Impressions from the Bridgeport game: 3rd Period

Crud. Even though we won the initial faceoff and spent some time in the SoundTigers end, on the next shift, Bridgeport made their way into our end and scored during a line change. Comeau was all alone in our end, with just our D and Aubin. Both teams were changing lines at the time.

Wotton dumped it in on his way to the bench, and it came off the corner boards out to Comeau, who'd followed it into the zone. Aubin came way out, but he went down and committed right when Comeau's stick touched the puck. There was, at the time, nothing between him and Comeau when the latter fired the puck. All four of the goals we've given up so far have come with the goalie down. This looks like a technical issue that can be worked on, especially since the shot actually went in low this time. It wasn't roofed over the goalie like the previous tally; it found some daylight even with Aubin out to challenge the shooter.

In any event, giving up a goal in the first minute of a period is a tough one. Let's see what effect it has on the Phantoms' morale in the shifts that follow.

Oh, boy, the first few minutes after we were scored on, we started looking like the team that couldn't break out of our own zone that we saw on Friday and Saturday. This is the first part of the game where the SoundTigers are starting to set up in our end and get the shooting-gallery going.

Aubin had to swap masks with Munroe for a decent chunk of the period. I'm not sure what was the matter, but soon after we were scored on Aubin went to the bench and came back with Scott's mask on. He didn't get his own mask back again until a while after our one PP of the frame.

Here comes the penalty kill on which we gave up our fifth goal of the game. I knew this going into watching it, as I'd checked the box score to see when to expect it to come up. McLean was wide open on the far side, and Aubin was down to make a save from a shot on the near side. The rebound went across to McLean at an oblique angle, and though Aubin stretched flat out on the ice, he couldn't keep the next shot out. Even with Nate Guenin standing at the far post, trying to corral the rebound and protect the net, the play ended up with Guenin sitting on the ice, Aubin lying in the crease, and SoundTigers celebrating in front of the goal.

During this third period, though we didn't necessarily look as ragged as we did on Friday and Saturday, we started to allow Bridgeport to get set up in our end. That didn't happen in the first two periods. Even so, at least we spent some time on the attack in this frame, instead of losing possession in the neutral zone within seconds of getting it past our own blue line (repeatedly ad nauseum all flipping night).So that's evidence of movement in the right direction.

I'm not the least bit surprised that Mannino was the number-one star of the game, even with the number of SoundTigers who had multi-point nights. The Phantoms tested him pretty well, and he was equal to the task.

Here's hoping that our practices this week will help fix some of the execution problems that cropped up over the weekend, especially the issues that surfaced repeatedly and came back to bite us. And here's hoping that Neil can work with our netminders so these Ls don't start getting between their ears. If there was ever a time to remember the credo, "Don't get too high or too low", it's now.