This was really a fun one. Chances galore. Toronto’s fun to watch; Kasperi Kapanen was all over the place.
And Bridgeport pulled it out, getting the only shootout goal after a double shutout for Kristers Gudlevskis and Garret Sparks.
“You see it: They move the puck really well,” Vande Sompel said. “We knew what we had to do coming in. All 20 guys had to bring it, and I thought we did. We played defense-first, which is our style, being physical, getting pucks to the net.”
Brent Thompson rattled off the guys who’re dangerous: the whole top line of Johnsson-Aaltonen-Kapanen. Smith and Mueller on the second line. Greening, “solid 200-foot player,” Thompson said. Jeremy Bracco, the Long Island kid.
“I thought everyone committed to defending hard,” Thompson said.
He sort of downplayed the matchup game; he’d had Wotherspoon-Burroughs on against Aaltonen’s line as much as possible early, then the Marlies’ second-period sustained pressure kind of blew that up for a while as Bridgeport couldn’t get changes completed. But it worked out. They got contributions from a lot of people in the defensive zone — in all three zones, really.
“At the end of the day, I have confidence in all our players,” Thompson said.
Ben Holmstrom won a couple of draws on the five-on-three kill, letting Seth Helgeson and Kyle Burroughs clear it. Ryan Bourque was tenacious all over the ice. Steve Bernier was physical as usual.
Lots of good things happened, all in all, and they beat the league’s top team.
“It’s belief in the system,” Vande Sompel said. “It’s been there all year.”
……
I tried to ask John Brillante after the game with a straight face if there were any scoring changes. But if there were assists on shootout tallies, maybe Vande Sompel’s would need one for No. 26. “Ho-Sang said something to the coaches about me doing shootouts back in junior,” Vande Sompel said. “They gave me a chance last game. It’s worked out pretty well.”
With some of Christopher Gibson’s good runs, with four overtime/shootout losses, with some good performances, I legitimately didn’t realize it’d been two months since Gudlevskis won, since that night against Springfield when he came 3.5 seconds away from a shutout. Good stuff from him in the gamer.
Jeff Kubiak and Mike Cornell will be coming back from Worcester, Thompson said. Eamon McAdam could as well, but that’s to be determined.
The irregular look: Bridgeport is three points behind Charlotte with a game in hand. It’s six behind Providence (even in games), six behind Wilkes-Barre (which has two games in hand; tonight’s 1-0 OT loss in Hartford was only the Pens’ 39th game), and seven behind Lehigh Valley with a game in hand. The Sound Tigers are five up on Hershey and six up on Springfield and Hartford.
From the league office, this was the 50th 1-0 shootout game since they added the bonus round in 2004-05. Gudlevskis is just the 19th goalie to go through 65 minutes plus a shootout with a completely clean sheet.
Bridgeport is streaky in games scoreless after regulation: Two ties to start, three overtime losses in a row, and now three wins in a row. This was the first to go to a shootout.
Both linesmen were different than originally assigned during the week. It was going to be Mike Baker and John Kiriakos. It was instead Kevin Briganti and, in a later swap than that, Eric Ernst.
Tyler Piccotti on Kevin Czuczman.
Team’s off tomorrow. More Tuesday unless warranted.