The team is at Hershey, but we’ll hang out at home, gear up for two home games (yes, Hank, Sunday at 5), lament that there’ll be no “Fringe” waiting for us after the game, and listen to Scott Stuccio call tonight’s Sound Tigers-Bears game from Giant Center. We’ll follow Jamie as well as Tim Leone and Scott.
We will see what the lines look like (Casey Cizikas should be back in). We will see how Bridgeport responds after a week of hard work to turn around last week’s debacle. We will actually not see those, as we’re listening to the radio on the Internet. (You can buy the game at AHL Live. We’re not made of money.)
Referee: Terry Koharski. Linesmen: Ryan Daisy, Brian Oliver. Unrelatedly, “Daisy Oliver” has some flow to it, no? If you know a Mr. and Mrs. Oliver looking to name a kid.
More later. In the meantime, read today’s xkcd. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry.
–Jamie’s first-goal tweet says Ty Wishart will be one scratch. Guessing it’s lingering from last week’s issues. Scott says it’s Holtby in goal for the Bears.
–Scott’s on the air right now.
–Nilsson for Bridgeport, says Tim.
–From the tweets, lines:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Niederreiter-Nelson-McDonald (A)
Persson-Sundstrom-Ullstrom
DeFazio-Cizikas (A)-Riley
Gallant-Watkins-Backman
D: Donovan-Hamonic (A)
Ness-Landry
Hill-McIver
(Cantin-scratch)
G: Nilsson
Poulin
HERSHEY from Scott and Tim
F: Kane-Potulny-Mitchell
Barlow-Taffe-DiSalvatore
Syner-Hamill-Beaudoin
Berry-Carman-Pope/(Clackson-scratch)
D: Marshall-Oleksy
Orlov-McNeill
Schilling-Kundratek
G: Holtby
Sabourin
R: T.Koharski. L: Daisy, Oliver.
The box will be here. Prescout while we’re at it. Game on out in Hershey.
–About 12 minutes in, shots are 9-2 Hershey. Sounds as if Bridgeport has had a spurt or two but nothing too sustained; meanwhile, there only sounded to be a couple of “oh”-worthy chances for the Bears, as much as they’ve had the puck.
–Scott thought Bridgeport scored, but apparently a shot got the inside of the post with about 3:20 left in the period.
–Riley from Cizikas, that was, on a two-on-one, that Scott thinks on replay hit two posts. Koharski will give it a look on replay. And actually, on second (third?) look, Scott thinks it might’ve gone in. Koharski will have the final say shortly.
–And his say is “no goal.”
–Jamie tweets: “apparently review not working.” That’s something that they’re going to have to work on if this thing is going to work. The system doesn’t work far too often. Anyway. End of one, Hershey will take 28 seconds of a McIver elbowing penalty into the second with no score.
–(I say that assuming that the review system wasn’t working. Either way, point stands, because this wouldn’t be the first time.)
–Holtby can’t control a shot, and Sundstrom puts it in at 5:50 of the second to give Bridgeport a 1-0 lead.
–Bridgeport gets through a four-on-four, which hasn’t been a given of late, but now faces its third power play in the first 30:03 of the game. But got through that, too.
–A turnover leads to a Zach Hamill goal with 33.1 seconds to go in the second period, tying the game. That’ll hurt. It’s 1-1 after two.
–Well. About four minutes into the third, Hershey gets handed a five-on-three, with a penalty on Cizikas (Hershey’s fifth penalty against none for Bridgeport) and an unsportsmanlike minor tacked on to Riley (Hershey’s sixth).
–Bridgeport kills it off with a couple of shots at most, plus one Dmitri Orlov crossbar. But soon after Cizikas and Riley return, Tomas Kundratek scores from the point to make it 2-1 Hershey.
–Just like that, newly minted SPC-holder Jordan Hill makes a nice move into the slot and beats Holtby to tie it up, 47 seconds later.
–Bridgeport gets its first power play soon after as Schilling interferes with Sundstrom. Terry Koharski worked one of the five games in which Bridgeport didn’t have a power play, though in fairness, that was the March 30, 2011, game at Portland in which the only penalty was a Brian Day delay-of-game-puck-over-glass minor. You know how I feel about those. On cue, Oleksy takes one of those penalties 40 seconds into the Schilling minor.
–The Bears get through it, though John Persson hits the crossbar late in the advantage.
–Dave Stickney has to help David Ullstrom to the room. He was down behind the Hershey net after going into the endboards, Jamie tweets.
–Jeff Taffe gives the Bears a 3-2 lead with 5:38 to go, an odd-man rush and a shot high-glove.
–And now a DeFazio boarding penalty with 4:21 to go, Hershey’s seventh PP.
–Patrick McNeill scores on the power play, making it 4-2 with 3:41 to go.
–With Nilsson on the bench, Bridgeport has a chance after Holtby takes a crack at the empty net. Scott’s not positive if Koharski blew it dead before they put it in, or it just didn’t go in in the first place. Either way, it’s not a goal. Under a minute.
–Jon DiSalvatore puts in an empty-netter with 15.4 seconds left to put it away. Hershey 5, Bridgeport 2, the Sound Tigers’ fourth loss in a row. It sounds as if they didn’t catch a couple of breaks, but it’s still a loss.
–Scott loves that stat that Bridgeport hadn’t lost when it scored the first goal. Probably a Bridgeport perspective is that they’d rather it wasn’t such a small sample size.
–Will put up some other Scott Pellerin stuff later, but he said Ullstrom came back late in the game. I hadn’t caught that.
–Better, Pellerin thought. I thought it sounded, even though Hershey seemed to have the puck a lot, that they had limited the Bears’ chances. “I thought we didn’t generate a lot of offensive-zone time,” Pellerin said. “Defensive zone, neutral zone, I thought we played well. In the defensive zone, we were able to contain them. We made some adjustments; they were finding a lot of high options in our defensive zone. But we weren’t able to generate a lot of offensive-zone time.” All in all, he was happy with a lot of facets of their game. “We had to battle through some adversity, kill off I think five straight penalties (six, technically, but who’s counting?). The guys gutted it out and worked hard. We had a couple of mistakes they capitalized on late.” One was a pinch that sent the Bears off to set up Taffe’s shot, which he said Nilsson got a piece of.
The Kundratek goal could’ve been deflating, I imagine; Hill, said Pellerin: “It was just a great play. He rushed the puck, eluded a hip check, went to the front of the net and scored. It got us back in the game. I thought we had some energy. We got in more penalty trouble later.”
Told you before he said Ullstrom came back. Wishart, just an extra day after a shorter week coming back.
Back home tomorrow.