Soundin' Off

Remember Ryan Kinasewich? Keeping things in the family, the Sound Tigers are bringing Utah’s captain in, the ECHL transactions reveal.

Kinasewich leads the ECHL in scoring at 32-39-71 in 41 games, two points ahead of each of Elmira’s Donati twins, Justin and Tyler. His ECHL scoring credentials are impeccable; his career AHL line reads 66 games, 6-9-15. He had a five-game cup of coffee with Hamilton earlier this season, with no points and a minus-3*.

And at 6-2, 205, he brings some of the size Jack Capuano was talking about earlier.

*-If you put stock into forwards’ plus/minus numbers — heck, anyone’s — he’s minus-19 this year in Utah. For his AHL career, he’s a plus-1, and his minus-2 in Bridgeport is his only other AHL-stint cumulative minus.

Meanwhile, come here at 1:30 tomorrow for the weekly chat.

The boys had their rookie party last night, and with a few days between games, they had a short skate in the afternoon followed by a little four-on-four fun. I’m guessing today’s combinations didn’t mean much, with Jesse Joensuu and Matt Martin up with the Islanders. Jack Capuano said he’s planning on a call-up, but he didn’t get specific except to say that, with two bigger bodies taken to the NHL, he’ll probably want some size to come up from the ECHL, as well.

Dominik at Lighthouse Hockey did up an interesting table of various players’ first games under Scott Gordon.

Katie Strang reports that Matt Martin and Jesse Joensuu are going up after good games for both of them last night. Whatever mojo they helped create for Bridgeport last night, maybe they can bring it to the Island, where the big club has, um, gone eight games without scoring three goals.

Saturday’s attendance: 5,386.

Attendance on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006: 5,386.

Bridgeport’s record after Saturday: 23-21-3-6.

Bridgeport’s record after Jan. 29, 2006: 23-21-3…-2.

Close.

(One guy played in both games… Had a few more points tonight.)

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Unrelatedly, check out this 46 seconds for Binghamton.

Well, that was different.

Jesse Joensuu started things with authority. Manchester came right back and tied it. There were all kinds of swings: secondary scoring from Robin Figren, a little luck with David Kolomatis’ stick breaking to set up the Joensuu goal, the three Manchester goals in a row, the three Bridgeport goals in a row.

The result was their best offensive performance of the season, a crucial win and something to build on during a week off.

Oh, yeah, and the fights weren’t bad, either.

“They let everyone know that everybody was in it,” Greg Mauldin said. “Those guys don’t get enough credit, sometimes.”

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Postgame word: Mark Katic will probably see a doctor this week about the shoulder. In the meantime, Mauldin played the point with Flood at five-on-four. “I didn’t know I’d be skating quite that much,” Mauldin said. “It’s a good way to stay in shape. … I’m amazed at how much room there was.” Capuano said he liked the way that fit together.

I’ve got a second source, BTW: more sure than ever that Smith’s goal Friday was scored at 16:03, not 16:23 as it is on the box.

Biron had his shaky moments but made up for them with that six-on-four scramble at the end. He made six saves in the last 3:04. “I told the boys, right before, this was a lot of fun to come here and play, to be here four or five days,” Biron said. It was a little like getting back to his roots, he said. “I enjoyed it.”

Speaking of that six-on-four, forgot to ask Mauldin, but it appeared he hadn’t heard anyone calling the icing, which is why he followed through with the hit. That’s by-the-book boarding now.

There was a moment in the first period where I was deadly sure Lemelin was going to put his arm up, and it would have been outstanding. It would have been Kevin Westgarth for hooking Brett Westgarth. But I guess the stick didn’t get into the older brother as much as I thought.

Elsewhere and along the same lines as here: What the heck. Springfield scores three goals in the last 10 minutes to send things to overtime; Albany pots one in overtime. (Depressing three-stars work.)

And Hershey-Norfolk was postponed to Sunday, making it two games on the slate. Nothing here, though.

Faith Night produces a decent warmups crowd. Katic is out with the shoulder, day-to-day.

BRIDGEPORT
F: DiBenedetto-Moore (A)-Haley
Smith-Mauldin (A)-Joensuu
Bentivoglio-Haskins-Martin
Morency-Marcinko-Figren
D: Witt-Gannon
Wotton (C)-Gleed
Flood-Westgarth
G: Biron
Munroe

MANCHESTER
F: Gauthier (A)-Elkins-Mullen
Holloway-Azevedo-Mikus
King-Zeiler-Westgarth
Clune-Meckler-Rhreault
D: Martinez-Voynov
Campbell-Kolomatis
Piskula-Kroll
G: Bernier
Zatkoff

R: Lemelin. L: Cooke, Simeon.

Scouts on the list from Philly, Edmonton, Vancouver and Phoenix, with a possibility of Columbus. Some are here often, anyway.

Referee Mark Lemelin makes his Harbor Yard debut. He worked Bridgeport games at Providence and Worcester. Was not afraid to make a late penalty call. (In that case, I’m pretty sure it was a good one.)

Trevor Smith liked that they got a few more chances at Springfield. Otherwise, it just felt too similar to other recent games.

Take his tying goal. I started to say something about a couple of nice plays by Joensuu, referring to his swiping the puck from Hisey and beating the defense to the rebound of Mauldin’s shot, but Smith turned it around quickly: It wasn’t nice (as in pretty-passing) plays; it was putting the puck on the net and getting rebounds. “Garbage,” he said, which was fine by him. Haskins’ goal, similar thing: took a hit, went to the front, deflected in the shot.

Didn’t happen enough. That’s eight games in a row with fewer than three goals. That’s one win in 11 games (but, remarkably, eight points). In fact, in their past 17 games, they have only one win in regulation. They’re 4-7-2-4 in those 17, which is .412 hockey. Which isn’t good, but all things considered is probably better than it feels.

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Sorry for the blogging delay. Computer froze on deadline. Reboot left the wireless card out. Quick hibernate-and-restart: Nothing. Had blown past deadline now. Set up the dialup connection to get the story in. Threw up hands; left. Got home, started up: Wireless worked. That kind of night.

Katic was the last man out of the dressing room and at the time was still in the trainer’s room. No update on his condition. His arm was certainly hanging as he left the ice.

Lines for the third were mid-January style: Smith-Mauldin-Joensuu, DiBenedetto-Moore-Haley, Bentivoglio-Haskins-Martin and the fourth line as it began.

Appears they tacked on an extra shot for Springfield after the fact, so the paper will be incorrect. Biron makes 38 saves; Springfield outshoots Bridgeport 41-39. That board is always a step behind, and I ought to know better.

Bridgeport wanted a penalty shot in the third; Peckham was sprawled in the crease, and at least two people thought he covered the puck for a second. Jamie Koharski said no. Or, at least, he didn’t see it. He’s the guy who called the penalty shot for gloving the puck over the crease earlier this year, so he’s apparently got an OK handle on that rule.

Jason Chaimovitch came through as always. Marty Biron’s last AHL game was Feb. 16, 2001, in a 3-2 Rochester win over St. John’s. He made 24 saves that night. Witt’s last AHL game was in the 1997 playoffs, April 27, a 1-0 overtime loss for Portland. Of all places, it was in Springfield*. (The building looked quite a bit different then.) Capuano said Witt wasn’t supposed to play quite as much as he wound up playing. Looked OK, especially considering he hadn’t played in a month. (Tweeted a bit about how he played both irresistible force and immovable object in the second period.) Biron juggled a few rebounds, and I’m still not entirely sure what happened on that first goal, but he did finish with 38 saves.

By the way, Witt’s last AHL game was Game 5 of the best-of-five series, and it completed Kevin McCarthy’s Falcons’ comeback from 2-0 down. They beat Providence in the second round before losing to eventual-champion Hershey in seven games in the conference final. Aside from the 2-0 miniseries win against Hartford in 2003, those are amazingly Springfield’s last playoff series victories.

Story in the press box was that Lindsay Lohan was there for at least a while. I dunno. Does it rate with Cyndi Lauper or Glen Hansard sightings?

Prescout. Bridgeport has six games left with the Monarchs. Well, hey, they’re only a second-place team now. Kevin Westgarth and Garrett Klotz went; that was the matchup last year that left Klotz with a seizure. Interesting tilt this time.

And RIP, Brendan Burke.

So it’s the first AHL game for Marty Biron and Brendan Witt in a long time. Neither is likely to turn the offense around, but seeing the Falcons across the way has helped once or twice before.

And Biron becomes the second veteran NHLer to put in a rehab start for Bridgeport in this barn in the past two months.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Smith-Moore (A)-Bentivoglio
DiBenedetto-Mauldin (A)-Joensuu
Haley-Haskins-Martin
Gillies-Marcinko-Morency
D: Witt-Flood
Wotton (C)-Klementyev
Katic-Gleed
G: Biron
Lawson

SPRINGFIELD
F: Linglet (A)-Wiseman-Fretter
Trukhno-Hisey-Minard
Reddox (A)-O’Marra-McDonald
Pitton-Paukovich-Brennan
D: Arsene (C)-Pokulok
Armstrong-David
Peckham-Motin
(Wild-scratch)
G: Dubnyk
Levasseur

R: J.Koharski. L: Briggs, Redding.

This almost doesn’t feel right, but if I haven’t missed someone, Witt is only the third Sound Tiger to wear 32. The first two were Chris Armstrong (one of the same six former Sound Tigers dressed in white tonight) and Alain Nasreddine, so that’s good company. Biron is the third to wear 43: Peter Tsimikalis in his amateur tryout, and Chris Lee in his first, one-game-at-Albany stint.

Jason Pitton has the initial on his sweater; his brother’s up with the Oilers while Dubnyk’s here.

As noted in the comments, Mike Morrison’s ECHL rights belong to Utah now.

Katie Strang tweets that Brendan Witt is on his way to Bridgeport, and the Islanders don’t plan to put him on re-entry waivers. Hope to know later this afternoon when he’s expected here.

Usual suspects here this morning. Perhaps more later.

Edit: Not certain if Witt will join the Sound Tigers Friday, or when he might play. Nothing final from here or there as of early this evening. But here’s something we haven’t talked about here for a while. When Witt plays, and when Reich gets healthy, the Sound Tigers will be up to four (plus exemption) of the five (plus exemption) veterans they’re allowed to dress: Gillies, Reich, Wotton, Witt and (320-exemption) Mauldin. Room for one more… though that hasn’t always been the M.O.

The Kovalchuk trade appears to even out for New Jersey in terms of current-professional players, so Lou Lamoriello gets it done without affecting Lowell. (And yes, I’m sure that was his primary focus.)

Bridgeport has, as noted in the game story Monday, played seven games in a row without scoring three goals. This is only the third time in nine seasons that this has happened. Well, actually, it’s only the third time in two seasons.

The 2003-04 Sound Tigers set defensive records that will likely stick around for a long time. But they were a product of their environment, too, with a league that saw the fewest goals scored per game in AHL history. No Bridgeport team has yet scored fewer goals* — though the lockout-year team tried, scoring only 10 more — and even this year’s team is a tiny fraction ahead of their pace, overall.

The only time the Sound Tigers scored fewer than three goals in eight games in a row: Jan. 10-28, 2004, an eight-game streak when they went 2-4-1-1 (T-OTL). They scored two goals four times, one three times, and were shut out once. They also went seven games without three goals late in that season, March 14-27, going 2-5.

In fact, the only other time I caught a six-game streak was early that year; it included five games in a row with one goal and ended with a two-goal game. That was the Dominic Moore game at Harbor Yard, and it was the last game Bridgeport lost before the 20-game unbeaten streak.

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But the other season comparison, which we really haven’t hit since early in the year, is to the rookie-laden lockout season. And here’s a connection: Bridgeport went 3-7-1-4 this January, a .367 points percentage. The only full month the Sound Tigers have played with a lower percentage: January 2005, 3-7-0-1, .318.

(November 2007 was 4-7-1-0, .375, but that included a shootout win; the rules were the same in all three of these seasons, but if you limit it to games decided by hockey and change that back to 3-7-1-1, November 2007 was played to a .333 percentage.)

If that connection means anything, here are the bright sides for this year’s Bridgeport team, which is two points out of playoff position (albeit giving games in hand): That 2004-05 team had also played a sub-.500 October and December and was already 17 points out of a playoff spot by the end of January. That team played over-.500 hockey in each month the rest of the way and cut that deficit by four points.

Meanwhile and disconnectedly, seven of this team’s 11 February games — the lightest February schedule yet — are scheduled at home, and the Hershey game is the only one farther away than Springfield.

—-

The Falcons played a wild one. Six former Sound Tigers skated tonight for Springfield. They included Chris Armstrong, back from surgery on that detached retina for the first time since Dec. 6, and Jason Pitton, who scored his first AHL goal since Jan. 21, 2009, his final game as a Sound Tiger.

And RIP, Dick McGuire.

*-Doing it with the franchise-record goal-scorer, who led the league that year while scoring 24.2 percent of Bridgeport’s goals. No AHL-leading goal-scorer has ever** accounted for more of his team’s goals than Jeff Hamilton did that year, and he played only 67 games. Between that offense and that defense, the farther we get from that season, the more amazing it seems.
**-There’s a possible (though improbable) exception. In 1945-46, Joe Bell scored 46 goals to lead the league. He split time between New Haven and Hershey, but the exact split of goals and games isn’t readily available. Even so, his full 46 goals would only be 23.1 percent of the lower team’s total, New Haven’s 199.

Just got home to Katie Strang’s report that Brendan Witt is on waivers and would come to Bridgeport if there are no takers.

Usual lines today, with the readdition of Trevor Gillies and the addition of Martin Biron, who says he expects to start both games. Victor Bartley, for the second morning in a row, walked the stairs several times; he’s not supposed to be working up too much of a sweat yet.

Edit2, 4:45: Word is Martin Biron is coming down for the weekend on a conditioning assignment; will at least dress both days.

Edit: Thanks to those who came by. Noted within: Trevor Gillies is, as expected, on his way back here. Some other notes below the box.

Other stuff:

Ex-goalie-files: Peter Mannino was named the AHL’s goalie of the month. Houston’s nominee, Wade Dubielewicz, went back up to the Wild. (Edit 4: He starts tonight.) Yann Danis starts tonight, Tom Gulitti reports.

XM/Sirius will air a few AHL games this month, including Hartford at Bridgeport.

Down Goes Brown hacked Gary Bettman’s Gmail account. Brilliant.

Notes from Worcester: Logan Couture is hurt after a hit from behind (Edit, what’s this, 3?: Magnan got a two-game suspension today); the Sharks dressed 12 rookies Sunday.

A surprisingly touching xkcd strip. And wow: a Bill Watterson interview!

Enjoy Lost.