Chris Casto said that shot hit the skate of the defender coming toward him, folly-floatering over Chris Driedger, the game-winning goal. One of those things. The bounces even out, though, he said; he kind of thinks of it as making up for one of the ones that should’ve gone in but didn’t.
Either way, it gave Bridgeport early breathing room on the way to a solid all-around effort after a rough one last night in Hershey.
“When we play so many games, there’s always a couple you’ve just got to let go. There’s no secret formula. We got kind of outbattled. There’s not really an excuse for that, but it seems like every team I’ve ever been a part of there’s a couple that
“We didn’t really watch any video on it. We kind of knew that wasn’t us. But today was a great answer.”
That was kind of the word down there afterward. “It was a really good response game from last night,” Jeremy Smith said. Brent Thompson went that smidgen further to “a great response game.”
Important, for sure.
“It’s incredible how tight the race is, coming down the stretch,” Smith said. “When you’re in December, January, you don’t really think about it, but now, coming down the stretch, every single point matters.”
…….
I have had it ready to go a couple of times this year: Jeremy Smith’s last shutout was March 26, 2016, in Wilkes-Barre for Providence. He played 88 games since then without a shutout before tonight. But twice he took shutouts to the last minute: Just two weeks ago in Allentown, and Nov. 16 in Laval (the goal forced overtime). “The one in Laval, that was close,” Smith said.
John Stevens’ empty-netter makes Smith the second Sound Tigers goalie with an assist in a shutout (Christopher Gibson, Nov. 14, 2015, at Hershey). It’s only the second time Bridgeport has had two goalies with more than one assist in a season (Gibson 4 3, Smith 2; in 2008-09, Peter Mannino had three, and Nathan Lawson had two).
Career goal 250 for Chris Bourque, Alan pointed out.
Thompson said Parker Wotherspoon remains day-to-day. Mitch Vande Sompel has picked up some of Wotherspoon’s penalty-kill duties the past couple of nights, alongside Casto. The defense pairs switched up early on coming out of a penalty kill; Seth Helgeson with Kyle Burroughs, which we’ve seen a fair bit, but Sebastian Aho with Casto, which we haven’t seen as much.
Worcester jumped up into playoff position on Saturday; it didn’t last.
And thankfully Gerry Cantlon was paying attention: local guy Craig Puffer joined the Indy Fuel of the ECHL earlier in the week. He’s a former Fairfield Prep player who went on to UVM.
They’re off tomorrow. We’ve got the Division II and Division I high school finals the next two days. More Tuesday or Wednesday unless warranted.