There were moments when Springfield could have gotten itself going, could have awoken. Bridgeport didn’t let the Falcons into it instead, and any time Bridgeport let up, Anders Nilsson was there.
When you’re double-checking the team records with four minutes left in the second, it’s been a pretty easy night for the team you’re covering.
“Guys were in shooting lanes. They won all the one-on-one battles,” Brent Thompson said.
“Details like that … our guys paid better attention to those.”
They did. There was one kind of scrambly shift (and Alex Giroux scored on it); there was one early shift when someone didn’t realize that Trevor Frischmon had gone for equipment repairs, and they played with four men for about 10-15 seconds. Other than that?
All four lines produced (DiBenedetto’s on the power play, but go with me) a goal. “We’ve got four lines that can score, that can defend, that do either,” Micheal Haley said. “That’s obviously a big advantage in this league.” Frischmon scored off Matt Donovan’s breakaway pass, and that line did a nice job, matched against the Falcons’ overloaded first line.
That kind of night.
….
Thompson said he hadn’t heard a result on Tyler McNeely’s X-rays, but he didn’t expect to have McNeely available Sunday. He went off with a towel over one of his hands; reports inside the barn seemed to go along those lines.
Edit: Forgot to mention, but the Sound Tigers were very thankful and complimentary to Aquarion for getting the water-main problem fixed in time to play the game tonight.
For Haley’s first AHL hat trick (but not first as a pro), he didn’t get a lot of hats… but his goalie had one on the bench.
“I don’t know what I did over the break,” said Ty Wishart, who had two goals tonight, three in the past two games, after one goal in the first 45 games. “I’ve got some luck on my side, I think, so they’re going in. I’ve been taking enough one-timers.” But he also noted that it’s good for the Sound Tigers’ two-man advantage unit, which had only been 3-for-14 but scored twice tonight. “Nice to see it pay off.” Appears to be his first two-goal game in just over two years. His teammates got a few more tonight than his teammates did back then.
Four-assist games for Sound Tigers: Blake Comeau, Robert Nilsson, Mike Iggulden, Greg Mauldin (in a five-point game), Jeremy Colliton twice in two weeks last spring… and now Kael Mouillierat.
There were 11 seven-goals-for games plus one more in the playoffs (completing the St. John’s sweep), but there was only one 7-0 game (Jan. 21, 2006, at Wilkes-Barre), so this ties the team’s greatest margin of victory. (Hmm. Early wraparound that banks in. Clearly a recipe for seven-goal wins.) The Falcons hadn’t lost by this much in about four years.
Prescout. From what I saw from the Rangers writers on Twitter today, they’re expecting Wolski and Woywitka to remain with the Whale.
Tip of cap to Roy Sommer on his 500th AHL coaching win.
A belated happy birthday to Jamie Palatini.
And RIP, Whitney Houston.