Well all good things come to an end, as Bridgeport finally dropped a game in the month of January. BP though had two third-period comebacks to force overtime. Winning 2 of 3 games this week, Bridgeport have overtaken their Connecticut rivals for first in the Northeast. Another big week for Casey Cizikas, who posted 4 goals and 5 assists. He's also moved up to 19th overall in points in the AHL and 4th among AHL rookies. Kevin Poulin started every game, including a 50 save performance.
Wednesday January 25th Vs St John's (Jets)
Cizikas opened up the scoring with a PP goal during a 5 on 3, assists going to Jeremy Colliton and Aaron Ness. Within 5 minutes St John's scored 3 PP goals, including one during a 4 on 3. Matt Donovan helped power the Bridgeport comeback, scoring a goal (Rhett Rakhshani, Cizikas) and assisting on Cizikas' game tying goal (Rakhshani, Donovan). Poulin had 26 saves on 29 shots. In the shootout, BP lost 2-1. Despite having a hand in every goal, Cizikas was only named 2nd star. Rakhshani was named 3rd star of the night. [Highlights]
Friday January 27th Vs Adirondack (Flyers)
That BP came out of the first period with the score tied at 1-1 had everything to do with Poulin. Adirondack posted 25 shots in the first period alone. Justin DiBenedetto (Ness, Scott Olesky) scored his tenth goal of the year to tie things up with a minute left in the period. Two power play goals by Jeremy Colliton (Rakhshani, Cizikas) and Jon Landry (Ty Wishart, DiBenedetto) put BP ahead for the rest of the night. A shorthanded goal by Trevor Frischmon (Cizikas) made the rout that much more obvious. An Adirondack goal in the 3rd was answered by goals from Tyler McNeely and Cizikas (Olesky). First star of the game was Poulin (52 saves), second star was Justin Debendetto. [Highlights]
Satuday January 28th Vs Syracuse (Ducks)
Poulin said they robbed this game from Syracuse and I have to agree. After Kael Mouillierat (Haley, Ullstrom) scored in the first to tie things, it didn't look good for BP. They gave up two goals to Peter Holland before Cizikas (Jon Landry, Wishart) found the back of the net to get them back within one. Syracuse scored another one to make it a two-goal game again. Shorthanded Micheal Haley (Cizikas) scored to get it close again and Scott Howes (Cizikas, Rakhshani) scored in the final 30 seconds with the goalie pulled to force OT. BP won the shootout with scores from Howes and Ullstrom. Ullstrom was named 1st star, Cizikas 3rd star.
[Highlights from the winning streak] [Highlights from last week's Saturday night game]
Natural Born Kirills
Kirill Petrov played 3 games this week and scored 2 goals; on the season he has 14 goals, 9 assists for 23 points in 45 games. One of those goals was quite the doozy.
Kirill Kabanov had 2 games this week for Shawningan and posted 2 assists. In 33 games he has 16 goals, 21 assists.
CHL
Ryan Strome missed all games this week and is going to miss 1-2 weeks. Mitchell Theoret played in 3 games this week, potting a goal in the IceDogs 6-0 rout. Theoret got in a fight this week.
John Persson played 4 games for Red Deer, potting a point in every game as he got 2 assists and 2 goals. Persson is a B-E-A-S-T.
Brenden Kichton had a quiet week until Saturday. Playing in 4 games, in the first 3 he had 1 assist, a +1, even and -1. Saturday night though he had a goal and an assist along with a +3 and 3rd star of the game.
Andrei Pedan racked up 23 PIM in 3 games this week. Also here's a December interview with him. He says his favorite NHL teams are the Red Wings and Islanders... Obviously he's been a lifelong Isles fan and only recently jumped on the Red Wings bandwagon. Also a fight.
Hit the Books*: NCAA
*Smith 094 is popular
Anders Lee had a solid weekend for Notre Dame, as they split the series with Alaska. Lee had 2 assists in both games. Robbie Russo had an assist in Friday night's loss, and was even on the weekend.
Brock Nelson had 2 goals and 2 assists (1g, 1a in both games) to help lead North Dakota to a sweep of Wisconsin. He was also named 1st star of the night for Saturday's game.
Jason Clark did not play this weekend for Wisconsin.
Scott Mayfield had an assist and was -1 as Denver swept Anchorage, Alaska.
Cody Rosen did not play.
Finnish Loans & Trust
Mikko Koskinen played one game this week. In 15 games he's 8-3-2 with a 1.92 GAA and .932 SV%. Koskinen is still struggling a bit though.
Jesse Joensuu has 10 goals and 11 assists in 37 games.
Johan Sundstrom played 3 games this week and had 2 goals and on the season he has 5 goals and 2 assists in 38 games.