Consider all those points reiterated in full that we talked about after the other shutouts, about how a few weeks ago we were calculating how long it had been that Bridgeport hadn’t scored a goal, and we were looking at some of those chaotic special-teams numbers, and we were trying to figure out just how long it would take to settle the team defense down.
And now here we are, looking at the third 4-0 game in a row and talking about Johnny Bower instead of Rick DiPietro.
Bridgeport had never earned shutouts in back-to-back road games. The Sound Tigers had recorded three shutouts in a row only once — you can surely guess the season — and did it with three different goalies. And now Kevin Poulin has three in a row himself. Portland carried things for a while, but Poulin was good. There were some outside chances that stood out, but he made good saves on them.
The power play, which couldn’t get out of its way for a while, scored two; it’s 8-for-22 (36.3 percent) since the five-on-three at Norfolk. The second unit got them both, Howes-Romano-Mouillierat; Mouillierat finished both to the right of the cage, hitting the ocean with the first one (I guess McElhinney swatted the rebound across to him) and slipping a second chance through Pogge for the second. “I think we’re just getting pucks to the net,” Mouillierat said, and Brent Thompson agreed. Playing with each other for a while, “we’re getting chemistry.”
Team defense has been strong. Players have blocked shots, gotten in passing lanes, had sticks in good position. And Poulin, who has played nine in a row, has been brilliant and a little lucky (the Pirates missed two open nets tonight). But hey, you can be brilliant and unlucky and look awful.
The penalty kill, which struggled so mightily, has killed 22 in a row. Thompson started with the goaltender, but he credited the forwards, too, Frischmon, Haley, Cizikas, Backman, and a few other guys mixed in in the third period. “They did a good job fronting shot lanes. We’ve still got to do a better job. … The clears, in particular.” To Poulin, “They’re dedicated. They’re working hard, blocking shots, cutting (off) lanes. … I don’t think they had a lot of shots on (Bridgeport’s) PK.”
They have made three teams in a row look lethargic for long stretches.
“That’s obviously the way we want to play hockey,” Micheal Haley said. “The last three games, we’ve outworked the other teams. We’ve said it all along, ‘we didn’t play 60 minutes.’ … A lot of times we should have won games, we didn’t. Everybody’s believing in the systems.”
In all, the numbers are simple: Bridgeport is 4 minutes, 16 seconds away from a team-record shutout streak of 204:45. It’s 49:22 away from the league record, which the league lists as Hall of Famer Johnny Bower’s, 249:51 for the 1957-58 Cleveland Barons. Poulin himself is 51:34 away from that mark.
Lots of numbers. Little sparks of hope after a brutal December.
Still: “It’s January,” Poulin said. “We’ve got to keep going and make the playoffs.”
That seems a lot closer today than it did last week at this time.
….
Five points back with a lot of teams in the way, if you’re wondering how far away the playoffs are. The teams are clustered up. The bottom four teams in the Eastern Conference all have 34 points.
I only half-jokingly yelled on Twitter about Poulin’s, perhaps, being at the bench for an extra attacker on a third-period delayed penalty. He moseyed over slowly enough, apparently, that the scorers in Portland didn’t dock him a second. His streak is at 198 minutes, 17 seconds, which passed Rick DiPietro’s 156:09, March 23-27, 2002.
Got nothing new on Klementyev.
Prescout. Couple of good games in a row for Providence, which is all of one point ahead of that 34-point logjam.
Routine 45 penalty minutes for Joel Rechlicz, who wound up in a fight with Tom Sestito while Sestito was on the bench.
Neat, as seen on the Twitter feed from one of the people mentioned: Gordie Howe in Glastonbury.
More from Providence.