Here’s why I basically ignore the season series between these teams… well, ignore the teams’ record in the season series, anyway. Yes, Bridgeport won it this year. Yes, the Sound Tigers were 6-2-1-1. Now turn your perspective around. The Whale were 4-2-3-1. #Pointsforall.
There was one ugly one for both sides. Bridgeport had a 6-2 win the night after Thanksgiving at Harbor Yard; it won two of the next 12, and among the losses was the Whale’s 6-3 win at Hartford in mid-December when Poulin was temporarily up, the only game of the season series he didn’t play.
The teams each had a 3-2 win in regulation, Bridgeport’s the night after Christmas at home on a late Marcinko goal (which was the second of those “two of the next 12”), the Whale’s the night in mid-March that Marcinko was called for that slash that led to Tim Erixon’s go-ahead goal before a de Haan turnover turned into a Newbury necessary-insurance goal.
And the other six went to overtime. Yes, Bridgeport was 4-2 in games that went beyond regulation. But don’t forget, that’s regular-season overtime. And I’ll grant you that it’s up to five minutes of something resembling real hockey. But still, it’s four-on-score. Bridgeport got one of its wins on the power play, four-on-three. Two of the games went to shootouts, with a win apiece.
To borrow a phrase from the Sound Tigers’ coach, that’s not playoff hockey.
Sure, maybe those games wind up the same way. But take away all the overtime goals, and in actual, beginning-at-five-on-five play, Bridgeport outscored the Whale all of 30-29 in 600 minutes.
Now that sounds like playoff hockey.
….
Bridgeport has a combined 72 games of AHL playoff experience, led by Trevor Gillies’ 17. Andreas Thuresson and Andre Deveaux alone have 81; the Whale have 239 in all. Wade Redden has only six AHL playoff games, the slacker. (He has 101 in some other league. Ottawa and the Rangers, that’s the Ontario League, right?) The only Bridgeport defenseman with AHL playoff experience is Steve Oleksy, who played three games for Lake Erie last year.
I don’t know if that means anything in 18 hours, but there it is.
….
RIP, Dick Clark. Always sharp, to the end, when he showed that you don’t have to look or sound the way they expect to have a good time.
*-Not that there are record books. I’ll settle for press notes.