Islanders face elimination after wild double-OT loss to Checkers

Considering what was on the line, the wild first period and the rollercoaster first overtime, it had to be among the craziest games in Bridgeport’s 21 AHL seasons.

Down a game in the Atlantic Division semifinals and down four goals early in Game 2 on Thursday at

Total Mortgage Arena, the Bridgeport Islanders came back to tie it twice.

But Zac Dalpe’s goal 3:36 into double-overtime completed a hat trick and gave the Charlotte Checkers a 7-6 victory and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-5 series.

The rest of the series, however long it may take, will be played in Charlotte, N.C. Game 3 is Saturday afternoon.

Dalpe scored on wrist shot from the top of the left circle on a two-on-one rush to end the third-longest game in Bridgeport Sound Tigers/Islanders history. Checkers goalie Joey Daccord had stopped a rightcircle shot from Bridgeport’s Seth Helgeson seconds earlier.

Each team had an apparent goal waved off in the first nine minutes of overtime because of contact with the goalie.

After falling behind 4-0, Bridgeport scored its first two goals in 16 seconds (Simon Holmstrom and Michael Dal Colle) and its first three in 53 (Kyle MacLean

short-handed), just shy of the team record for both.

Charlotte boosted its lead to 5-3 late in the first on a two-man advantage, making it the first eight-goal period in a Calder Cup Playoff game since April 17, 1998, when the Hartford Wolf Pack turned a 3-0 Beast of New Haven lead into a 7-4 win at the then-Hartford Civic Center.

Bridgeport coach Brent Thompson had the primary assist on Pierre Sevigny’s game-winner that night.

Austin Czarnik tied a Bridgeport playoff record with four points, in on each of the Islanders’ last three goals in regulation.

He scored on a two-onone with Chris Terry in the second to cut the Charlotte lead to 5-4. He assisted on Terry’s goal that tied it at 5 after Holmstrom forced a turnover.

And after Charlotte’s Connor Bunnaman put the Checkers ahead again early in the third, Czarnik had the primary assist on Robin Salo’s power-play goal through Andy Andreoff ’s screen.

Bridgeport had never played a playoff game with more than 10 combined goals.

Bridgeport goalie Jakub Skarek made his North American playoff debut. It wasn’t planned.

In the first minute of the game, starting Bridgeport goalie Cory Schneider played a puck with a Checker forechecking. The Islanders turned it over and Dalpe put it in 53 seconds into the game.