Charlotte Checkmates Bridgeport in Regular Season Finale

The Bridgeport Sound Tigers fell to the Charlotte Checkers, 4-1, on
Sunday. The Sound Tigers failed to qualify for the postseason for the
eighth time in the past 12 seasons and now will head for the links before
reconvening for the 2018-19 season in the fall. (Photo courtesy
soundtigers.com)

BRIDGEPORT—Everyone has heard the time-honored adage about the month of March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb. Well, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers did their best imitation of the month of March this season, dropping their final five games of the 2017-18 season, culminating with a 4-1 loss to the Charlotte Checkers before an announced crowd of 4,695 fans at the Webster Bank Arena on Sunday. The Checkers are the American Hockey League affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes—or, as Connecticut hockey diehards prefer to call them, the team formerly known as the Hartford Whalers.

A quick glance at the score makes this one look like a rout for the Checkers. It was not. Down 2-1 late in the third period, Bridgeport head coach Brent Thompson opted to pull goaltender Christopher Gibson to gain a 6-5 advantage in skaters. However, that strategy backfired as Charlotte ended the game with two empty-net goals in the last minute to create the three-goal margin of victory. Warren Foegele scored twice for the Checkers, while Gibson stopped 28 or the 30 shots he faced.

Bridgeport broke out to an early lead when Josh Ho-Sang skated along the left boards towards the blue line. Ho-Sang found Tyler Mueller, who fired a slap shot at the Charlotte goal that was stopped by Checkers netminder Jeremy Smith. But Kellen Jones, the former Quinnipiac star who was camped in front of the goal screening Smith, gathered the puck and snapped it in for his fourth goal of the season—and his second against the Checkers.

It would turn out to be the Sound Tigers’ only goal of the game, however… and they’re last goal of the season.

The Checkers responded less than seven minutes later while on a 5-on-3. Following penalties to Travis St. Denis (tripping) and Ben Holmstrom (boarding), Lucas Wallmark found Trevor Carrick between the circles with less than 10 seconds remaining on the two-man advantage. Carrick sent a wrister that beat Gibson top shelf to knot the score at one goal apiece. It was Carrick's 11th goal—and his fourth power-play tally—of the season.

Charlotte took the lead for good at 2:30 of the second period. Foegele received a pass from Patrick Brown on the right side before he skated behind the Bridgeport net. The rookie forward fought to keep possession along the end boards before digging puck out in front of the goal and sending forehand shot over Gibson's shoulder to make it 2-1.

And that’s the way it stood until late in the third period when Thompson gambled with an empty net only to hand freebies over to Charlotte’s Julien Gauthier and Foegele in the final minute of regulation. It was the 28th marker of the season for Foegele, which ranks second among all first-year players in the AHL.

The Sound Tigers finished 0-for-2 on the power play, but also killed off seven of eight Charlotte power play opportunities. The Checkers outshot the Tigers 32-20, while Smith (13-13-1) made 19 saves.

The Sound Tigers ended the season at 36-32-5-3, 15 points out of the fourth and final playoff spot. Meanwhile, the Checkers, who battled the Tigers for the No. 4 playoff spot in the Atlantic Division through February (the top four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs in the AHL) finished the regular season on a 9-0-1 run and passed Providence for the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division. A 1-7-0-1 stretch in February proved to be particularly brutal for Bridgeport, which was officially eliminated from the playoff hunt with four games remaining. The Checkers move on to play the No. 2 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the best-of-five first round of the Calder Cup playoffs.

Not making the postseason “doesn’t feel good,” said Holmstrom, who played in all 76 games this season. “You play 70-plus games, you want to play right now in April, not to be packing up and going home.

“I don’t think the feeling in the locker room is overwhelmingly happy,” continued the Sound Tigers’ captain. “We wanted to be in the playoffs and make a run. We felt we had something.”

Whatever it was the Tigers had, it wasn’t enough to propel them into the postseason as Bridgeport finished out of the playoffs for the second year in a row—and for eighth time in the past 12 seasons. The four times they did qualify during this stretch, the Sound Tigers were bounced in the first round.

But even though the Sound Tigers had nothing to play for but pride (while the Checkers needed one point to clinch the No.3 seed), they nonetheless played their hearts out on Sunday.

“We had guys blocking shots, guys standing up for each other,” said Thompson. “We have a tight-knit group. It’s probably the hardest-working team I’ve been fortunate to coach. The results didn’t always play out like we wanted.”

—with staff reports