Bridgeport hasn’t lost with the clock running since New Year’s Eve. You wonder, if a game like this happened in December, what it might’ve been like after one.
But Kevin Poulin played out of his gourd, which isn’t really news anymore. And then Bridgeport started scoring.
“You’ve got a guy like Z (Casey Cizikas) contributing every night,” Tyler McNeely said, “and then everybody else, Landry and Oleksy tonight, contributing.”
McNeely and Jon Landry (his first in the AHL) each had a goal. Steve Oleksy had two assists. Cizikas, ho hum, three points.
“I wasn’t looking at wins and losses earlier in the year, and I’m still trying not to look at wins and losses. It’s how we play,” Thompson said. “It’s our effort. I like the way we competed.”
There are things to tweak. For instance, you don’t really want to give up 25 shots in the first period a night. Coverage on the rush; both goals were scored that way.
“What I said to them after the game was we haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Thompson said. “We’ve got things to improve on.”
It’s an accomplishment nowhere other than the agate in the newspapers tomorrow, but there is one little thing the Sound Tigers will have going for them. They won. The Whale are winless in 10 after an OT loss to the Penguins tonight in Hartford. The Sound Tigers have 19 non-shootout wins. The Whale have 15.
It’s only the eighth-best record in the conference, but still, in the Berkshire League Northeast Division, the Sound Tigers will wake up Saturday in Syracuse in first place.
….
Will be heading home from here, so liveblog off the radio tomorrow. Remember the later 7:30 start. We’ll be listening to Jason Lockhart.
No one in that Berkshire League has a positive goal differential, by the way. Bridgeport’s minus-2 is best. Hartford’s, minus the shootout effect, would be the same.
McNeely said Kael Mouillierat gave him that breakaway feed in the third period. Not credited on the gamesheet at this instant.
Two different-looking goals from the power play. Cizikas drew the attention in the slot and gave Rakhshani and Colliton a mismatch down low. Then Landry just put one on net from the left circle for a short-side goal on Leighton, who may, just to give the benefit of the doubt, have been distracted by Scott Howes’ cutting in front of him. “Our skill shows up best when we shoot the puck,” Thompson said.
Marcinko said he had no comment on the suspension. He’ll miss tomorrow at Syracuse and be back after the break. Thompson said Backman remained sore so remains out.
I think we’ve done this fairly recently, but why not again: The 53 shots against were two shy of the team record (Dec. 17, 2005, at Hartford, 19-20-16, a 6-2 loss in which Wade Dubielewicz stopped 34 shots in the first two periods while allowing five goals). Poulin’s 51 saves were one away from Dubielewicz’s record (Feb. 9, 2007, vs. Hershey, a 4-2 win).
Prescout. Palmieri’s OK. The top two AHL players in goals are from opposite sides of Long Island Sound. (Cam Atkinson will be in Atlantic City in a couple of days.)
Binghamton’s Patrick Wiercioch returned, a month and a half after he took a puck in the throat.
And RIP, Robert Hegyes.