Where dreams go to die: Springfield postgame

This place, huh?

“(Bleep) this place,” Connor Jones said.

The first of six losses in a row here mathematically ended Bridgeport’s playoff hopes last season. This sixth one didn’t quite do that, but it did no favors, neither.

Two quick goals, similarly achieved with chips retrieved behind the defense, put the Sound Tigers in a deep hole.

Harri Sateri made 39 saves, including stopping John Stevens in alone in the first period, and Kellen Jones in tight in the second, a shift before those two quick goals.

Eight penalties in the last 13 minutes of the first period, a grand total of 114 seconds of which was played at five-on-five. It’s no excuse for Bridgeport, obviously; Springfield was playing the same game. But it was tough. No flow. No rhythm.

“I’d say in the first we definitely didn’t have enough offensive-zone time,” Seth Helgeson said. “We didn’t control the puck. … The second, we kind of turned it around a bit. The third, we were all the way in.”

Couldn’t buy one. Charlotte blew three leads and lost quickly in overtime, small solace for the Sound Tigers, whose tragic number is eight now that they can’t win a tiebreaker against the Checkers.

Bridgeport’s longest regulation-loss streak in any one building is eight, at Hershey, 2007-11 (not counting three playoff losses, the first in overtime). That’d have to wait for next year.

….

They rotated right wingers in the third, Bailey with St. Denis, Bernier with the Joneses, Ho-Sang with Stevens. See what sticks tomorrow. Brent Thompson said not to expect back any of the injured at Hartford.

Speaking of: Prescout. The Wolf Pack’s tragic number is one. That’d be three years in a row out of the playoffs and five out of six since they swept Bridgeport and took two games from the Norfolk juggernaut in 2012. (The Sound Tigers, obviously, are staring down that same five-of-six.) The Penguins’ magic number is down to three. Providence’s is six despite a loss to the Phantoms.

In the past 12 Bridgeport-Springfield games, Anthony Greco has 15 points. He had 9-4-13 in 10 games this season.

Three points for Bobby Farnham, for the first time, it looks like, since an empty-netter at St. Lawrence gave him three for Brown on Jan. 15, 2012.

Things are brighter in Worcester, where the Railers are only one point behind Wheeling with two games in hand.

More tomorrow.

Michael Fornabaio