ALBANY — Things both started and ended well for the Albany River Rats in their 16th American Hockey League opener Saturday night at the Times Union Center.

It was the in-between that proved costly.

Bridgeport scored four unanswered goals, two of them coming on the power play, for a 4-2 victory that spoiled Albany’s and first-year head coach-GM Jeff Daniels’ reg­ular-season debut before a crowd of 7,039.

“There were times when I thought we really took the play to them, especially at the end there,” Rats winger and Cohoes native Marc Cavosie said. “We showed a lot of good things, but we also showed how young and inexper­ienced we were by making mental lapses. We had some breakdowns in our systems, and they took advantage.”

Dwight Helminen, centering Albany’s top forward line with Cavosie and Jakub Petruzalek, set up defenseman Mark Flood for the Rats’ first goal of the season, a short-handed tally with 5:43 left in the first period for a 1-0 lead.

Helminen reached behind prone Bridgeport goaltender Yann Danis to poke a loose puck in off the goal line to make it a 4-2 game midway through the third period, by far Albany’s best of the night.

“That’s the way we’ve got to play for 60 minutes,” Helminen said. “We were winning battles, winning races for the puck. That’s the kind of intensity we’ve got to have from the start.”

Bridgeport, which opened its season with a 2-1 loss at Philadelphia Friday night, got a five-on-three power-play goal from Kurtis McLean with 15.4 seconds left in the first period.

Trevor Smith made it 2-1 on the first of his two goals midway through the second, left alone to bang in Mike Iggulden’s backhander that floated in front and bounced over the stick of Rats defenseman Jonathan Paiement.

Eleven seconds after killing off an Albany power play, the Sound

Tigers extended their lead when Tyler Haskins cut to the net around Flood, deked Rats goalie Justin

Peters and tucked a shot around his left pad.

“Unfortunately, we had a few mental lapses and they put a few in,” Flood said. “The crowd was awesome. They were into it; it’s too bad we couldn’t get a couple more goals and get a win for them.”

Bridgeport put the game out of reach 2:48 into the third period. Nick Dodge was able to knock the puck away from Jeremy Colliton in the slot, but it went right to a wide open Smith, who had the whole net for another power-play goal.

“I thought we played hard in the third,” Daniels said. “The first two periods, we did a lot of lazy things, a lot of lazy penalties. We made a lot of soft plays along the boards, lost a lot of one-on-one battles and we gave them a lot of their scoring opportunities by just not being strong enough on the puck. It’s something we’re going to work on through video and on the ice, and we’ll correct those mistakes.”

NOTEBOOK

Albany slipped to 7-7-2 all-time in season openers, and 2-2 at home. The Rats also began the season on home ice in 1995 (won) 1999 (lost) and 2004 (won). . . . Albany does not play again until Oct. 17 at the Glens Falls Civic Center. .

Bridgeport 1 2 1 — 4

Albany 1 0 1 — 2

First period — 1, Albany, Flood 1 (Helminen, Dodge), 14:17 (sh). 2, Bridgeport, McLean 1 (Iggulden, MacDonald), 19:44 (pp). Penalties — Hennigar, Bpt (high-sticking), 2:12; Wotton, Bpt (holding), 5:50; Flood, Alb (holding), 11:25; Carson, Alb (holding), 13:30; MacDonald, Bpt (tripping), 16:52; Borer, Alb (tripping), 18:06; Rodney, Alb (hooking), 19:29.

Second period — 3, Bridgeport, Smith 1 (Iggulden, McLean), 9:33. 4, Bridgeport, Haskins 1 (Kohn), 17:43. Penalties — Colliton, Bpt (hooking), 6:11; Rodney, Alb (cross-checking), 11:01; Joensuu, Bpt (interference), 15:32; Reed, Alb (cross-checking), 18:16; Jackman, Bpt (interference), 19:33.

Third period — 5, Bridgeport, Smith 2 (Colliton), 2:48 (pp). 6, Albany,. Helminen 1 (Dwyer, Cavosie), 9:04 (pp). Penalties — Angelidis, Alb (holding), :51; Pitton, Bpt major (fighting), 7:31; Weston, Alb major (fighting), 7:31; Jackman, Bpt (slashing), 7:58.

Shots on goal — Bridgeport 10-10-9 — 29. Albany 11-9-12 — 32.

Goalies — Bridgeport, Danis 1-1 (32 shots-30 saves). Albany, Peters 0-1 (29-25).

Power-play opportunities — Bridgeport 2 of 8. Albany 1 of 8.

A — 7,039. T — 2:17.

Referee — Nygel Pelletier. Linesmen — Steeve Lemay, Jim Harper.