Soundin' Off

By MICHAEL FORNABAIO
mfornabaio@ctpost.com

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — When time finally ran out Monday, Steve Regier pumped his fists to the ceiling and raised his stick as if he’d scored a goal.

He and his teammates reached a goal, rather than scored one, at the end of a 3-2 win over the Binghamton Senators. Bridgeport won seven of its last nine games in 2007 to get back to points-.500 (16-16-1-0) for the first time since Nov. 4, when it was 5-5.

“We’ve been talking about getting back to .500 for a while now. It’s been a big goal for us,” Regier said.

Regier said the celebration was more over the kind of game it was, a battle in which Jeff Tambellini’s goal with 11:53 to go broke a tie.

“Those are the most rewarding,” Regier said. “Every guy puts his heart on the line.”

That’s how the Sound Tigers have done it since bottoming out two and a half weeks ago at Providence.

Monday, they pressured Binghamton relentlessly in the first period to build a 2-0 lead. The Senators picked their game up in the second period and tied it in the third, but Bridgeport came back with a good finish.

“I thought we played a really good game,” coach Jack Capuano said. “They’re a good hockey team. Obviously, in the second, the momentum swung. They came out and did what they had to do. But I like the way we’ve been competing, the way we’re playing, win or lose.”

The line of Regier, Jeremy Colliton and Darryl Bootland stole momentum back with about 13 minutes to go in the third.

That unit kept the puck deep in Binghamton’s end for about a minute, working hard along the boards and making the Senators’ defense work harder.

“They played a heck of a game,” Regier said about Bootland and Colliton. “I thought they were our two top players. They did a lot of little things. They didn’t get a point, put they did a lot of unsung-hero-type things.”

One shift later, Tambellini, Frans Nielsen and Sean Bentivoglio did the same thing to the Senators, forcing a turnover, and Tambellini put a one-timer off the crossbar and in off Nielsen’s centering pass.

Hours after the AHL named him its Player of the Week, Tambellini notched his second four-game goal-scoring streak of the month. He has six goals in the past four games and 12 goals in the past nine; his 19 goals overall are tied for second-most in the league.

Bridgeport held on through a late penalty kill and some crazy bounces around Mike Morrison’s net. Morrison stopped 33 saves to earn his 10th win in front of a sellout crowd of 4,710 at Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.

“It’s just a tough place to play on the road,” Tambellini said. “We did a good job keeping the puck in their end a little bit. … To get two points out of this barn is huge.”

Part of Bridgeport’s early success was that all four lines got involved and into the flow of the game right away. That included the third line, centered by Trevor Smith with Ryan Kinasewich and Tyler Haskins on the wings.

They combined to make it 2-0 with 3:11 left in the first. Haskins forced a Geoff Waugh turnover at the Binghamton blue line; Smith came up the left wing and blasted the puck off the right post and in.

“I felt great out there. I felt a lot more confident,” said Smith, who played his most-involved game since coming back up from Utah (ECHL) last week. “I got the puck on my stick. I skated with it.”

Kip Brennan almost capitalized on a Matt Kinch turnover — it was as if the defenseman heard the big forward coming — on the third shift of the game.

Two shifts later, Nielsen blocked a Lawrence Nycholat shot, came up the right wing on a two-on-one, deked out defenseman Brian Lee and wristed a shot over Brian Elliott’s blocker.

Nielsen, playing his best hockey of the season in both ends of the ice, has seven points in the past four games and 11 points in the past nine.

Bridgeport had several chances to increase its lead, but couldn’t. A couple of open-net chances bounced and stayed out. The Sound Tigers thought they had scored one at 7:12 of the second, when the red light went on after Dustin Kohn put a shot on net that Elliott apparently smothered on the goal line.

Just 44 seconds later, Binghamton turned the game around when Waugh came up the right wing and snapped a short-side shot past Morrison. Tyler Donati tied it on a power play 5:13 into the third, knocking in the ricochet after Josh Hennessy hit a post.

3 STARS

1) FRANS NIELSEN, BRIDGEPORT — Just keeps going: a goal and an assist.
2) JEFF TAMBELLINI, BRIDGEPORT — Player of the week; winner of the game.
3) TYLER DONATI, BINGHAMTON — Around the net, scored the tying goal.
UNSUNG HERO – Trevor Smith played his best AHL game of the season.
UP NEXT – Friday at Norfolk, 7:15 p.m.
–MICHAEL FORNABAIO

Bridgeport 2 0 1–3
Binghamton 0 1 1–2

First Period – 1, Bridgeport, Nielsen 5, 3:03. 2, Bridgeport, Smith 1, 16:49. Penalties – Kinch, Bin (hooking), 5:07; Haskins, Bpt (hooking), 8:45; Colliton, Bpt (hooking), 9:51; Kinch, Bin (hooking), 17:40.
Second Period – 3, Binghamton, Waugh 2, 7:56. Penalties – Kudelka, Bin (holding), 2:20; Wotton, Bpt (slashing), 4:34; Nikulin, Bin (cross-checking), 10:01; Tambellini, Bpt (holding), 6:37; Dimitrakos, Bin (cross-checking), 17:50.
Third Period – 4, Binghamton, Donati 6 (Hennessy, Dimitrakos), 5:13 (pp). 5, Bridgeport, Tambellini 19 (Nielsen), 8:07. Penalties – Kinch, Bin (interference), 1:18; Fata, Bpt (hooking), 3:47; Carkner, Bin (elbowing), 15:21; Colliton, Bpt (interference), 16:11.

Shots on goal – Bridgeport 18-12-7–37. Binghamton 10-13-12–35.
Power play opportunities – Bridgeport 0 of 7, Binghamton 1 of 6.
Goaltenders – Bridgeport, Morrison 10-7-0 (35 shots-33 saves). Binghamton, Elliott 6-8-0 (37-34).
Attendance – 4,710. Referee – Banfield. Linesmen – Everett, Petrus.

(Welcome to those referred from print! And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.)

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Regier-Colliton-Bootland
Kinasewich-Smith-Haskins
Brennan/Haley
D: Fata-Ford
Kohn-Spiller (A)
Sertich-Wotton (C)

BINGHAMTON
F: Weller-Hennessy-Dimitrakos
Donati-Nikulin-Mauldin (A)
Zubov-Mapletoft-McKenzie
Amadio/Yablonski
D: Kinch-Carkner (A)
Nycholat (A)-Lee
Kudelka-Waugh

I needed a follow-up story for Wednesday’s paper, and I needed to get something on Tambellini winning player of the week. Ain’t it great when things work out like that?

Sertich donned No. 15 in his AHL debut, which took a second to click in the mind sometimes that it wasn’t Rullier.

Nycholat missed the third period with a groin pull, P+SB beat writer Michael Sharp reports. They moved Amadio back to defense and shuffled the lines a bit; McKenzie was the 10th guy.

Bridgeport is now 1-1 in New Year’s Eve games at Binghamton: Dec. 31, 2003, 2-0, Denis Hamel scores ‘em both, one a short-handed breakaway on Rick DiPietro (conditioning), the other into an empty net with some tiny fraction of a second remaining. A broken foot prevented that from having a chance to happen again.

Between-periods guy mentioned that the Sens would be home Jan. 11 against “these same Bridgeport Sound Puppies.” If he’d said “Kitties,” we’d give him the pat on the back, but “Puppies”? C’mon. (He’s no Dave.)

Bridgeport is still seven points out of fourth after Hershey won (the Bears are only five behind the Phantoms now as the division tightens up); the Sound Tigers are only two behind fifth-place Binghamton now, though. Wilkes-Barre won its eighth in a row. Same link: Norfolk lost its ninth in a row.

Oh, and Providence hit New Year’s at 28-5-2-0. (Six of ‘em are shootout wins, but we won’t hold that against them. Right now.)

—-

And so ends 2007, which included a 39-37-1-2 record (including eight shootout wins).

We met Chris Lee, Todd Griffith, Nick Martens, Dustin VanBallegooie, Stephen Wood, Matt Reid, Rob Rankin, Cam McCaffrey, Lance Galbraith, Kyle Rank, James Sixsmith, Steve Crampton, David Desharnais, Trevor Smith, Andrew MacDonald, Sean Bentivoglio, Tim Jackman, Darryl Bootland, Kip Brennan, Matthew Spiller, Joey MacDonald, Ben Walter, Pascal Morency, Olivier Labelle, Mike Morrison, Ryan Kinasewich, Scott Burt, Joe Franke, Micheal Haley, Tyler Haskins, Keith Johnson and Andy Sertich, among others.

We said farewell to the likes of Matt Koalska (for real), Robert Nilsson, Ryan O’Marra, Dan Marshall, Joe Ferras, Paul Camelio, Eric Boguniecki, Brandon Nolan, Jason Blake, Allan Rourke, Rick Berry, Petteri Nokelainen, Brandon Cullen and Masi Marjamaki.

And we watched Wade Dubielewicz go up to the Show… though he may pop back for a visit; we’ll see how long he has to carry the load up there.

Those who called it a career included Brian Leetch, Ryan VandenBussche, Scott Mellanby, Steve McKenna, Mike Ricci, Eric Daze, Pierre Turgeon, Eric Cairns, Matthew Barnaby, Sean Burke, Peter Bondra, ombudsman Eric Lindros and Wes Walz.

We said hello and goodbye to Tomas Malec, Ryan Smyth, Jamie Johnson, Gregg Johnson, Joe Rullier and equipment managers Eddie Summers and Mike Burkhead.

We said hello again to Pat Bingham and Scott Ford, and we said goodbye again to Kevin Mitchell and Peter Ferraro.

We said our last goodbye to Earl “Dutch” Reibel, Gump Worsley, Warren Strelow, Gaetan Duchesne, Dave Balon, Jimmy Skinner, John Ferguson Sr., Dave Fay, Sam Pollock, Max McNab, Bill Wirtz, Darcy Robinson, Tom Johnson, Don Chevrier and Stu Nahan, and I know I’m forgetting people. We ’round here lost Tom McCormack and Bill Gonillo.

Pick your own Doug Gilmour Memorial “I Retire. No Wait, I Don’t. Do I” Award recipient from among Scott Niedermayer, Dwayne Hay, Jeremy Roenick and Barrett Heisten — and maybe now Darren McCarty.

And for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers… The year began with new hope, which was followed by injuries that cut hope short. It moved on with optimism, then devolved into doubt. Hope returned in this latest stretch. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Either way, remember what it was like 365 days ago? A bit better than that, huh?

Happy new year.

Just arrived to find out by e-mail that Jeff Tambellini is the Player of the Week. The pages are going off to press right now because of the holiday, so all you’ll get there is a note about Andy Sertich coming up from Utah.

But stick around here (or gas up the ol’ RSS reader): We’ll be doing the usual stuff post-game, plus I’ll post a pseudo-gamer, too. It’ll be a lot earlier than last year, I’m sure.

Here we are after a picturesque drive up NY17/I-86/Future I-86. After the Thruway, there was snow on the ground the whole way, including quite a bit up here. The trees were covered, the mountainsides were white. I’m glad they got that way last night and not today…

If you haven’t figured it out from stuff like the trivia question below, This Space loves the weird statistical stuff and funky coincidences. Today brought a doozy in the NFL: Tennessee and Cleveland went into the day tied for the sixth AFC playoff spot at 9-6, but unless one or the other played an unlikely tie, it didn’t matter whatsoever what Cleveland did against the 49ers. If both teams had lost, Cleveland would have made the playoffs on the second tiebreaker, conference record (7-5 for the Browns; 6-6 for the Titans after a loss to Indianapolis).

But they both won, and Tennessee wound up with a 7-5 conference record; that got the Titans in on the third tiebreaker, record against common opponents. Wild: Even though the teams had been tied, Titans-Colts was basically a playoff game for Tennessee, while the Browns had basically nothing in their hands.

Oh, speaking of clinching: Click below for the answers, at least as I had in mind…

(more…)

The Islanders recalled Ben Walter.

Dumb blog trivia (no prizes, just admiration):

Going 45 without a goal tonight called to mind that Bridgeport has gone to overtime scoreless four times; two times, the game has stayed that way.

1) Both scoreless ties were at home, and both were in some way notable games; the first, maybe, was notable for two reasons. Name the opponents and the reasons for notoriety.

2) Bridgeport lost the other two games, which were decided in overtime (though both were played in the shootout era). What did those decisive goals have in common?

Go to the net, finish 1-for-3…

Colliton went to the net in the first and tipped a Mark Wotton shot on goal; he had a chance at the rebound, but Al Montoya poked it away from him.

He went to the net in the second short-handed for the rebound of Jeff Tambellini’s shot; Montoya was down, but Colliton put it over the crossbar.

He went to the net in the third on the power play as Ben Walter put the puck there. He banged it in.

Morrison continued to stand on his head, and that was enough.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Regier-Walter-Bootland
Smith-Colliton-Kinasewich
Brennan-Haley-Haskins
D: Fata-Spiller (A)
Kohn-Ford
Wotton (C)

HARTFORD
F: Dawes (A)-Moore (A)-Bourret
Owens-Pyatt-Parenteau
Korpikoski-Graham-Jessiman
Ouellette/Murphy
D: Pock-Taylor
Potter-Sauer
Waddell-Hutchinson

The win breaks an 0-5-0-1 run at home against Hartford and clinches at least points-.500 for calendar year 2007.

Mike Hartman signed with Charlotte again. He’s only 40, just a spring chicken.

Fans in Norfolk are going after Steve Stirling. This is what happens when you never miss the playoffs. Meanwhile, Marc Denis is an Admiral.

The NHL is having the Pens and Sabres change ends midway through the third period Tuesday.

From Neil Best at Newsday: Sportswriters including Stan Fischler play a table hockey tournament in 1971.

Even though it turns out he had a few games left, Bridgeport released Joe Rullier from his PTO today. If I don’t get the quote in the gamer, I’ll put it in the postgame; short version of the official line is to let the kids play, and Rullier wasn’t as good as they’d hoped.

Big day for the U.S. with a 3-2 win against Russia; an assist apiece for Okposo and Rakhshani. And if you missed it in the comments, check out Robin Figren going all Robert-Nilsson at the WJC.

I had a whole screed drawn up about that penalty near the end of the first period, with Dustin Kohn sitting on top of the dashers… Long story short, I didn’t think you could say it wasn’t a penalty, but because he wasn’t on the ice — which is defined as both skates on the pond — could that penalty really be “too many men on the ice”?

It feels comical now.

1) Kohn is waiting for Ford to come off the ice, waiting long enough that it struck me that maybe he ought to swing his legs back in… oops, Ford’s pass hits his leg. And Frederic L’Ecuyer waves him to the box: Bench minor, too many men on the ice. Wow, only the fourth one this season on Bridgeport…

2) The puck goes deep into the Bridgeport zone, and you can see five Bruins players in their forecheck and three Sound Tigers setting up. My notes say that, somewhere near the bench, Trevor Smith is on for Jeff Tambellini, but that’s not clear on video; meanwhile, also not on video, I think Tambellini is tripping over Joe Rullier.

3) I’ve totally lost the flow of this change in my notes — it comes after a TV time out and a couple of icings — and the video doesn’t make it clear who’s on for whom (I can’t even catch every number), but it shows six Sound Tigers on the penalty-boxes half of the ice. Yeah, I think that’s farther than five feet away from the bench. L’Ecuyer calls it.

“Too many men is a real slap in the face, no question about it,” Mark Wotton said.

“You’ve got to be ready when your name is called. To me, some guys were a little sleepy,” Jack Capuano said.

Add that to five other penalties, toss on that they go with a very short bench on the penalty kill, and then add that you’re playing Providence…

Recipe for disaster.

Pretty tip-home by Tambellini off Wotton’s shot got them on the board after a good Fata hit-then-fight. Tambellini drove to the net to score off a loose puck late. The Bruins held on and finished it late.

This was a far cry from the night up at Providence two weeks ago. But still.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Regier-Walter-Bootland
Smith-Colliton-Haskins
Brennan/Haley
D: Fata-Spiller (A)
Kohn-Ford
Wotton (C)-Rullier

PROVIDENCE
F: Pelletier-Krejci-Karsums
Hoggan (A)-Bitz-Trevelyan
Thompson (C)-Hendricks-Collins
(Tobin-scratch)-Rabbit-MacIntyre
D: Skinner-Schaeffer
Jon.Sigalet-Curry
Zinger (A)-Smith

Wotton-Ford started; Kohn-Rullier was another pair. They cut way down in the final minutes.

Had Kohn touched the puck deliberately while on the bench, BTW, that would be interference, by rule.

Today’s Newsday sidebar mentions that Wade Dubielewicz may come here for some work. One time that had been noted as possible: When the Isles go west early next month. (Okposomania and Dubie Time all at once? Can the barn take it?)

Speaking of, Kyle Okposo had an assist (PDF) in a win over Switzerland. It gets interesting Saturday against Russia, 2 p.m. EST.

Dumb stats with which I’m too enamored: Wednesday’s was the 14th-biggest mid-week crowd in team history. (Self-aggrandizement alert: “Yeah, us and our coupons!”) And three of the 16 latest Bridgeport game-winning goals ever? They have come this month: Wednesday (5th-latest), Albany Dec. 16 (13th) and a day earlier against Bingo (16th). Tambellini’s goal at Hartford last Friday was the sixth-latest tying goal that led to a tie (remember those?) or a shootout. (Look, I told you they were dumb stats.)

Freddy Cassivi is up to fill in for injured Caps goalie Brent Johnson. Tarik El-Bashir also has some stuff on Ray Emery’s departure from Ottawa’s practice this morning. Marc Denis is on waivers.

Oh my… Break up the Amerks! Their 10-game losing streak is over.

Been meaning to link to this Toronto Star story about Kevin Kaminski and his recovery from a concussion.

Programming note: The weekly feature is scheduled to run Monday this week. (Long story on which I’m not entirely clear.)

Not that this is a shock or nothin’ — the only question is where he will go, which is still officially undetermined, PA-announcements aside, not that you want to sell off your Jan. 9 tickets — but Kyle Okposo signed his entry-level contract with the Islanders.

Lots of players’ family around today. You’d think it was Christmas or something.

A good news/bad news kind of morning: Pascal Morency has been cleared to skate, so he’s at least taking his first steps back (so to speak). Mike Mole was in town for practice. And Jason Pitton’s gear finally arrived from Utah, so he could skate… however, he’s going to Long Island to have the doctors there take a look at his shoulder. We’ll see how that goes. Jamie Fraser did take a twirl, but the wrist is still bothering him; sounds like it might not be this weekend.

They were taping the next “Season of Dreams” video for BST TV. Regier plus kids equals hilarity.

Rochester has lost 10 in a row for only the second time ever. It must be Come Back From the Coast week: O’Marra back to Springy. And RIP, Benazir Bhutto.

How’s it going, Frans Nielsen?

“OK. We won.”

Something with with I’m too familiar: Nielsen seems to be incredibly hard on himself when he makes a mistake, such as tonight, when he chose to carry the puck back to the neutral zone, then lost it on a play that led to the third Hershey goal. He was flat on his stomach in Joey MacDonald’s crease for a couple of seconds after that.

That line gave up the tying goal 61 seconds later on another wild and crazy and scrambly play after MacDonald lost a rebound. But then Jack Capuano kept them on the ice. The Sound Tigers came right back. Sean Bentivoglio scored on another breakaway.

“We almost lost the game, but we were able to win the game,” Nielsen said.

Just like that, a dizzying last four minutes turned out just well enough for Bridgeport.

The penalty kill returned to form now that it wasn’t facing Teddy Purcell. It went 7-for-7 and even scored when Tambellini crashed home Nielsen’s rebound (Nielsen was flying in the first period, BTW).

Even before that, the power play had gotten to work; Nielsen blasted one home on the rush after deking Sami Lepisto out of several articles of clothing at the blue line. It scored again at five-on-three in the third.

One interesting thing was the new power-play setup. Jeremy Colliton was in front, and Ben Walter had moved back to the point. “I’ve got to get used to it,” Walter said. “By the third, I felt more comfortable.”

It worked out for the lot of them. Tambellini recorded the 23rd four-point game by a Sound Tiger (and his third in Bridgeport). Nielsen and Walter had three points apiece. Matthew Spiller had his fourth career two-point game and set up the winner.

Not perfect, but they’re OK. They won.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Smith-Walter-Regier
Kinasewich-Colliton-Bootland
Brennan/Haley
D: Fata-Spiller (A)
Kohn-Rullier
Wotton (C)-Ford

HERSHEY
F: Barney-Wilson-Clymer (A)
Bourque (A)-Morgan-Motzko
Potulny-Joudrey-Gordon
McAllister-Robitaille
D: Sloan (A)-P.McNeill
Paiement-Lepisto
Pokulok-Hunt

Fraser will probably give it a whirl tomorrow if he continues to feel better. Joey MacDonald was going up after Rick DiPietro got hurt in the Islanders’ game; Wade Dubielewicz gave up only a short-hander and got the win in OT. Mike Mole is coming here.

I’m told that Rullier’s PTO does NOT, in fact, expire after tomorrow (the 25th game since he signed originally in October). They rejiggered the money in November without announcing it, beginning a new 25-game clock and putting the expiration date somewhere around Okposomania.

Speaking of… The World Juniors are on, and that Okposo kid had a couple of points in a 5-1 win (PDF link) over Kazakhstan. He’s playing on a line with Rakhshani and another Denver kid.

No more “interim” for Bruce Boudreau… nor for Bob Woods.

An Alain Nasreddine feature from Jonathan Bombulie. He also eviscerates tonight’s ref, Nygel Pelletier, in a separate. Wasn’t there, obviously, for the “You Just Wait” game nor for the recent Hamilton shootout game… But tonight was interesting. You could conceivably have had two fellows called for instigating. One wasn’t even called for fighting.

How about this: The NFL is going to simulcast the Patriots-Giants game on, like, every network known to man. (Not quite, but at least people can see it.)

And it was a delight to see Gordie Clark in the house tonight, he thinks for the first time in over five years. You can’t credit him enough for that first season.