No continuation, another loss: Worcester postgame

Biggest difference between this thing and Saturday’s win?

“Overall urgency,” Brent Thompson said. “Each one-on-one battle. That was the difference. We didn’t win enough one-on-one battles. We lost D-side positioning.”

The Sharks scored two quick goals in the second and didn’t have that lead particularly threatened. There were a few big drives on the power play, a few plays that could’ve gone a different way, but it didn’t work out that way.

“The first period was a decent period. Back and forth,” Thompson said. Worcester scored a couple, and Bridgeport didn’t rebound.

A typical kind of thing: Scooter Vaughan gets up the left wing and finds Johan Sundstrom cutting into open space. Sundstrom beats Troy Grosenick. Puck hits the left post.

“Always, if you get a 1-0 lead, it’s a different start to the game,” Sundstrom said. “Things happen. That’s hockey. There’s going to be posts in the game. That’s one. We’ve got to respond better than that, even if it went out.”

It didn’t happen that way. So the streak’s back at one.

…….

The streak’s at five, actually, consecutive home losses. They lost the last six here last year, then if you want to get technical made it seven with the opener here this season. That’s the record losing streak. The winless streak then was eight in all, but they had a nine-game home winless streak in 2011, too.

Harry Zolnierczyk’s goal prevented this from being the first back-to-back regular-season home shutout losses for Bridgeport. It broke a home scoreless string of 150 minutes, 57 seconds, back to the second period of the Norfolk game Feb. 22. Most of a period, six full periods and most of an eighth period. Checking if that’s a franchise record would be a semi-massive undertaking that I don’t plan on undertaking at the moment, but it’s a long time either way. The current playoff home scoreless streak is only 141:29, back to April 18, 2010, Game 4 against Hershey.*

Tough night for Mike Halmo to come back: “It was kind of a funny game. It seemed pretty dead out there,” Halmo said. “I tried to go out, finish my checks, get the puck in. It wasn’t how I wanted the game to be.”

Bridgeport’s only two midweek night games, as it turns out after Bus Night, will be against Worcester.

Brett Gallant is out with an upper-body injury, Thompson said. Different from the one that kept him out about a month ago. If not for that, remarkably, Bridgeport would be healthy. This is kind of the playoff roster, such as it would be.

Separate reports from Sweden say that John Persson and Sundstrom are at least being talked to about going back home. Didn’t catch Persson, but I asked Sundstrom about it: “I haven’t talked to them,” he said. “I just know I want to be here. This organization believes in me. They drafted me. I want to stay here.” He said he’s not going to worry about it until after the season. “My first priority is to help this team win games,” Sundstrom said.

Edit, 8:20 a.m.: Neglected to hat-tip Elite Prospects on those.

John McCarthy’s big night makes him the all-time leading Sharks scorer.

Loic Leduc was reassigned to Colorado (ECHL). Gained 44 points in the standings. And will get to play in the playoffs.

And RIP, Windell Middlebrooks.

*-4, Bridgeport, Figren 1 (Kohn, Martin), 18:31 second.

Michael Fornabaio