(Picture credit: Bridgeport Sound Tigers)
First things first, I sincerely wonder how many times the Sound Tigers have had to read a title with the phrase "Silence the Sound Tigers" in it. Considering they're last place in the Atlantic Division, I'm going to assume this is not the first time. Certainly is fitting however, as the Bruins blanked the Tigers 5-0 last night at the Dunk, in Max Lagace's fourth shutout of the season.
The Bruins came in hot with an electric first period, one head coach Jay Leach called the team's "best start of the year." In his fifth goal of the season (though he only held onto that 5-goal mark for a hot second), Brendan Gaunce got the Bruins on the board in an early power play, assisted by Alex Petrovic and rookie Oskar Steen. The B's kept it rollin' in the first, dominating the offensive zone. They played a sharp first period, with fast and smart puck movement and an impressive ability to clear the puck on the rare occasions the Tigers found themselves able to maybe make something happen. By the time Ryan Fitzgerald buried his 6th goal of the season top shelf at 13:18, the Bruins were outshooting the Sound Tigers 10 to 2. Tough scene. The final five minutes of the period saw a bit more action defensively for the B's, however the Tigers struggled to follow through any time they found themselves in attacking position. Lagace saved their one solid shot on goal in the last few minutes of the period, and though the Tigers finally seemed to have a little more pep in their step, they simply could not get the job done in the first period. In what would be one of two goals scored in the final two minutes of a period by the Bruins, smart puck movement by Robert Lantosi and Jakub Zboril led the puck to the stick of Gaunce once again, who scored his 2nd goal of the game with just 53 seconds left in the period, following a successful penalty kill.
With such an impressive first period, the Bruins who have struggled so far this season with consistency during games certainly did not seem to struggle with carrying their strong start into the second period. The Tigers replaced Gibson in the net with Jared Coreau, who coming into last night's game, had 6 regulation losses on his record and 1 OT loss. The Bruins came out hot, immediately attacking the net. Defensively they were proactive, thanks to nicely-timed shifts to ensure everyone was on their A-game. As if the B's weren't dominating these sad Tigers enough, Trent Frederic took the gloves off and made Seth Helgeson put his money where his mouth is after some unnecessary hits to his linemates. Evidently the fight lit a fire under Frederic, who shorthanded his first goal of the season about 7 minutes later, making it a 4-0 game. Needless to say, I am even more of a Trent Frederic stan than I was before. The Bruins played a much more heated and aggressive defense for the remainder of the second period, resulting in a penalty for Wiley Sherman for tripping with about 2 minutes left in the period. Yet again the B's found themselves in a penalty kill with limited time left in the period, however the stakes of course this time around were not as high as they were in the first, with the Tigers up against a 4-goal deficit. No matter, they did it again, this time on the penalty kill. For the second time in the game with less than 2 minutes left in the period, the Bruins score making it 5-0. Jack Studnika shorthands it, giving him points in 6 of 7 games and scoring now in 3 straight games. Five to zero.