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April 6, 2007

P-Bruins lose 4-3 in shootout

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The Providence Bruins strengthened their hold on an Atlantic Division playoff berth, last night, even with their 4-3 shootout loss to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before 3,667 at the Arena at Harbor Yard.

Bridgeport won the shootout, 2-1, but nonetheless, the P-Bruins, who erased a pair of third period deficits, took home a valuable point.

That result, coupled with the 3-1 loss handed the fifth place Lowell Devils by the Manchester Monarchs, cuts the P-Bruins magic number to seven.

The opening period was scoreless, although Providence , showed plenty of jump from the outset, outshooting the Tigers 11-3.

Dennis Packard had the best scoring opportunity of the period, when, at 7:55, Nate Thompson sent him away on a clean, shorthanded breakaway.

Packard rolled in on Bridgeport goalie Billy Thompson, and tried to tuck the puck between his skates, but couldn’t jam it home.

The P-Bruins’ lot took a sharp down turn in the second period, when the Sound Tigers scored twice on P-Bruin goalie Hannu Toivonen, who had been sent back to the club, yesterday, after a brief, two-game stay with Boston.

Mark Wotton’s wraparound stuffer inside the left post at 4:35 gave Bridgeport a 1-0 lead.

That was followed at 14:49, but Gregg Johnson’s drive from the right point through a screen that came moments after Bridgeport’s Rick Berry rang the post from the left point.

The P-Bruins regained their footing, and generated two dangerous chances in the final 1:28 of the period, the first of which was a breakaway by Sean Bentivoglio that Thompson fended off.

The other came with 54 seconds left, when team captain Jay Leach tried to jam the puck past Thompson. It appeared that Thompson might have taken the puck across the goal line with him as he fell into his net. But referee Francois St. Laurent emphatically waved the play off, and the red goal light never was lit.

That surge carried into the third period, and it led to a pair of P-Bruin goals in a span of 2:29 -- by Bentivoglio and T.J. Trevelyan --, which knotted the score, 2-2.
Wotton scored his second of the game to make it 3-2 at 6:14.

But with Providence working a 5-on-3 man advantage, Bentivoglio scored again, shoveling in his fourth of the year at 11:34, to tie the game again, 3-3.

DAN HICKLING -- Special to the Journal

Posted by Thom Cahir  at 10:39 PM to P-Bruins | Permalink

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