Hadn’t been a lot of clinkers lately*, especially not for Anders Nilsson, but this one got away on two second-period goals, one 74 seconds in, one with 1.5 seconds left. Perhaps it’s to his credit that this one looks so off because he has been so good. He wasn’t exactly bad. He was just, well, pick your adjective from among the “ordinary”/”average” class.
On the other hand, you get Alex Giroux and Marty St. Pierre coming at you two-on-one, you’d better hope for something darned extraordinary to happen. Power outage. That’d be fine**.
Bridgeport had some chances, including a Casey Cizikas breakaway, and scored but once on Manny Legace. Springfield got a bounce off a defenseman, got that two-on-one after Bridgeport didn’t get it deep, got those two David Savard goals from long distance (the second through Dane Byers’ screen, though Nilsson absolved himself of nothing). It got other chances off Bridgeport mistakes.
Pretty early in the third, it was 5-1, as it stayed.
“I said we were going to have some growing pains in the first 20 games,” Brent Thompson said. “It might be the first 40 games. We’re going to try to get better each day, improve on those mistakes. That’s the direction we need to go right now.”
…
The power play went 0-for-6, but I thought it looked more like it did last night — generating chances, keeping the puck deep longer, maybe even creating a little momentum here and there — than it did in some past oh-fers. “Any time you establish your shot, you get momentum and chances,” Thompson said. “We had chances, but then we didn’t score on the power play. The guys get frustrated.” On one of the late power plays, Legace made three saves from about a combined 10 feet. Tip your cap. In two Bridgeport games at Springfield, Legace has stopped 56 of 58 shots and played to a 1.08 goals-against average (and has the misfortune of going just 1-1).
The flip side: Going 1-for-4 on the penalty kill plummeted the Sound Tigers from second to fifth, from 87.3 percent to 85.2.
Thompson said that, indeed, Justin DiBenedetto was feeling the effects of yesterday’s hit. “We’ll go day-to-day with him.”
Big Benn Olson steps up to left wing… and scores on his third shift, on the rush, a bottom-left-circle rebound of Blair Riley’s right-circle shot with Legace out challenging Riley. It’s his first AHL goal. “Been a long time since last year (with Cincinnati, his only other pro goal). I went to the net hard, and the puck just happened to be there.” He had practiced there earlier in the week. “It had been a while since I’d done it, but I’m familiar with what I’ve got to do, how the systems work. It wasn’t too hard (to jump in). It’s fun to get in on the forecheck, hitting the D instead of being hit by the forwards.” Nice little pump of the arm for the celebration, too.
Lines got torn up for the third period and I think changed even within the third; some power-play personnel changeups may have affected the even-strength combinations. Tyler Ruegsegger with old college linemate Rhett Rakhshani plus Jeremy Colliton was the most interesting. Thought it was kind of interesting, to start, to see Tyler McNeely-Cizikas-Sean Backman back together for the first time since opening night. A whole line from that first game, DiBenedetto-David Ullstrom-Tim Wallace, was missing; two up, one hurt.
The Islanders had the day off but sent Kevin Poulin back down to Bridgeport, they announced early in the evening. If this, then, is it for Joe Fallon, of the 28 29 goalies to actually play for Bridgeport, his tenure in the nets was 27th 28th-longest. Edit: Lovely: Forgot to add Nilsson to the list.
Hall of Famer Craig Patrick, recent addition to Columbus’ front office, was in the house.
Prescout. The Whale still leads the Berkshire League by three points over Adirondack.
A Wall Street Journal story on the challenges of coaching football at Columbia.
David Hinckley questions the latest Rock Hall of Fame selections.
And after hearing the Drifters’ “White Christmas” on the radio last night, I think I might actually be in the mood, finally. Will break out Spector soon and make sure.
*-Actually, the last time Bridgeport lost to anyone by more than one goal, or one goal plus an empty-netter, was at home against Springfield, Nov. 19. Before that? The two Adirondack losses in October.
**-I know, I shouldn’t even joke.