Seeking seven: Hershey liveblog

While we wait from home on fallout from Anders Lee’s injury, the Sound Tigers did make one transaction already: They ripped up Tanner Fritz’s PTO and signed him to an AHL deal for this year and next. He’s a guy who has become a factor on the power play and one of the top lines on his tryout. A successful PTO, then.

There’s a game tonight: Four points behind the Penguins, two points behind Providence, a tiebreaker behind Portland, magic number seven: The Sound Tigers go into Hershey tonight jockeying for position with 10 days left in the season, but with a magic number of seven.

We’ll be listening to Paul (audio/pay-per-view at AHL Live) and catching the pregame show from Scott Stuccio (Audio / Pay-per-view).

Edit: Fixed that audio link for Scott.

We’ll follow Paul and Scott.

This should be the box (R: Chmielewski, South; L: Mandroc, Murray). Scoreboard watching: Portland-Providence (they do it one more time tomorrow); Lehigh Valley-Wilkes-Barre/Scranton; Hartford-Springfield; Albany-Syracuse.

A regulation/overtime win for Bridgeport or a regulation loss for Syracuse, and the Crunch can’t catch Bridgeport. A Bridgeport regulation/overtime win or a Hartford regulation loss, and the Wolf Pack can’t win a tiebreaker against the Sound Tigers.

–Full-strength lineup for Bridgeport… for now. Expect that changes tomorrow.

BRIDGEPORT, as we’re led to expect:
F: Verhaeghe-Kearns (A)-Wright (A)
Halmo-Quine-Fritz
Florek-B.Holmstrom (C)-Cliche
Gomes-C.Jones-Markison
D: Pelech-Finn
Lafranchise-Burroughs
Wotherspoon-Cullity
(Czuczman-scratch)
G: Williams
Milner

HERSHEY from Scott
F: C.Bourque-Stephenson-Barber
Walker-Boyd-Vrana
O’Brien-Sill-Mitchell
R.Bourque-Collins-Gazley
D: Stanton-Bowey
Moore-Ness
Djoos-Burgdoerfer
G: Ellis
Peters

Bridgeport’s D pairs are a bit mixed up from how they ran the past few days, for what it’s worth.

–Williams holds out a scramble at 4:19 as the teams scrum a bit afterward. Decent start. A turnover or two both ways. Bridgeport has rolled right through the lineup.

–Cliche, on his second shift, called for boarding Nathan Walker in the corner to Williams’ right at 5:10. First penalty of the night. … and it’s a major. Two shifts, 15 penalty minutes. Man. Bridgeport to the kill.

–Paul notes, as I get back live from going back to look at that hit again (ehh), that Sebastian Collberg is sick and back home. The power play begins with Pelech and Finn on defense.

–Hartford’s up 1-0 early on a Daniel Paille goal.

–Paul no sooner finishes saying how, even without Scott Gomez, the Bears’ power play isn’t bad when Chandler Stephenson blows in on the right wing and blasts one over Williams’ glove under the bar for a 1-0 Bears lead at 7:19.

–Ol’ buddy Aaron Ness makes it 2-0 at 9:02. Puck’s knocked away from a Sound Tiger on the right side of the net, and Ness blasts one high glove with Gazley in front. Meanwhile, Springfield answers against Hartford: That game’s 1-1. The major comes to an end soon after.

–Syracuse has an early goal, too, against Albany. …but quickly tied.

–Portland jumps on top of Providence 1-0 on a Sena Acolatse goal. Back in Hershey, first blush is Bridgeport may try to keep rolling four at the start of the three-in-three. Just came with Florek-Holmstrom-Markison; now Gomes-Jones-Fritz.

–Wayne Simpson makes it 2-0 Portland over Providence late in the first there.

–Boo Nieves has his first pro goal to give Hartford a 2-1 lead late in the first. They’ve tacked on another. In Hershey, the Bears lead 2-0 after one. Portland has the same lead after the first.

–Looking at the Cliche hit again, it looks like Walker may hit his face on the top of the dashers on the way down. Was apparently bleeding: boarding penalty, injury to the head: major and game. And there’s your game so far.

–Burroughs’ second whack on Barber behind the net gets called, 5:24 into the second period. Two for cross-checking.

–Bridgeport gets through it but gets pinned after the PK and ices it. They do get a clear off the draw.

–Portland up 3-0; Syracuse up 2-1. But Bridgeport is getting its first power play at 8:53 of the second. Springfield cuts it to 3-2 against Hartford.

–Wright shot blocked across the ice; Mitchell picks it up, carries ahead, makes a gorgeous inside-out move to get around Finn, then makes another to get around Williams’ left pad to make it 3-0 Hershey at 9:20.

–Scoreboard’s killing Bridgeport: Hartford up 5-2.

–Halmo hit high by O’Brien after Halmo was tripped seconds earlier. It’ll be a five-on-three for Bridgeport with 8:51 left in the second. Halmo was shaken up; more of a cross-check into the boards, it looks like on replay, than a high one.

–A couple of decent Ellis stops, probably the best on Wright off a Fritz pass across the bottom of the circles, and they’re back at full strength. Don’t believe Halmo was on for the power play at all.

–Halmo is back a couple of minutes later.

–The Hockey News’ Ryan Kennedy reports that Brett Gallant collapsed at the Lake Erie bench during tonight’s game and has been taken off on a stretcher.

–Hershey leads Bridgeport 3-0 after two. Pelech and Kearns had partial breaks denied in the final few minutes. There was a penalty coming to the Bears at the buzzer, though we’ll see if that holds up after a scrum after the horn.

–Just went back and listened to the Lake Erie broadcast. They were in a promo time out when, Tony Brown said, Kerby Rychel went charging to where the ice crew was going off. Brown was concerned there was something that’d happened between the Monsters and the crew; Rychel was just calling for paramedics for Gallant. Scary. Can only hope it’ll turn out OK.

–Mundanely, Bridgeport will have a power play to start the third.

–Moved it OK but nothing doing. Still 3-0 Hershey.

–Bridgeport kept that puck in awhile after the power play, but Hershey cleared. Bridgeport iced it trying a lead pass, and off the draw, Hershey set up, Burroughs broke his stick, Ness sent one cross-ice to Vrana with an open net. It’s 4-0 Hershey three minutes into the third.

–Lake Erie reports that Brett Gallant is “alert and conscious” and going to a Toronto hospital.

–Bridgeport gets its fifth power play in a row as Bowey trips Gomes with 10:28 left.

–Nothin’. Still 4-0 with 8:19 left.

–Liam O’Brien makes it 5-0 with 5:44 left on a rebound after a long shift. Aaron Ness kept it in a couple of times. He won’t get an assist, but he did lots of the work on this one to go with three earlier points.

–Portland has a 3-1 lead with about nine minutes left. Hartford leads Springfield 7-3. Syracuse is tied with Albany in the third. Lehigh Valley’s got a 3-0 lead at Wilkes-Barre.

–Halmo breaks the shutout with 2:51 left off a Fritz pass. Quine should get the second assist to move a tiebreaker behind Trent Hunter for seventh in team history.

Hershey 5, Bridgeport 1, final: And it looks like I’m short an assist somewhere, because Quine actually came into today with 136 points. But the second assist on that Halmo goal is Pelech’s, so… long story short, Quine’s a tiebreaker behind Hunter, though not the way I thought. Sorry. Anyway. Scoreboard-watching.

–Portland hung on to win 3-2 over Providence. They’re both four two points ahead of Bridgeport with five to play; Portland has the tiebreaker and sits third.

–And Hartford finished off a 7-3 win over Springfield, moving the Pack within four points of Bridgeport. Magic number will sit at seven. Syracuse and Albany are off to overtime.

–Lehigh Valley beat Wilkes-Barre 4-0, so second to sixth is separated by eight points with five games left.

–Syracuse to a shootout: The Crunch can’t win a tiebreaker against Bridgeport.

–Albany takes the shootout: One Bridgeport point clinches a finish ahead of Syracuse. Obviously Hartford’s the bigger obstacle now.

–Thompson (said he) had nothing on call-ups. More in a little.

–Monsters coach Jared Bednar, reports Ryan Kennedy, said Brett Gallant had a fainting spell but “all indications are that he is fine now. God willing. Wondered if Thompson had heard anything else; he hadn’t, but he said this: “The Bridgeport hockey family would like to let him know he’s in our hearts and prayers. His family, especially.”

On the game, getting behind early was a killer, and special teams just didn’t get it done for them. “I didn’t think we were intense enough or physical enough,” Thompson saidd. “We’re not a team that can afford to be not-edgy.” Too easy to play against. The combination was a killer.

He thought Pelech “was our best D. … He made good puck decisions. He had a good stick. I actually thought he played well. He looked a little fatigued by the end of the game, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

So. Bridgeport leads Hartford by four points with five to play. It will be hard for Bridgeport not to have the tiebreaker, should they tie, but that’s getting ahead of things. It’s still conceivable Bridgeport could clinch Sunday. Bridgeport is four behind Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and two behind both Providence and Portland (got ahead of myself above; fixed now). The Sound Tigers would likely have a tiebreaker against Providence as it stands but not against Portland. (Brandon DeFazio scored his 20th tonight; two years in a row for him.)

So we wait on transactions (likely tomorrow). Then a game in Allentown. I won’t be making that one, so another liveblog/scoreboard watch right here.

Michael Fornabaio