Well, AHL Live isn’t working on me, so…
Hey, Stephon Williams gets his first win… not that it came easy, obviously, because why would it? Two goals late in regulation — one on a Syracuse power play and the goalie pulled to make it a five-on-three, one short-handed, which is kind of impressive 60 seconds apart with the same guy in the box — tie it up for the Crunch after the Jones Boys become the first twins to score in the same AHL game since the Ferraros.
The video feed conked out as I got a couple of minutes into the third period, so the only goal I saw was the first one, in the last minute of the second period. Effective play: Bridgeport had been blocking lots of shots, and one led to a rush and a play into the Syracuse zone that a Crunch defender appeared to mishandle, letting Bridgeport set up. Josh Holmstrom lifted a Crunch player’s stick, which let Kellen Jones grab the puck and move it back to Kyle Burroughs for a shot that Connor Jones tipped in.
That’s Bridgeport’s fourth line, but it has been effective. Connor Jones had seven shots on goal tonight; Kellen’s one, short-handed, went in, making eight of the Sound Tigers’ 25 real shots from that line. (Heck, from that family.) They both have a short-handed goal now; Connor has three short-handed points. Connor’s a plus-8 and Kellen is a plus-6; make of that stat what you will, but the only other Sound Tiger above plus-3 is Kyle Burroughs, who assisted on both goals and is plus-6 as well.
(Brent Thompson called them the Green Line the first time they were together, so I’m sticking with it. That’s the color they wear in practice.)
Nine minors tonight, eight of which overlapped. Impressive. (Make that disparity 60-39.)
Lineup was pretty much as they’d been showing:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Verhaeghe-Kearns (A)-Bernier
Dal Colle-St. Denis-Fritz
Rowe-B.Holmstrom (C)-Johnston
K.Jones-C.Jones-J.Holmstrom
D: Cullity-Mayfield (A)
Toews-Burroughs
Lafranchise-Leduc
G: Williams
Robinson
As it’d appeared, no Ho-Sang tonight. See if he gets back in tomorrow. Should be around for that one, so a liveblog here. May toss up some notes on tonight’s third if I can get a look at it by then.
Dan D’Uva mentioned that Syracuse seemed to be mixing and matching a bit. It looked like they were doing so both up front and on defense. (I was having video trouble even before it conked out, so hashing out the lineup was getting to me.)
That ended 30 games without a shootout for Bridgeport, back to March 2 against Hartford. A nice eight-month gap of safety. (It’s halfway to the record of 60 games, the last 53 games of 2014-15 and the first seven of last season. It came close to the previous record, though, of 32, which opened the 2005-06 season.)
Edit: Forgot the prescout, interesting because it’s Hershey’s first regulation loss since the Bears last met the Sound Tigers.
Otherwise occupied: I didn’t even have the craziest football game in SCC Tier I tonight. (I have almost thawed out.) Bridgeport is 4-0 on Fridays now. I’ve only made the one in Hartford.
Hearty congrats to our engaged buddy Paul Ryan.
Atlas Obscura is always fun on weird language things. Actually, it’s always fun, period.
And RIP, Don Marshall.