“I liked the resilience of our club. We could have hung our heads,” Brent Thompson said.
“The guys were actually pretty lively on the bench, ‘let’s get it back.’ I liked that character of the team and the attitude. We need to clean a lot of things up so we’re not in those situations late in games. That’s where the young defense have got to bear down with puck management.”
It was not pretty, not one for the time capsule. My notes have kind of a mirror: OT at the back end, TO’s at the front. Breakouts were an issue. A couple of guys talked about getting through the neutral zone.
“It’s always going to be a work in progress. Those are things we’re working on every day in practice,” OT hero Mike Sislo said (one of at least three to use the phrase that pays, “work in progress,” in postgame interviews).
“It’s getting better and better. It may not look like it right now, but it is getting closer. We’re going to continue to work on it and hopefully get out of our end easier and quicker and hopefully spend more time in the O-zone.”
Michael Dal Colle tipped home a shot early; the Bruins took the lead after two, but Yannick Rathgeb (more in a bit) tied it up. Colby Cave scored off a beauty of a Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson setup.
With Christopher Gibson out, Parker Wotherspoon scored. And in OT, Mike Sislo followed up a Tanner Fritz shot.
“I just tried to get in the slot, and fortunately the rebound found me,” Sislo said.
The difference between 1-3-1-0 and 2-2-1-0 isn’t much in the immortal 76-game scheme of things. But it sure feels pretty huge in the moment.
“It’s a work in progress,” Dal Colle said. “I know we work hard. I know we have the skill. Once early November comes, we’ll really be in full form. It’s still a little bit of an adjustment period for some guys, some young guys.
“The chemistry will come.”
…..
A fine debut from Yannick Rathgeb. He got a point on his second shift, when a blocked shot of his caromed to Devon Toews for the shot that Dal Colle tipped in. In the third, at four-on-four, he stepped around Ryan Fitzgerald inside the Providence blue line, took it down the slot and beat Dan Vladar.
“I was a little bit nervous. I tried to keep the first couple of shifts as short as possible, make the easy things,” Rathgeb said. “It worked out pretty well. The longer the game went on, the better I came into.
“I always try to get the puck to the net. I had a lucky bounce on the first one. The goal, if I have a little bit of room and space, I try to use as much as possible, and it worked out just fine right there.”
Thompson thought Rathgeb defended well, and he liked the physical game he played, too. We caught him battling a few times with Anton Blidh, who can agitate with the best of them. Thompson didn’t mind that at all.
Speaking of whom: It kind of looked like Blidh might’ve slew-footed Devon Toews in the last minute of the first period, not long before the cross-check that put the Bruins on the power play for the start of the second. Thompson said he didn’t know if Blidh did slew-foot Toews or not. But he was kind of grinning as he said it.
Jordan Szwarz, named captain of the Bruins this afternoon, didn’t return after Wotherspoon hit him hard into the boards about 4:30 into the second. He looked woozy getting up and needed help off.
Chris Casto chatted with Zane McIntyre before the game, his first against the Bruins. “It felt a little weird. I don’t know a whole bunch of those guys, probably six or seven of them,” he said, and he laughed. “It was a little bit weird at first getting the hang of it, what team I’m on, know what I’m saying?”
Elsewhere, Worcester signed Ivan Kosorenkov, who was in camp with both the Islanders and Sound Tigers (and was one of the two players injured in the intrasquad scrimmage; Matt Gaudreau remains out).
And Melissa Samoskevich of Newtown is on the Four Nations Cup national-team roster.
Tomorrow’s Bridgeport lineup to be determined. More tomorrow from up there.