Two games this week for Bridgeport, winning a rout on Friday and dropping a close game last night. They are still on a winning streak while away from BP. They are tied for first in their division with Connecticut, but currently hold the tiebreaker with 2 more wins. Despite being first in the division, they are still a bubble team for the playoffs as their 51 points would have them tied for 7th. The two teams tied for 9th both have 51 points so far on the season. Casey Cizikas has also taken over 3rd place in rookie points, and his +22 is 3rd overall in the AHL.
Friday February 3rd Vs Portland (Phoenix)
Bridgeport came out and scored a goal from David Ullstrom (Kael Mouillierat, Micheal Haley) 23 seconds into the game to set the pace. Portland scored less then two minutes later, but that was as close as they would come. Tony Romano (Cizikas, Tyler McNeely) scored with four minutes left in the first to get the lead back. Tomas Marcinko (Trevor Frischmon) scored BP's 3rd goal on 11 shots chasing Portland's Justin Pogge from the net. Marcinko has career highs in goals (6) and points (13) this year. Justin DiBenedetto got the next two goals (Frischmon) (Scott Howes) for BP. Portland got one back before Tony Romano (Cizikas, Matt Donovan) closed out scoring. Stars of the game were 1. Dibo, 2. Frischmon and 3. Romano. [Haley Vs Hollweg] [Donovan Vs Pouliot] [Olesky Vs Werek]
Saturday Feburary 4th Vs Manchester (Los Angeles)
Manchester has been one of the best teams in the AHL, and it's always a tough game for BP. BP never had the lead in this game, as Manchester jumped out to a 1-0 lead with a PP goal early in the first. Ty Wishart (Howes, Jeremy Colliton) scored to tie things up a few minutes later. Two Manchester goals late in the 2nd and early 3rd put things out of reach for BP despite Haley's (Cizikas, Jon Landry) 5th goal of the year. Kevin Poulin was 2nd star of the game with a 26 save on 29 shot performance. Cizikas' assist continues his now 7 game point streak and he has points in 14 of his last 15 games. [Highlights] [Gillies Vs Johnson] [Gentile Vs Mullen]
Bridgeport Twitters
For those of you who are on twitter and might be interested, this is a list of twitter names of Bridgeport players.
David Ullstrom
Dylan Reese
Steven Olesky
Brett Gallant
Tyler McNeely
Rhett Rhakhshani
Aaron Ness
Sean Backman
Justin DiBenedetto
Matt Donovan
Kevin Poulin
Natural Born Kirills
Kirill Petrov played 3 games this week and scored 1 goal and 2 assists; on the season he has 15 goals, 11 assists for 26 points in 48 games.
Kirill Kabanov had no points in 2 games this week. In 35 games he has 16 goals, 21 assists.
CHL
Ryan Strome is still out, but should be back soon. Mitchell Theoret had 1 assist in 3 games.
John Persson had a goal and 2 assists in 3 games this week for the Red Deer. In 51 games played he has 19 goals and 28 assists.
Brenden Kichton had a goal and 2 assists in 4 games this week. He was also named 3rd star of the night for his 1 goal, 1 assist game against Seattle. In 51 games he has 12 goals and 41 assists.
Not only did Andrei Pedan not get a penalty in one of his two games this week, he actually notched himself an assist. In 42 games he has 7 goals, 15 assists and 104 PIM. [Highlight including Pedan Assist]
Hit the Books*: NCAA
*Eaton 601 is popular
Anders Lee had 2 assists as Notre Dame split their series with Bowling Green this weekend. One of Lee's assists was on Robbie Russo's goal in the Saturday night game. Lee has 14 goals and 15 assists and Russo has 4 goals and 10 assists as both players hit the 30 game mark.
Brock Nelson and North Dakota were off this weekend. Nelson has 19 goals and 12 assists in 27 games.
Jason Clark played one of two games for Wisconsin this weekend, no points. He has 0 points through 15 games.
No points this weekend for Scott Mayfield whose Denver team split the weekend with Colorado College. Mayfield has 6 points through 27 games.
Cody Rosen did not play this week.
Finnish Loans & Trust
Mikko Koskinen played 2 games this week. In 17 games he has a 2.25 GAA, .919 SV% and an 8-4-3 record.
Jesse Joensuu has 10 goals and 12 assists through 40 games.
Johan Sundstrom played 3 games this week and had no points. On the season he has 5 goals and 2 assists in 38 games.
A quick note: Brian Day, 2006 6th round pick by the Islanders who graduated Colgate this year (and set some scoring records with them) announced his retirement. He played a short stint with BP to finish last season, and was impressive enough at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AHL) training camp to make the roster. He was sent down to Wheeling of the ECHL for whom he played 10 games. He has a business degree so his after hockey career should be fine.
Interested in learning more about the #1 prospect, Nail Yakupov in the upcoming draft? LHH user Kevin Corey wrote up a short profile and video post you can read here.