To quote Commander Lovell: Bridgeport...We have a problem...

I've been thinking about this post since Tuesday nights Bridgeport loss and watching the game tweeted by the Sound Tiger's great Twitter feed. The 3-2 Shoot-out loss to the Providence Bruins continued an alarming trend I've noticed over the last few weeks: Bridgeport's offense has vaporized. Right now, no player on the Bridgeport roster has 25 points; though on the season Rhett Rhakshani has 32 points (he currently is with the Islanders out with a concussion, likely knocking him out of the AHL All-star Game, not to self: check on that) so it can't be all bad right; well no.

Bridgeport's current top scoring trio are Robin Figren, David Ullstrom and Micheal Haley. First the good news: Haley and Figren are having their best years in the AHL, Figren and Ullstrom are picks that are showing promise to be able to help the big squad at some point, and Ullstrom is making his '08 4th round selection look really nice. Now, the bad news (and it's a lot): Figren and Haley are the only two active double digit goal scorers (11 and 12, respectively), The Sound Tigers aren't shooting the puck, no other lines are really clicking, and the team is wasting HUGE Goaltending performances. It's a shame since the organization needs to focus on making winning a priority at every affiliate during this rebuild.

My biggest issue: the team isn't shooting the puck. Tuesday night the team had 17 shots against Providence, against Norfolk over the weekend: 28 on Saturday, 17 on Sunday. In their last three games Bridgeport has only scored 6 goals (losing 5-2, Koskinen's 6th straight loss, 3-2 and 3-2, respectively). Bridgeport's on a nasty 8 game slide where just about everything's gone wrong, but if you cant get shots on net, you're not going to score a lot of goals. It hasn't help that no one has stepped up for Bridgeport during this streak to carry the offense. Since a 3-2 win over Portland on New Years Eve (Kevin Poulin's last start for the team), the team has only scored 3 goals twice. for the most part the goalies have kept Bridgeport in every game except for a 5-3 loss on 1/5 and the 5-2 loss last Friday in Norwalk.

GM Garth Snow (why is the team's GM also the GM at Bridgeport; tough to get a feel for the day to day from Uniondale...the Isles need to hire a GM solely for Bridgeport to handle personnel moves) has been hard pressed to find offense for his struggling Bridgeport team from anywhere. Having recalled Josh Bailey, Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rahkshani in recent weeks, Bridgeport has to rely heavily on two guys (Figren and Haley) who've never produced this much at the level and a Rookie. Now, I'm all for giving guys opportunities, but with the team struggling the way it is, it's tough to observe.

I'm reading post game reports, so being subjective about a select game is impossible, but the problem seems to be that the Sound Tigers do not have enough talent to overcome the lack of capable scoring up front. Draftees Tomas Marcinko and Justin DiBenedetto have put up bad numbers so far this year. In his second full season "DiBo" has 5 points in 23 games, 4 goals and only one helper, last year DiBo put up six goals and 8 assists in 67 games, so he's not on the best of paces. Marcinko has been better with 9 points including 7 assists, he now trails his rookie output by two points in 18 fewer games (he's played 40 games so far this year). Draftees fizzling doesn't bode well. Even players added through PTOs have had a rough go: Olivier LaBelle has 5 points in 27 games (on his second PTO) as an energy type forward; Jason Pitton, in his third go in the AHL THIS season has picked up a goal in 3 games, but I am not expecting much from him; C/D Dustin Friesen has 3 points in 17 for the Sound Tigers and lined up with D Brett Motherwell and F Jean Bourbeau as a line against Wilkes-Barre last week; the best PTO signing for the Sound Tigers has been Brandon Svendsen who has notched 12 points in 32 games; finally PTO signee and affiliate climber Brady Leisenring has no points through 4 matches this year (but has a total of 14 points through 18 games for Odessa, 4 games, and Kalamazoo, 14, this season.

Bridgeport BADLY needs a scorer, maybe giving C Justin Taylor (21 Points in 22 games including 14 goals) another look as he's responded well to his ice time with Kalamazoo. They could also look at K-Zoo vet Kory Karlander (38 Points) or any of the K-Wings top Scorers. They could also look to Odessa, but the current Roster isn't up to snuff and Bridgeport needs a GM of it's own to handle these decisions.

I know this sounds repetitive, but if you're building through the draft and can't easily rely on Free Agents, you NEED your affiliates to be strong and have your prospects confident that they can win just about anywhere.