Sound Tigers Lose Home Opener to Providence
Yesterday, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers played their home opener at the Webster Bank Arena. Bridgeport scored two shorthanded goals, but it wasn’t enough as they blew another lead. The Sound Tigers lose 5-3 to Providence, going to 0-3 for the first time in franchise history.
First Period:
The Sound Tigers had a couple of lineup changes coming into the game. Arnaud Durandeau, Blade Jenkins, Felix Bibeau, Cole Coskey drew out for Jeff Kubiak, Otto Koivula, Dmytro Timashov, and Tanner Fritz. Early in the first period, Bobo Carpenter scored a nice goal off of a pass by Grant Hutton to score his second of the season. Midway through the period, Cooper Zech scored his second of the season on the power play to tie it at one.
Second Period:
Both teams traded penalties into the period, and then at around seven minutes, Jeremy Swayman came out to play the puck and turned it over to Cole Bardreau who scored on an empty net, giving the Sound Tigers 2-1 lead. Robert Lantosi scored a power-play goal on Skarek at the nine-minute mark to tie the game up at two. Bridgeport took five penalties in the period. On the fifth penalty, Kyle MacLean went on a breakaway and found Greer who passed right back to MacLean to score Bridgeport’s second short-handed goal of the period, to give Bridgeport a 3-2 lead. MacLean’s first professional goal, and followed up with his first professional fight right after. For the Sound Tigers, it was the second time they had scored two shorthanded goals in a game, with the last time being February 14, 2004, when Ben Guite and Justin Mapletoft scored in a win at Springfield.
Third Period:
At the beginning of the third period, penalty troubles and shades of the third period against Hartford came to hurt the Sound Tigers. As Jakub Lauko scored thirty seconds into the period, two minutes later Cameron Hughes gave the Bruins the lead. Bridgeport couldn’t put one more in the net on Swayman. Joona Koppanen iced it for the Bruins with four seconds left. The Sound Tigers would lose the game 5-3.
Takeaways:
A problem that the Sound Tigers had was quite obvious. The Sound Tigers took eight penalties in the loss. Providence scored two power-play goals. While the Sound Tigers scored two short-handed goals, it wasn’t ideal for them to be taking so many penalties in the game. Jakub Skarek made 24 saves in the game and looked solid, but he was left out to dry by the Sound Tigers’ defense.
The Sound Tigers will be back in action on Wednesday afternoon as they take on the 2-0 Hartford Wolf Pack at Webster Bank Arena.
A Native of Danbury, CT. Christian is one of the longest tenured Drive4Five writers, Christian Gardecki began writing for Drive4five In May of 2017. Christian covers Minor League Hockey and the Bridgeport Islanders for Drive4Five. Outside of Drive4Five, Christian was the captain of his High School Hockey team and currently attends Hofstra University with a major in journalism. Christian was the play by play broadcaster for the Danbury Westerners summer collegiate baseball team during their 2021 NECBL Championship. Christian also was the Public Address Announcer for the Danbury Hat Tricks Minor Pro Hockey team in the Federal Prospects Hockey League and NAHL Junior team from 2019-21.
