Finally got the car dug out around 4:30; had been called off this trip a lot earlier. Don’t know how it was elsewhere, but we got more snow (and it lasted longer) than expected up here. Anyway. Jamie just tweeted that Jeremy Colliton is back in tonight, after tweeting this morning that Justin DiBenedetto will return as well. They’ve both been out since the second weekend of December. We’ll see who sits and how the lines work themselves out.
Phil made it, so we’ll listen on AHL Live and follow him, Jamie and Tim McManus on Twitter.
Elsewhere, Alex Stalock is making his first start of the year tonight in the ECHL. Stalock had a nerve behind his knee cut by a skate last February.
Tough day for Nathan Lawson in the outdoor game in Hamilton.
Congrats to Eric Hornick on 30 years in the Isles’ booth.
More later. Warmup should start somewhere around 6:25; Phil’s pregame, around 6:45.
Actually, just to catch up, Bridgeport is on a seven-game winning streak (longest within a season since 2003, and two off the team record, although shootout wins, whatever, yadda yadda yadda), and four on the road (a seven-way tie for third in team history; record is six, with a five in between). Rhett Rakhshani has an eight-game scoring streak (6-7-13), four away from the Jeff Hamilton/Frans Nielsen team record. Matt Donovan has a point in five in a row (1-8-9), three away from Chris Armstrong’s record for defensemen (which was the first eight-game streak for anyone in Bridgeport team history).
–Jamie tweets that Anders Nilsson will get the start, despite earlier appearances of Poulin. He also has Gillies, Romano and Howes as apparent scratches.
–Tim tweets no Holmstrom or Sestito for Adirondack. Apparently called up.
–The Bridgeport side, from Jamie; we’ll update with Adirondack and the A’s as available:
BRIDGEPORT
F: McNeely-Cizikas-Rakhshani
Ullstrom-Colliton (C)-Backman
DiBenedetto (A)-Frischmon (A)-Riley
Haley-Mouillierat-Marcinko
(Gillies-scratch)
D: Ness-Oleksy
Donovan-Gentile
Landry-Wishart
G: Nilsson
Poulin
ADIRONDACK (from Tim’s post)
F: McGinn-Wellwood-Testwuide
Hamel (A)-Kalinski-Harper
Brown-Roe-Akeson
Kessel-Pither-Row
D: Marshall-Bartulis
Manning-Walker (A)
Jancevski (A)-Lauridsen
G: Leighton
Bacashihua
R: J.Hebert. L: Redding, Simeon.
–Phantoms will have 11 forwards and seven defensemen, Tim tweets.
–Game on. The box is here.
Prescout.. The IceCaps also play Sunday in Worcester.
–Phil notes that Blake Kessel is playing forward for the Phantoms.
–Here’s Tim’s in-game post.
–Phil talking about the Red Wings’ Calder Cup banners. Jamie’s running joke this week was that I was going to show up and take down the last two. Safe for one more week.
–Good line by Phil, as McNeely’s stopped on a breakaway at four-on-four: critiquing McNeely’s move. “But hindsight’s 20-20,” Phil says, “and I can’t skate, so who am I to judge?” Funny.
–No score after one. The Phantoms will have 15 seconds of power-play time to start the second, the tail end of a Kael Mouillierat penalty. Anders Nilsson made a big save on Tye McGinn on that power play.
–A note from Hershey as the second begins in Glens Falls: Keith Aucoin won a faceoff cleanly from Linden Vey, and the puck bounced off Danny Richmond and in. Easiest goal ever for Vey. Edit: heh heh.
–Casey Cizikas gets the first goal of the night off what sounds like good work for Tyler McNeely. 1-0 Bridgeport at 2:22 of the second.
–Bridgeport makes it 2-0 with 8:32 left in the period. Phil says it pinballs around the front of the net, off Haley and then maybe off Mouillierat. Neither of those two figure in the official scoring, which is Marcinko from Gentile (who I thought I heard Phil say got the puck to the front) and Donovan (which’d be six in a row). Either way, a goal. Tim says Marcinko knocked in a mid-air rebound.
–Cizikas for roughing with 4:22 left in the second. Phil says the game is flying by. Kiss of death. Adirondack’s second power play; Bridgeport doesn’t have one yet.
–Now Gentile for holding with 1:41 to go in the period.
–Sound Tigers lead 2-0 after two, with 19 seconds left to kill on the Gentile penalty to start the third.
–Donovan loses the assist on Marcinko’s goal; Haley did indeed get some of the puck in front of the net.
–As the third begins, keeping an eye on reports that Joe Paterno has died.
–Yeah, multiple reports now on Paterno. RIP.
–On the other hand, now reports that Paterno is not dead, quoting the family spokesman.
–Phantoms score to make it 2-1 with 8:50 to go in regulation. Phil says Hamel was in front to set a screen on Jonathan Kalinski’s goal.
–And Bridgeport’s drought without a shutout rolls on to five games. (Hey, three in a row after 90 without, you start to expect things.)
–The Sound Tigers are 5:09 away from going without a power play for the fifth time in team history.
–Leighton out for an extra attacker with 1:28 to go. He goes in briefly with about a minute left for a neutral-zone faceoff but then gets out again.
–Bridgeport survives defensive-zone faceoffs with 19.1 and 9.9 seconds remaining: Bridgeport 2, Adirondack 1, final. It’s an eight-game winning streak and a five-game road winning streak, both one off the team record.
–On New Year’s Day, Bridgeport was 5-11-1-1 on the road.
–The Whale, winless in nine, lost in a shootout, so the top four in the Berkshire League Northeast are separated again by two points. The Whale have the conference’s eighth-best record by a tiebreaker against Manchester, which beat Hershey tonight to break its schneid.
–Another solid all-around effort, Brent Thompson said. “The difference-maker is that guys are willing to throw their bodies in front of shots,” he said, “to battle in the corners. You hear guys talking on the bench about getting pucks deep.” He liked Sean Backman’s game, said Cizikas was solid again. DiBenedetto and Colliton, “it’s good to get those guys back in. I thought their timing was a little rusty.” As far as the goaltending switch, he said Poulin was indeed slated to play but suffered some minor injury — he wasn’t spilling what it was — in the morning skate, so they made the decision to rest him. “If he needed to (play), he could’ve,” Thompson said. Thompson expected him to be fine within a day or two. They’re off tomorrow, so back on Monday unless events warrant.
–Actually, one last little bit. Jeff asked the other day about the best month in team history, after last month was the worst. With eight wins and three games remaining, January 2012 already can be no worse than the 10th-best full month ever for Bridgeport. (This is the 53rd “full month” in team history, leaving out Aprils and Octobers.) In fact, take out overtime-loss points and shootout-win points, and on straight-up win-loss-tie, this can be no worse than the eighth-best full month in team history. (They played three Aprils without a regulation loss.)
–Sunday morning edit: Sadly true now. RIP, Joe Paterno.
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