AHL Bridgeport Islanders

Penguins beat Tigers, 5-3

February 1, 2008 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Bridgeport Islanders News Release


Jeff Tambellini scored two goals against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins but it was not enough for the Sound Tigers, who suffered the defeat to the Penguins 5-3, ending their three-game winning streak.

The Penguins have one of the loudest crowd's in the American Hockey League but the Sound Tigers stuck to the game-plan and kept them out of it for the first 10 minutes of the first period. Sound Tigers' starting goalie, Mike Morrison kept Wilkes-Barre/Scranton off the board until the Sound Tigers misplayed a breakout at the 15-minute mark of the opening frame. Penguins' forward Chris Minard walked in from the right point and wristed a shot past Morrison's blocker, for the 1-0 lead. Ryan Lannon had the only assist on Minard's 19th goal of the season.

Two minutes into the second period, Minard took an interference penalty putting the Sound Tigers on the first power-play of the game. The team's first unit jumped onto the ice and took advantage of the odd-man opportunity on Ben Walter's 14th goal of the season. Tambellini set the play up from the right wall and sent a cross-ice pass to Fans Nielsen at the left point. Nielsen took a quick look and fired a pass to the back-door where Walter redirected the puck past Penguins' starting net-minder, John Curry to tie the score at 1-1. It only took Wilkes-Barre/Scranton about two minutes to regain their lead when J.M. Daoust finished a pretty tic-tac-toe play with center-man, Kurtis McLean to make the score 2-1. The Sound Tigers went back on the man-advantage when Daoust was sent to the penalty box for hooking. AHL leading goal scorer, Tambellini increased his league lead to 27 on a nice feed from Nielsen. Kyle Okposo won the puck along the boards behind Curry and chipped the puck to Nielsen. Before Curry could move, Nielsen snapped a hard pass to Tambellini in the right circle who one-timed the puck past Curry's outstretched pad to knot the game at two.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton would grab the lead with three goals to close the period with a 5-2 lead. Tim Brent scored his eighth goal of the season on assists from Minard and Alex Goligoski at 8:14 making the score 3-2. Only 32 seconds later, the Penguins made it 4-2 on a goal by the newest member of the team, Dave Gove, who was traded from the Albany River Rats yesterday. Daoust and McLean assisted on the Gove tally, his ninth of the season. Tim Wallace would make it 5-2 with his seventh goal of the season with the lone assist coming from former Sound Tiger, Kyle Rank at 16:11 o the middle frame.

In the third period, Tambellini would add one more goal, his 28th of the season. Andy Sertich saucered a wrist shot towards Curry and Tambellini tipped the puck down and through the goaltender's legs to finish the scoring at 5-3 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Morrison suffered the loss, making 30 saves on 35 Penguin shots and his counter-part, Curry had 23 saves on 26 shots. The Sound Tigers finished 2-for-4 on the power-play and 3-for-4 on the penalty-kill.

The Sound Tigers will travel home to Bridgeport tonight before jumping back on the bus tomorrow to take on the Hartford Wolf Pack at the Xcel Center, face-off scheduled for 7 p.m.

Check out the Bridgeport Islanders Statistics



American Hockey League Stories from February 1, 2008


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central