Bridgeport's Late Comeback Falls Short

The ECHL newcomers connected for a goal, and Johan Sundstrom added another to continue his quietly good season, but the combination was not enough to erase a 3-0 hole in the Bridgeport Sound Tigers 3-2 home loss to the Adirondack Phantoms.

By all accounts, the Sound Tigers had quality play -- and shots and scoring chances -- on their side, but the hockey gods do not always accept such gestures.

The hockey gods did smile upon ECHL linemates and new PTO's Jack Combs and Chad Costello, who got the Sound Tigers on the board in their debuts. That one did not come until there was under seven minutes to play in the game, igniting a two-in-27-seconds spurt that carried on to a frenzied final push to tie the game. It wasn't to be.

LINES (including Sandy Hook names)

22 Nino Niederreiter (Kowalski) – 11 Casey Cizikas (A) (Pozner) – 13 Colin McDonald (C) (McDonnell)
23 John Persson (Engel) – 28 Johan Sundstrom (Hubbard) – 24 David Ullstrom (Rekos)
5 Jack Combs (Gay) – 18 Chad Costello (Pinto) – 42 Brandon DeFazio (Wyatt)
44 Brett Gallant (Wheeler) – 14 Matt Watkins (Richman) – 20 Blair Riley (Lewis)

46 Matt Donovan (Previdi) – 6 Ty Wishart (Mattioli)
27 Aaron Ness (Hsu) – 8 Nathan McIver (Bacon)
25 Jordan Hill (Barden) – 7 Jon Landry (A) (Hockley)

45 Anders Nilsson (Parker)
38 Kevin Poulin (Marquez-Greene)

Coverage

• Post: Nice thoughts from players on the Sandy Hook tribute | Game recap on missed chances | A little more on the Soundin' Off blog
• Beautiful shot of the locker room with all the jerseys hanging, nameplates of the victims in place. (Many more photos on Facebook here)
  
• Official site recap
• Box score | Game sheet
• Phil Giubileo has thoughts and several play-by-play audio excerpts, including Brett Gallant's two victorious fights.
  

Well, have a great holiday. Thanks for hanging around. The next Bridgeport dates are a Dec. 26-27 home-and-home with Connecticut. But we'll have much more* between now and then.

*Alas, "more" does not include NHL hockey.