Fun Fun Fun — or not

If this one wasn’t so entertaining, it might have been frustrating for Bridgeport.

Well, OK, it was frustrating. See, the Sound Tigers had their chances in the third. Radja had a couple of them, including one where he must have moved the puck six feet in the blink of an eye — got to love the hands — but got stopped. Haley had a chance on a giveaway that just went wide, and Haskins’ wraparound was stopped.

And then came a scrum. Didn’t it always?

The trouble came late. Bridgeport couldn’t get the puck cleared, and when it did, it seemed to hit a linesman or a skate and come back, so the Pack were in deep for three shifts in a row.

“We never got the puck deep,” Jack Capuano said. “They were winning the change game. They were getting fresh legs.”

Still, Haskins thought there might have been a too-many-men call somewhere in there, and he thought he was tripped before Sanguinetti’s goal.

Chris Brown wasn’t calling a lot. Didn’t call anything there. Hartford got the win it desperately needed to stay in this thing. And Bridgeport’s off to Lowell for what Haskins called the biggest game of the year.

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Capuano said Trevor Smith was OK, despite that he wasn’t out there for much if any of the final 10 minutes.

The Penguins lost at Hershey. Norfolk lost to Worcester. So, no change except games-remaining in the East race, where the Pens still have a game in hand. Manchester beat Adirondack to move five points ahead of Bridgeport with a game in hand, so the Sound Tigers would need lots of help to catch the Monarchs. Lowell was off.

Hartford (seven back, two games in hand) and Binghamton (eight back, one game in hand) just won’t go away. Hartford’s games include three with Worcester (the Pack has played them well) and two with Springfield, and one each against Portland (tomorrow), Lowell and Bridgeport (to finish). Bingo has Hershey tomorrow, three with Wilkes-Barre, two at Adirondack and one home game with Norfolk.

One-goal game No. 44. Running out of time for the overtime record.

Portland’s win and Norfolk’s loss means the Pirates can no worse than cross over, so they clinched a playoff spot. Worcester’s win and Bridgeport’s loss clinched an Atlantic-Division playoff spot for the Sharks, who can’t finish worse than fourth and so won’t cross over.

Down-the-road AHL affiliation-go-round fun (HT: Patrick Williams): Might the Habs consider Laval for an AHL team?

They named a rink after Pat Burns. Worth a read.

Marginal Revolution’s comments were broken. Tyler Cowen had some fun with it.

And finally, where exactly do we put the disbelieving expletive in “RIT“?

Michael Fornabaio