It all fell into place: St. John’s won, Bridgeport won, the Whale lost in a shootout, Syracuse lost in regulation. The 3-6 match is Bridgeport-Hartford, a decade after that never-to-be conference final.
Updated, the full schedule:
Thursday: Game 1 at Bridgeport, 7 p.m.
Saturday, April 21: Game 2 at Bridgeport, 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 22: Game 3 at Hartford, 5 p.m.
x-Wednesday, April 25: Game 4 at Hartford, 7 p.m.
x-Saturday, April 28: Game 5 at Bridgeport, 7 p.m.
x-If necessary
….
Edit: I’ll just use this for postgame stuff, I guess.
“You’ve got to find a way to bend but not break,” Rhett Rakhshani said. That way has often been to let Kevin Poulin see the shots coming at him. It worked OK again tonight.
The Bruins needed two points. They came after Bridgeport in the third. “You could tell they had energy. They had us back on our heels,” Poulin said. “It took two minutes to shake that off and come back.”
They thought they had a couple of goals. One, he apparently had covered near the post in the second; another, in the third, trickled in after the whistle; he said he had it covered, then slashed out from under his glove after Marcus Vinnerborg blew it dead.
“Poulin made big saves all game long,” Brent Thompson said. “The first, the second, and he was really good in the third.”
But you could say that most nights since New Year’s, and they’ve won themselves a banner.
….
Thompson said to expect Kenny Reiter tomorrow, ending Poulin’s consecutive-starts streak at a regular-season team-record 12. It looked as if the team bus might be dropping a few guys off at home on the way out to Pennsylvania, too. “We still want to win,” Thompson said. “We want our young guys to get a chance in different situations.”
I neglected to ask Thompson, running for the bus, for his impressions of Jordie Johnston’s pro debut, but he played some good minutes at times.
A different kind of replay scoreboard: Providence didn’t show Bridgeport’s goals on the big screen, but the Bridgeport no-goal was replayed at least five times while the officials deliberated, and the puck trickling under Poulin after the whistle got at least three looks. Hey, that Wishart wrister might’ve incited the crowd.
The Whale finished their shootout loss a couple of seconds earlier, so technically that’s what… ah, six of one.
Prescout. Despite that, the Penguins are now locked into fourth; Hershey’s locked into fifth. St. John’s is locked into second. All that’s left is seventh and eighth. I’d give you lots of math, but I’m racing the clock and a bad computer.
Cory Conacher is the AHL’s Most Valuable Player. Norfolk won most of the major awards. But not all. Dustin Tokarski: slacker.
Binghamton and Ottawa appear to be sticking together.
Maybe more after the drive. If not, more tomorrow.