Too soon: Providence postgame

You can’t score fourth and expect to win in this league.

(I did not actually say that to the Sound Tigers I interviewed, but I did to one that I was BS’ing with in the meantime, and he rather agreed that spotting the Bruins a fourth made joking sense.)

We’ve been talking about the starts for five games now, from slow to catastrophic to not-this-again to survivable to this thing. It is puzzling.

“It’s just little details,” Ben Holmstrom said. “We’re starting slow. We’re not as engaged as we need to be. We get down a few goals and pick up the pace.”

So how do you correct that?

“We’ve got to make sure we’re ready at the start,” Holmstrom said. “It’s just little one-on-one battles. It’s just beating a guy individually.”

The Bruins kept coming for the first 16 minutes or so. It was no contest. And then, like the last little while, it was. They know they have it in them. They demonstrate it nightly.

“Each individual has got to look himself in the mirror (and decide) what he’s got to do to better prepare,” Brent Thompson said.

“It’s — you’re a professional. Be ready, when they drop the puck, to compete. If they do that, everything else will take care of itself.”

….

Bridgeport’s off tomorrow, so more Tuesday unless warranted. Thompson thought he would have more information on Stephen Gionta by then. Scott Eansor is day-to-day, upper body, after getting knocked around. Parker Wotherspoon is lower-body, day-to-day.

Swap Steve Bernier and Casey Bailey to start the second period, with occasional mix-and-match from there but mostly resolving back to how they started otherwise. Some Michael Dal Colle mixed in on other lines, too, and an occasional Josh Ho-Sang double shift.

Both Wilkes-Barre and Lehigh Valley won, so the top three in the division moved a little further away. (Bridgeport does have two more with the Bruins (at home) and three more with the Penguins, but that’s not an easy path.) Charlotte’s loss keeps the spread at seven points, but at the same time Hartford topped Rochester (despite C.J. Smith’s hat trick) to move within four of Bridgeport.

Tip of cap to referee David Banfield, who worked his last game last night in Hershey, the league announced.

Worcester lost Chris Langkow in a win Saturday night. Scary situation with Tommy Kelley today in a 4-2 win.

The Connecticut Whale plays its NWHL semifinal game tonight against the Metropolitan Riveters. Winner gets Buffalo for the Isobel Cup.

Clarkson won its second straight women’s national championship in overtime today. That’s three in five years, beginning with its upset over Minnesota at Quinnipiac in 2014.

Congratulations to the Jesuits, Generals and Eagles.

A few locals going to the NCAA Division III Frozen Four: For Colby, New Fairfield’s Mark Leprine, Wallingford’s Dan Dupont and Fairfield’s Billy Overby; and Salve Regina and Fairfield’s Frankie Sullivan.

What a finish for the national sled hockey team last night at the Paralympics. Canada hit a post with an empty U.S. net with a minute left. Declan Farmer tied it on the next rush, and he and the Americans won gold in overtime.

And all the best to Matt Martin and Sydney Esiason.

Michael Fornabaio