had some great closeups of Jeff Mannix tonight, though.

–Portland leads 2-1 after two. Shots were even with a minute to go in the period.

–Pirates take a 3-1 lead 3:35 into the third. Wilson wins a right-circle draw from Kearns and goes to the net, where he is when McKegg cuts in off the right wing. Three points for McKegg.

–Stephon Williams not starting for Missouri tonight, if you’re counting.

–After the Pirates kill a Bridgeport power play, Beck hits a post; Harper scores on a breakaway the other way. Portland leads 4-1 with 7:39 left.

–Simpson on a four-on-four turned two-on-one, and it’s 5-1 with 6:10 left.

–Megan drops Halmo; Holmstrom goes after him, another Pirate jumps in the middle, Halmo gets up and pulls that Pirate off. It doesn’t get very far, but Halmo gets five and 10 out of it against Megan. Bridgeport’ll get a late PP off a Rau slash a few seconds later.

Portland 5, Bridgeport 1, final. Fourth loss in a row, all while allowing five goals. They hadn’t done that for 27 games before that.

–Think pretty much everyone tweeted this tonight: Lehigh Valley, going into the third trailing 3-2, outshot Hershey 27-1 in the third. The one went in, Colin McDonald scored later, and Hershey won 4-3. Crazy.

–Doesn’t sound good on Whitney. Brent Thompson said he’ll be evaluated back home but he’s definitely out the weekend, “possibly long-term.” He said Whitney finished the hit on Harper — “I have the luxury of video; it’s a shoulder-to-shoulder hit” — and “two guys jumped him. When they jumped him, they landed on him.”

(And so your leading scorer’s out and your top defense pair is in the NHL. Your hold on a playoff spot is essentially evaporated. Welp, have a nice night.)

Where were we? Oh, right, out of that, Bridgeport has to kill a major and has Matt Carkner in the box for 15 minutes: “I understand the frustration of our team,” Thompson said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to find a way to win.”

And they didn’t. Familiar refrain now, puck management, secondary chances, net-front presence. He also mentioned some pinches that didn’t work out. “Little things turn out to be winning things,” he said. “Tonight, we didn’t have the attention to detail for 60 minutes.”

Portland was, though, he pointed out, opportunistic, mentioning the 4-1 goal, on which Beck hit, he said, the crossbar moments earlier.

Alan Quine, he said, is unlikely for tomorrow but possible for Sunday.

More tomorrow night.

Michael Fornabaio