Including Aprils and Octobers, Bridgeport had played regular-season games in 66 calendar months through the end of December 2010. Only somewhere between eight and 11 of them wound up with a lower points percentage than Bridgeport will post this calendar year. Up to five of those months will be short ones, too, either Aprils or Octobers. It has been a rough year. In contrast, there are 21 months with a better points percentage than Bridgeport’s best calendar year, 2003; that includes two Aprils (including April 2011 (4-2)) and an October.
At any rate, they’ll try to cap it happily with road games tonight at Norfolk and tomorrow at Wilkes-Barre. We’re again live from the living room and will have Pete Michaud and Pat Shetler up on Norfolk’s broadcast. Following the same group on Twitter, Pete, Jamie and the Ads’ official feed, adding the Admirals’ play-by-play account.
Nic Riopel returns to the Sound Tigers from Greenville after making 33 saves in a 3-1 loss last night. Jamie tweets to expect the same lineup as Wednesday for Bridgeport.
Alumni note: Robin Short reports from St. John’s that Peter Mannino is being reassigned from the IceCaps, destination not reported. Interesting; Mannino has the best save percentage (.907) among David Aebischer, Eddie Pasquale and him; his GAA (2.86) is behind Aebischer’s (2.60). His W-L record suffers, but that’s it.
At the World Juniors, it’s pretty much over for the United States. Petr Mrazek was fantastic in goal for the Czech Republic, which won 5-2. The U.S. needs Denmark — outscored 28-5 in three games — to win, or at least force overtime, tonight against Finland to have a chance to reach the medal round.
More later — a 7:30 scheduled start, so warmup begins around 6:55, radio pregame I think 7:15.
Same referees, by the way, Jon McIsaac and Mark Lemelin. Two different linesmen, Luke Murray and Tom George. Not that it necessarily means anything — it includes two Hershey games, for one thing — but Bridgeport is 0-4 with McIsaac working.
–Tokarski again for Norfolk. Oleksy on for warmup, Jamie tweets, so we’ll see if it’s him or another to be scratched.
–Norfolk lines tweeted as follows:
F: Angelidis-Smith-Conacher
Ashton-Devos-Ouellet
Palat-Johnson-Panik
Fornataro-Neilson
D: Cote-Kostka
Barberio-Dimmen
Jackson-Gudas
Landry
–Klementyev is scratched, Jamie tweets, so Oleksy is in, paired with Donovan. Other pairs Ness-Wishart, de Haan-Reese as lately typical.
–Box should be here in moments.
–I’m sitting there thinking “wow, that sounds like Amanda Kaletsky singing the anthem.” There’s a reason for that. Game on.
–Cory Conacher gives the Admirals a lead at four-on-four, 2:30. Bridgeport will have a 14-second power play after the exchange of minors. Opponents have outscored Bridgeport 5-2 at four-on-four in regulation time (though neither the Sound Tigers nor opponents had one since Nov. 6), plus 3-2 in overtime.
–Matt Fornataro tips in Kostka’s shot, just his third of the year, to make it 2-0 shortly after a Frischmon holding-the-stick penalty.
–Admirals lead 2-0 after one, though the Sound Tigers outshot them 10-6. Bridgeport carries over 1:33 of its fourth power play into the second period, a too-many-men penalty against the Admirals in the last half-minute.
–RIP, former New York Giant Don Mueller.
–Norfolk begins the second by killing off the penalty. Bridgeport is on a season-long 0-for-23 drought on the power play.
–Bridgeport kills off a Marcinko holding penalty; five seconds later, Frischmon goes in for tripping. It’s tough enough killing penalties, but they’re ratcheting up the degree of difficulty when their top two PK forwards are taking three of the four penalties.
–Riley vs. Gudas. Riley all over him. This is a recording.
–Marcinko injured, and they’re saying Matt Bain is waving quickly for assistance. Might be a skate up high, they say. Marcinko taken off on a stretcher. Towel to the left side of the neck, says Pete.
–Back at it… By the box online, shots are only 1-1 in the period at 12:14, when a Panik roughing penalty gives Bridgeport its fifth power play.
–The referee they’re talking about on the broadcast, who took a skate to the neck at Scope, was Chris Cozzan.
–With Cizikas in the box for roughing, Tyler Johnson makes it 3-0 on a shot from the slot.
–Admirals tweet says Marcinko “is awake and alert as he’s being tended to.” Both teams say they’ll have more as available.
–Period ends with a 3-0 Admirals lead. Scott Howes will begin the third in the box with a minute to go on a high-sticking penalty. Shots online are 13-11 for Bridgeport. That’s for two periods. They were 5-3 Norfolk in the second alone.
–Neat: Been listening off-and-on to Pat’s interview with Dan McCourt, but interesting bit. Talking about Marcus Vinnerborg, the Swedish referee who came over last year. McCourt asks if Vinnerborg is playing hockey in Ontario; yes, Vinnerborg is. “Play defense,” McCourt tells him. “Learn to skate backward.” Neat.
–Big crowd in Rochester tonight. Nice to see.
–Poulin makes one of his nightly diving saves as the third begins.
–Sound Tigers say they’ll update Marcinko’s status after the game. Meanwhile, Norfolk kills off a Devos hooking penalty. Bridgeport is 0-for-25 since the Scott Howes PPG at Hartford before the break. That’s Bridgeport’s longest drought in about two years.
–Rakhshani goes in as the teams play four-on-four. Norfolk’s seventh power play will begin with a long four-on-three.
–Ah, these are fun. Aaron Ness hooks Conacher. They’ll continue four-on-three, but if Norfolk doesn’t score, Reese won’t come out, and the Ness penalty will begin — so this could either be a very long penalty kill or some quick Norfolk offense.
–On the bright side for Bridgeport, the power play seemed to go pretty quickly.
–Ah, that’s why. They let Ness out of the penalty box early. That’s a good way to boost your PK percentage: get time off for good behavior, perhaps.
–Bridgeport makes its way back to full strength, eventually, somehow (though Reese ended up back in the penalty box somehow). The Sound Tigers will go to their seventh power play.
–Like Pete, I’m reading the sheet myself. I think the sheet is wrong, power-play-wise, at the moment. But I could be wrong as well. It becomes a five-on-three with a Gudas penalty on top of the previous Angelidis penalty.
–And there it is. Cizikas centering pass banks off Jackson’s skate for a five-on-three goal at 11:11. The streak ends at 25.
–And now Romano scores on the back end, and suddenly it’s 3-2 with 7:12 left.
–Wow: Howes gets called for roughing with 2:35 left, and then something happens on the way to the box; Pete says Howes punched the glass and “startled the linesman,” getting an extra two and a misconduct. Norfolk could be on a power play the rest of the night.
–While there’s a whistle, for what it’s worth, I’ve got this giving Norfolk 10 power plays, and Bridgeport has eight. If anyone wants to check my math — the box has one more for each team — I’d appreciate it.
–Admirals hold on: Norfolk 3, Bridgeport 2, though a late Cote hooking penalty evened it out (five-on-four with Poulin out) for the last 27 seconds. Tokarski made a big late save on Mouillierat. Bridgeport is winless in nine on the road.
–Brent Thompson on Marcinko: “The latest is he’s coherent. They said everything’s going well. He’s in surgery as you and I speak. Our hearts, our thoughts and prayers are definitely with Marcy. He’s definitely a big part of the team. All the guys care a lot about him.” He had no other details on the injury. “We’re thankful to God he’s doing well. We’ll know more later tonight.” Will pass along what I hear.
Hard to shift to the game after that, but Thompson was proud of the effort. “We created a lot of chances. We just couldn’t bury them. … “We stuck with it for 60 minutes. If we don’t hit a post, a shinpad, it might be 5-3.”
–You may remember that Trevor Frischmon dodged a bullet along these lines in November, taking a skate blade to the left ear. He was, relatively, lucky.
–Tweets from Matt Donovan and Steve Oleksy wishing Marcinko well. No other updates at the moment.
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