Shoot the puck, Barry

Would it have helped had Bridgeport not passed up three or four good scoring chances to try to make one more pass?

It's not that likely.

Would it have helped?

Well, maybe.

You sit there at the end of two periods, when Bridgeport has been outshot 13-5 and 14-3, and you've got to figure it might have helped.

Not giving up the two-on-ones, being quicker on changes, not falling into David Banfield's penalty sights again, not giving up the rebounds: Those might have helped, too, in the opposite direction.

And when Albany loses and you have three leads -- even after eking your way back into it in the third -- this one smarts.

Still, you look at the cobbled-together lineup, you look at all the guys on the shelf who could be in key roles for this team, and do you marvel more that they didn't win this one, or that they won Friday?

LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Boguniecki
Galbraith-G. Johnson-Regier
Marjamaki-J. Johnson-Pitton
Magowan-(Wood-scratch)-McCaffrey
D: Fata-Berry ('A')
Wotton (C)-Fraser
Malec-VanBallegooie

PHILADELPHIA
F: Kane (A)-Cullen (A)-Potulny
Matsumoto-Ellison-Reid
Grant-Ross-Meloche
Zingoni/Pisellini
D: Timonen-Guenin
Ruggeri-Printz (A)
Morrison-Davis

(Rushing this one a bit. The compy's a-crashin'.)

Fata came back and was minus-4.

Marjamaki had his first two-point game since last April 2.

If you want to follow the junior defensemen's progress, here's Brandon's first round for Dustin Kohn, and here's Moncton's for Andrew MacDonald.

Speaking of, you have got to love the emergency recall from juniors rule. (Unless you're an Oilers fan.)

Connecticut in the news: Check out where the Boston Bruins stopped for lunch yesterday in this ProJo report from Dan Hickling. (If you can't scale the subscription wall: West Haven.)

The Daily News' Filip Bondy is a-bloggin', and check out the third-to-last graf here.

Greg Prince at Faith and Fear in Flushing gets chills from 19 years ago, and so do I.