Halfway helpful

(Is it too early to do this? Yeah. This is an irregular feature for now.)

Wilkes-Barre had a 2-0 lead on Albany Saturday night. (Oh, that's good.) No, that's bad.* The Pens coughed it up on two goals by Dave Gove, and Albany went to overtime with a chance at a second point. (Oh, that's bad.) No, that's good. Kyle Brodziak's second goal of the night gave the Pens the win. (Oh, that's good.) No, that's bad. Albany is two points behind Bridgeport, and a win Sunday against plummeting Binghamton would make it a flat-footed tie with 21 games to go. (Oh, that's bad.) No, that's awful.

(Not really, but I had to get out of that joke already.)

Meanwhile in Philly, the Phantoms blew a 2-0 lead of their own and lost in a shootout. The decisive round of the Bonus Round had a distinctive Fairfield flavor: Hugh Jessiman scores; Peter Zingoni doesn't. Philly is seven points behind Bridgeport and has played one more game.

Robert Nilsson has six points in three games as a Penguin despite being called out for his defense by Todd Richards. Speaking of Richards, BTW, Jonathan passed on a quote last night after my deadline, and I figured I'd let those use it as they wanted for today's story and then put it out there for you guys:

"The big thing that really changed the game was Jensen's penalty," Richards said. "It was a 2-0 game and they (the Sound Tigers) had no interest at all in playing the game. They had none. They were dead. It was a penalty and it was a bad penalty. There was no reason to do it. That gave them life."

Interesting. I might not have gone so far as "dead," but I sure wasn't expecting to write a comeback story at that point...

Elsewhere, a big bonus round for Big Stephen Valiquette today at the Garden. The stops on Boyes and Metropolit were clutch.

*-Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, and please insert "for Bridgeport" after all of these.