Sound Tigers enjoy rare three-minute shift in offensive zone
BRIDGEPORT — He doesn’t want to overextend his stay on the ice, but to start the third period of Sunday’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers game against Lehigh Valley, Tanner Fritz got caught out there awhile.
“I don’t think the staff likes it that much,” Fritz said Thursday after practice at the Wonderland of Ice. “I came back, they were like, ‘you were out there for three minutes.’ I was like, oh, boy.”
This time, it couldn’t be helped.
After Steve Bernier’s backcheck helped force a turnover, the Sound Tigers’ Chris Bourque crossed the Phantoms blue line with the puck 21 seconds into the period. Bourque’s rightwing shot seconds later was the first of five Bridgeport put on goalie Carter Hart before the puck left the Lehigh Valley zone again at the 3:10 mark.
“We knew we really wanted to win that game. It meant a lot to our team and the coaching staff. We wanted to come out and set the tone for the third period. I’ve never seen a shift like that,” said Ryan Hitchcock, one of two Sound Tigers who came on the ice during the shift but departed before the puck did.
“I think I hopped out for the left wing about a minute into the shift or something like that. I remember changing and guys from the original group were still out there, so that was kind of funny, them coming to the bench after me.”
Fritz, who won the opening faceoff, was the only Sound Tiger on the ice for the full 3:10 of the third in a game that Bridgeport won in overtime.
Three Phantoms were caught out the whole time, forward Taylor Leier (who helped teammate Phil Varone, finally, force the turnover that got the puck clear) and defensemen Philippe Myers and Zach Palmquist. They managed to get forwards Colin McDonald and German Rubtsov to the bench 2:20 in while Bridgeport’s Kieffer Bellows and Mike Sislo battled the defense for the puck behind the Lehigh Valley net.
“We just buzzing around the zone. The puck just kept spitting back out to us when we would lose it. I had to be in there for two minutes at least,” said Bridgeport defenseman Parker Wotherspoon, who was, before changing in favor of Devon Toews at about 2:05.
Bourque, Bernier and Sebastian Aho were on for a little over a minute, replaced by Hitchcock, Sislo and Kyle Burroughs. Hitchcock played 40 seconds (“I’d had a full shift,” he said) and went off for Bellows. Burroughs departed after a little over a minute for Mitch Vande Sompel.
“You have a mental clock in your head of how long your shifts should be,” Wotherspoon said. “When it’s going that well, you don’t want to leave. I felt good.”
It helped that it was the start of the period, so players were fresh.
“It’d be nice to replicate that shift every shift, night in, night out. Guys were relentless on the puck,” coach Brent Thompson said. “The point was we had that constant movement. We used the whole zone. The (defensemen) were active along the blue line.”
Though the players we asked didn’t point to any particular memorable moment in the shift, Thompson mentioned a chance about 40 seconds in for Bernier, in front for Fritz’s shot, digging for the rebound and getting it back toward the blue line, where Fritz corralled it.
“When we got the retrieval and kicked it back low-tohigh,” Thompson said, “you knew right there we were going to be out there a little longer.”
Some players recalled being part of similar shifts. Bellows said he had a shift three seasons ago with National Team Development Program linemates Clayton Keller and Joey Anderson when they kept a USHL junior team hemmed in for five minutes.
Defensemen, particularly in the second period, can be caught out for long stretches if their team doesn’t get the puck deep and let them change. It’s still rare.
“It’s fun watching the guys do that. The guys are so talented,” Burroughs said.