So who the heck said goal-scoring was gonna be a problem around here?
Not tonight. Not at either end. Not with the odd-man rushes flying back and forth; not with the turnovers showing up in the back of the net.
“I think the offense will come for everyone,” Bridgeport sniper Micheal Haley said. “It’s not like in past years, where we had certain guys.
“We don’t care where it comes from, as long as it comes. It’s not really a concern for us. If we win 1-0 every game, it’s still a win.”
It didn’t take long for this game to avoid the 1-0 score. It didn’t take long after that for Rob Hisey to make it 2-1, either. And then it didn’t slow down again until the last 12 minutes, though the chances didn’t disappear.
Having their moments in both ends was Haley-Tomas Marcinko-Robin Figren. Haley and Figren both challenged Sharks to force turnovers that the other finally converted. Marcinko was in the middle on Figren’s goal, then put the shootout away.
“We know our job is to get in on the forecheck and cause problems for the defense,” Haley said.
As Figren said, sometimes they had trouble getting out of their own zone. (That happened right after a shift where they buzzed for a long time, which might not have helped.) But they created some chances for themselves.
So did other guys. Martin, Hisey, Tony Romano in overtime. That Ullstrom pass was a thing of beauty.
“The whole team, we battled,” Figren said. “We’ll get better down the stretch. Our line, I think we did a lot of good things.”
A good start, anyway.
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(Testing that. It seems stuff underneath dashes disappears when the system changes.)
Jack Capuano pointed to the fourth line of Romano, Yablonski and Bourbeau, too. Bourbeau “answered the bell” when Garet Hunt went at him and Dustin Kohn. Romano had moments in both ends in overtime, then scored in the shootout.
The warmup-goalie mystery, solved: Mikko Koskinen’s skate broke earlier in the day, then broke again before the game. He got it fixed up in time to get out there, but not in time to lead them out.
Haley noted that he has more points that PIMs. I asked if he planned to do something about that. He justifiably wasn’t disappointed.
That might be as physical as I can remember Dustin Kohn playing: The tag-team hit with Bourbeau that knocked DaSilva into the bench, grabbing Marcou out of the crease, a hit on I think Zalewski behind the net.
Capuano said it was an upper-body injury for Hilbert, who’ll remain day-to-day.
The bench got very short late in regulation, though Anton Klementyev was moving kind of gingerly in the dressing room, so maybe there was a reason for that.
Prescout. Defense was not a watchword tonight.
The first WBS-Hershey showdown this year was a tie.
The Wade Redden era begins with two power-play assists.
Rangers rookie Derek Stepan had a hat trick in his NHL debut tonight. John Tavares has a concussion.
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