Scotty Eansor’s a little streaky sometimes, no?
Gamer talks about seizing the opportunity, last year when John Stevens couldn’t go opening night, and tonight hopping onto the penalty kill after Jeff Kubiak took a horrible spill into the end boards (no update on him postgame, though he was able to get up and skate to the room on his own, if in obvious discomfort). That’s four goals in three games for Eansor.
“Scott’s been working really hard, and you know he’s going to come around. It’s going to happen for him,” Brent Thompson said.
“Getting his game, finding his timing and finding his role, he’s starting to take steps in the right direction. I think he’s got a huge upside.”
He got Bridgeport on the board tonight and got them the game-winner, too, in a solid night all around.
…..
The penalty kill only had to work twice, for three and a half minutes, but it worked; plus-1. “It’s nice to do a good job tonight,” Kyle Burroughs said. “Our effort’s there every night, and tonight was no different. We’re happy to do a job for our team.”
Burroughs took the puck halfway around the world at four-on-four to set up Kieffer Bellows for the Sound Tigers’ second goal. “Good pass from Spoons (Parker Wotherspoon), and I didn’t have anything. I didn’t want to throw the puck away,” Burroughs said. “You get the puck to Kieffer, he can shoot.”
This one might keep the league office busy. The Steven Fogarty hit on Kubiak is unfortunate, but kind of reminiscent of the Stephen Gionta hit that got him a three-game suspension last week; don’t think there was serious intent on either, 10 feet or so from the boards, but the end results of both weren’t good. We’ll see. Late in the game, Cole Schneider was clearly upset with a hit Connor Jones laid on him in the Bridgeport end; Schneider’s head moves on the hit, watching the replay, but I can’t tell if the head is the point of impact. (Jones has a history; is the video enough, on an unpenalized hit?) High enough for Schneider to jump Jones at the other end, anyway. The instigator in the last five minutes is an automatic game’s suspension if nothing happens to rescind it.
Any roster decisions will depend on Kubiak, Thompson said. They’re starting a three-in-three. They have one extra non-veteran forward who didn’t dress tonight, Ryan Hitchcock, and an extra defenseman in Yannick Rathgeb in a pinch. Worcester returns from its break Friday in Portland.
The teams looked rusty early; odd-man rushes galore. “A couple of days off, it’s getting your bearings back, just with a pregame skate under our belt,” Burroughs said. “I liked our effort. The third period, we were a pretty hard-working team.” No question about the effort here, anyway. “I thought the pace was good for being off three or four days,” Thompson said. “The effort level was there. The execution was sloppy. I think both sides want to clean up the execution, some of those turnovers.”
Elsewhere, Terry Murray will join the Lehigh Valley coaching staff under interim coach Kerry Huffman. A wild win for those Phantoms last night against the Penguins.
Binghamton has already released Alex Sakellaropoulos from his PTO; disappointing. Speaking of goalies (and Portland), how’s this for a blast from the past.
The World Juniors is on, with Fairfield County’s Spencer Knight and Phil Kemp among the familiar names on the roster for the (1-0) United States.
More tomorrow, in a form to be determined (Podcasts!).