Forty nine games into the AHL season the standings do not lie with Bridgeport in 10th place.
The gap from the 8th seed is not far, however even with games in hand, perennial top teams like WBS Pens, or Hershey are some of the franchises in Bridgeport's way.
The alarming trend of allow goals in big numbers, or seemingly unable to hold leads has gone on since 11/21/12, and beyond the play of Kevin Poulin, or once again injured/ill, Anders Nilsson, who's had a very tough/strange 2012-13 season.
This is a goaltending tandem that won back to back players of the month a year ago, a team that went from 29th overall to first place, not losing in regulation for two full months. Of course there were many different players/head coach.
In 2012-13 Bridgeport is a struggling team that is tied for most AHL goals allowed, and with the exception of Calvin deHaan's injury has their entire defense healthy.
Offensively there has been good news, but with the broken jaw by Brock Nelson, a falloff in Nino Niederreiter's scoring & some struggles/injuries between Johan Sundstrom, John Persson, it's not happening for Bridgeport recently, and many of the ot games the Sound Tigers lost leads.
Sure the loss of Ullstrom/Cizikas, captain Colin McDonald is part of this.
The players signed to PTO/extended to full season contracts have had moderate success. Brett Gallant, is not going to win games scoring.
Matt Donovan's been a nice individual story at plus seven with eight goals, Aaron Ness has been an even player.
Kirill Kabanov returned from serious injury but in the nine games since he's returned has yet to score.
Bottom line the trends do not lie, or the franchises in front of them in terms of standings, who historically finish strong or at least make the playoffs.
Bridgeport has some issues they seem unable to work their way out of. There should be some pressure on head coach, Scott Pellerin, because of how the club has played in pressure situations.
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Misc:
I wish to apologize to our readers for my previous entry. A promise was made here to not post information based upon souces, but direct quotes with credible information.
The intention was to point out the same writer did this on 10/1/2012, and previously with the Devils, those articles were ignored here.
The last entry was also posted to correct poor/incorrect information.
Regardless the same thing should have been done in this instance as was done with the 10/1 article, and ignored here.
New York Islander Fan Central functions at a higher level, posting confirmed information with direct quotes.
To dignify that level of reporting with commentary is not what writing here is about.
Our time meaning mine/yours is too important to waste, a blank page is the correct response rather than acknowledge gossip of no value whatsoever.
