| 08 October 2011
The Providence Bruins lost their home opener in decisive fashion Friday night, falling 4-1 to the St. John's Ice Caps. The newly minted AHL team ran through a young Providence defense in fine fashion, while Providence looked lost and in disarray for the majority of the game.
"Opening night at home can work against you sometimes, but that's not an excuse. They were better than us, they wanted it more than us and it showed, and that's why they won," said Coach Bruce Cassidy after the game.
Lane Macdermid skates against the St. John's Ice Caps on Friday.
Mark Flood scored the first goal of the franchise for the Ice Caps a mere 1:15 into the first period to open the scoring. The game seemed to even out three minutes later, when Maxime Sauve put one past netminder David Aebischer for the first goal of Providence's season. But from there, the Ice Caps dominated.
The P-Bruins managed a mere ten shots on goal in the final forty minutes, while allowing Paul Postma, Carl Klingberg, and Ice Caps Captain Jason Jaffray to score. Jaffray's goal sealed the deal in embarrassing fashion, a shorthanded bid at 1:46 of the third period. For the remainder of the third, the teams seemed to focus more on getting in each others' faces rather than scoring.
A lethal combination of nerves and inexperience took a toll tonight. Without their two top, experienced defensemen, the P-Bruins blatantly struggled on the back end. David Warsofsky in particular had a bad night, on ice for three goals against. Providence was unable to sustain any sort of attack, giving up bad turnovers on sloppy passes all night. Goaltender Anton Khudobin had a fair game stopping 23 of 27 shots; without a solid defense in front of him, he made all the clean saves, and at least two of the goals against were the result of a lot of St. John's traffic in front of the net.
"We weren't clean tonight getting out of our end; you saw it, everyone saw it," said Cassidy. "It made it tough for our forwards to get anything going, so as a result we had no sustained pressure, no sustained attack. We didn't execute well and part of that goes to the D for not making their plays and part of that goes to the forwards for not handling their passes and becoming available."
"I know there are guys in the room that we're counting on [this year] that will play better," Cassidy added, and they have two days to figure it out - the P-Bruins will take on the Worcester Sharks at home at the Dunkin' Donuts Center on Sunday.
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