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Soundin' Off -- the lifeboat

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Tenacious D

I saw Berry and Wood right away, so I wrote them down as the D pair to start the second period.

Then I saw Fraser. And then Wotton. And then Wood.

So, um, defensemen's convention? Gamesmanship? Just wait and see who Kevin Dineen puts on the ice?

Nope. Best of all, it was the straightaway obvious reason: If the forwards weren't going to keep up the pressure and shoot the puck, maybe the defensemen would.

Credit Jack Capuano with the idea, and it appears to have had some worth, because the Sound Tigers had as many shots in the first 3:18 of the second period as they did in the whole first.

It still wasn't enough, because they had already done plenty of damage in the first 20 minutes, and because they allowed too many goals.

"I don't think we were very smart with the puck in the first period," said Wade Dubielewicz, who went three-in-three but said he felt fine. "We had to play aggressively in the third, and I couldn't hold the fort."

So like Steve Stirling's bench-two-lines night (recently noted for one of the other reasons), and like Dave Baseggio's two-a-days, now we've got Capuano's five-D lineup.

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

(Start second:
Fraser-Wotton-Wood
Malec-Berry)

(Start third (pp):
Wood-Wotton-Berry
Malec-Rourke)

PORTLAND
F: Keith-Hartigan (A)-Motzko (A)
Ferguson-Wirtanen-Melin
Wilson-Miller-Hynes
Gillies-Carter-Hoffman
D: Amadio-Rome (A)
Blanchard-O'Brien
Weinrich

Sing along: Phantom A on Berry, Rourke straight to D. VanBallegooie played a handful of shifts.

Nielsen took a stick upside the head on a faceoff early in the third and was held out for precautionary reasons.

Now that Notre Dame and Wes O'Neill are done, O'Neill may eventually come here. Howard Saffan said they'll be talking with him. "We like the kid. He's a good kid." Now if Dustin Kohn, Andrew MacDonald and he all show up, they'll be on the way to a 17-defenseman lineup...

Yeah, Peck Place with a little God Bless America first intermission! (Alma mater...)

A little short, 'cause I gotta get home and attempt to shake this cold. Somehow. Otherwise, that's not gonna be a fun wakeup call Wednesday... (That'd be eight days. (shudder))

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