Soundin' Off

On one hand, it’s not a win for the 11th time in 15 games. (It also messes up the W-L-O-S columns, but that’s just me.) On the other hand… well….

You take that Munroe is in one of those stretches where he’s making every save he can.

“A lot were kind of from outside,” he said (as tweeted, some of those outside shots were still open, not exactly point shots, and dangerous). “I was able to cover up a lot of rebounds. Early on I was kicking out some rebounds and the guys were clearing them.”

You take that they have been good this weekend when they’ve been right.

“We’ve just got to be a little better in our own zone,” Munroe said.

It’s three out of four this weekend, and tomorrow’s all the bigger because of that, to see if they have taken a step forward, or if they’ll falter against a fresher opponent.

—-

The fourth line was mostly a non-factor in the third, playing one shift together to start, and then maybe one shift each separately. At even strength, Capuano went heavily to Bentivoglio, Smith, Mauldin, Joensuu, Marcinko in varying combinations, along with Haley and, mitigated by four power-play shifts, Moore. Martin got about as many power-play shifts as he did even-strength; DiBenedetto played a smidge more at five-on-five. “I felt some guys were going pretty good,” Capuano said. “I liked the way they played without the puck, which is more important to me than with the puck at that point in the game.” He said he thought some players seemed to be tiring as the game went on. His only option up front is Bobby Hughes, which might at least be a possibility for tomorrow.

The D-pairs went down to, more or less, MacDonald-Flood and Kohn-Wotton in the last five minutes. Gleed got in for a couple of OT shifts. Klementyev might have been banged up.

Remember how J.S. Aubin’s mask needed some repairs last year, and he went to the bench to borrow one from some guy named Munroe? Nothing new under the sun: Munroe’s needed some tweaking, so he had to wear Nathan Lawson’s for a while in the first. (Forgot to ask about that.)

It’s not really clear whether that Nodl attempt in the shootout went through the net or not. Ciamaga checked it with the goal judge and everything, so I’d imagine they were pretty confident about the “no.” But other people were not so sure. (I really thought “no,” but I thought the net moved, too.) No harm, no foul, unlike most other goal/no goal controversies in this team’s history.

Jon Gleed said he had his stick broken and was cross-checked down before the Phantoms’ first goal. Yeah, he still wasn’t very happy about it.

Bridgeport might miss Portland rookie (’08 late-first-rounder) Tyler Ennis, who made his NHL debut and scored a goal. The rest of the Bucs were off tonight.

Dean Arsene gets the call and could make his NHL debut tomorrow for Edmonton. (Hat tip: Tim Leone.)

Tell ‘em, Rat.

All right, been a fun visit here today, but hitting the highway. Enjoy Cotto-Pacquiao, if you paid for it.

This place is… nothing like I imagined.

The barn is bright, for one thing. Vividly so. The bright comes from white-painted cinder-block walls that stretch maybe 15, 20 feet up to yellow rafters under a silver roof. The vivid comes from greens and blues: light-green ventilation; blue curtains on the windows; alternating light-green and forest-green seats, every other section, 15 rows in most from floor level to the wrap-around concourse, with concessions in every corner. (Was built in the ’70s, you know.) Stand anywhere on the concourse and you’ll still be able to watch the game, like Lowell. But it feels nothing like Lowell.

It’s still cozy. If you’ve been, you know how Binghamton feels a little like New Haven, minus the top 100 rows or so? Just seating-wise, this feels a little like Binghamton, if you cut the top seats off, left the concourse open and had one incredibly big elephant gate between the benches. But brighter. Cheerier. We’ll have to see what it’s like with some anger in the seats, if such arrives. (The downstairs is much less cheery and much less bright and much more peg-on-the-wall. But I digress.)

Five banners hang over seats in the west* end of the arena, white banners with red winged-wheel logos. The first honors AHL legend Glenn Merkosky, though Matt Clackson is wearing his 15. The other four honor their four championship teams in order. For a moment, looking up at the last two, I was an angry kid again. They broke our hearts here a couple of times. The last finals game for a New Haven hockey team? Here, May 16, 1989, after the circus left through that elephant door. The final Nighthawks game ever? Here, April 18, 1992. Those two years stare you in the face. I swore at a few far-away people under my breath and moved on.

The Phantoms brought their Calder Cup banners from Philly, and they hang in the corners, not quite flanking the Red Wings’ banners. They were made for the Spectrum, a much bigger building. They’re huge in here. Not exactly their fault, but still.

Outside, it’s like any other run-down river town in this league, except for the “run-down” part. Parts look old, sure, but well-kept, and there’s a library up the block that looks recent and beautiful; lots of foot traffic on a dreary Saturday. Were it a nicer day, I’d have taken a walk around. (It’s rainy and dismal.)

Nice town. Sorry it took me almost 25 years to get here for a hockey game.

Been here before, though. Cousins have a place in Lake George, and we’d spend some time every few summers in the area when my brother and I were kids. (They themselves have cousins in Trumbull, to make this plausibly local; turns out they’re in Shelton tonight.) Caught the old Glens Falls Tigers of the Eastern League once, in 1987. On the home team’s roster but not chucking that day: John Smoltz. Closest I’d be to a Hall of Famer for about a decade.

—-

Oh, yeah, they’re playing hockey. Just a rotation on defense:

BRIDGEPORT
F: Bentivoglio-Moore (A)-Haley
Smith-Mauldin (A)-Martin
DiBenedetto-Marcinko-Joensuu
Gillies-Romano-Figren
D: MacDonald-Flood
Wotton (C)-Gleed
Kohn-Klementyev
G: Munroe
Lawson

ADIRONDACK
F: Maroon-Matsumoto (A)-Legein
Kolanos-Ross (C)-Laliberte
Nodl-Kalinski-Bellamy
Klotz-Beaulieu-Clackson
(Dingle-apparent scratch)
D: Lehtivuori-Mormina
Marshall-Stephenson
Bourdon-Curry (A)
G: Riopel
Backlund

R: Ciamaga. L: Lemay, Harper.

I had thoroughly forgotten that Pat Bingham coached here. Will have to ask him a bit about the town.

Meanwhile, for the Adirondack perspective on things, here’s Tim McManus’ gamer, full of Greg Gilbert genius: “We don’t shoot the puck,” Gilbert said. “We all think we’re Wayne Gretzkys and Mario Lemieuxs (with) these fancy plays we’re looking for. Put the puck to the net. I guess that’s a hard thing to understand.” Sound familiar?

*-Or west-southwest, or southwest, or whatever you’d call it. The Hudson takes a turn here, as you’ll see if you pop the city into your favorite map/satellite Web site, and the barn kind of parallels that, adjacent to the falls.

They weren’t bad. They just made some mistakes at bad times and lost, which, well, tends to be normal for games played before 3 p.m.

One somewhat-concerning trend: Giving up quick goals after their own goals. Got it in the story, but they’ve scored 31 goals; three were in overtime, one was the shootout point, and one was Morency’s to end Sunday’s game in Providence, so that’s five that ended games. Take those away, and of those 26 (in 14 games), four times the opponent has come back within 30 seconds. That’s the first Worcester game here, the Binghamton game here, Friday in Worcester (the winner) and the big one today here.

—

The Phantoms are 5-for-12 on the power play against Bridgeport and 3-for-46 against everybody else. “They get pucks to the net,” Capuano said.

Darryl Bootland signed a PTO with Manitoba. Via Elite Prospects: Junior Lessard is no longer with Ilves (because of a knee injury, if Google Translate didn’t let us down).

Former WBS Penguin Bill Thomas signed a PTO with Springfield.

Tim McManus has more on Lukar Kaspar’s departure from the Flyers organization.

And a classic Lio from the weekend.

Jonathan said it last year: “Cool Fun 101 games are neither cool nor fun.”

I’ll try not to complain about the time anymore, either. These tend to get easier once I wake up.

Those who were out yesterday appear to be out again, though I’m not sure if Jack Capuano is here or not Capuano is here.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Smith-Moore (A)-Bentivoglio
DiBenedetto-Mauldin (A)-Joensuu
Haley-Romano-Martin
Gillies-Morency-Figren
D: Kohn-Wotton (C)
MacDonald-Flood
Katic-Gleed
G: Lawson
Munroe

ADIRONDACK
F: Nodl-Ross (C)-Ward (A)
Maroon-Matsumoto-Legein
Dingle-Beaulieu-Bellamy
Klotz-Kalinski-Clackson
D: Bartulis-Sloan
Marshall-Bourdon
Lehtivuori-Mormina (A)
G: Backlund
Riopel
R: D. Banfield. L: Galvin, Spannaus.

Adirondack’s defensemen are 7-6, 4-5 and 2-3. How beautiful is that? (Particularly on the orange Flyers-throwback style sweater, with the black-on-white nameplate and everything.) (I’m short a letter for the Phantoms at the moment.)

Will liveblog a little on this file as events warrant.

—-

–Big crowd of kids. Only a handful of sparsely-populated sections as the puck drops.

–The kids love the rough stuff. Gillies and Clackson fought a few minutes ago. Now Haley becomes the second Sound Tiger to take a good run at Bartulis, and he was getting a penalty when Klotz went after him. Klotz spun him around a few times. Meanwhile, Martin, Bartulis, I think Bellamy and Romano went down in a pile in front of the Adirondack net. No penalties on the board out of all that.

–Strike that: Bridgeport has a power play out of it. Double rough on Klotz; charge on Haley.

–Bentivoglio is going off in some pain here; a collision near the blue line. I was peeking down to blog about how the Phantoms were short-handed because, in all the penalty confusion, no one had served Klotz’s second minor, so there was no one to come out of the box. Oops.

–Bridgeport didn’t score on a 58-second five-on-three and now have a Haley slashing penalty to kill. Shots were 4-2 Adirondack; they were 5-4 Bridgeport after the back end of the two minors and are 8-4 now.

–Off a draw, Matsumoto scores on a rebound (or blocked shot, couldn’t tell which) right in front; 1-0 Adirondack.

–Trevor Smith cut Nodl up high inside two minutes to go in the period; it’s a double minor.

–Bentivoglio is back and killing penalties. Morency has been killing, too, and ragged off about 20 seconds on this minor. That’s it for the first period.

–Those sparsely populated sections appear to have filled in nicely. They are full of kids screaming for a T-shirt. My head will not survive.

–They’re playing Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” for not less than the second time. I get the feeling I’ll hear it at least once more. Calls to mind the 50-Cent Riot of 2003. You remember that? They cut out “In Da Club” to play the bells as the team was about to come back on the ice… and several thousand kids started booing and yelling? Ah, memories.

–Mormina interferes with Bentivoglio to cancel the last 43 minutes of the double minor.

–Adirondack’s Marshall has had words with Haley, Martin and someone on the bench in the past two minutes.

–Gillies-Morency-Haley have played together the past two shifts. Morency drew a penalty last time; he had a scoring chance this time.

–Moore got a stick into Bellamy and Mauldin caught Ward from behind, so Bridgeport’s down two men here with 7:09 left in the second. Big moment, obviously.

–Bridgeport killed it off with only three shots, and now Bartulis hooks Mauldin as he races out after Martin’s chip — it’s a penalty shot. Mauldin takes it in slowly, goes backhand and scores with 4:49 to go. Yep, big moment. Game’s tied.

–End of two, 1-1. BPT has 18-15 shots edge.

–When Bertani first pointed “Party in the USA” out to me a couple of weeks ago, I thought it evoked Lily Allen’s LDN. Your mileage may vary.

–Attendance: 8,035 (and the Nighthawks thank you), seventh-highest in team history here.

–Nov. 4 is apparently a good day for penalty shots. Last BST goal on a penalty shot: Rob Collins, Nov. 4, 2005, vs. Manchester, a landmark night on the blog.

–They’d been rolling four lines, and my computer had crashed, when Joensuu chipped ahead to Mauldin, and Mauldin scored on a two-on-one. But off the draw, the Phantoms put in a rebound off a left-wing slapper to tie it. Adirondack killed off a Bridgeport power play; the Phantoms are going on the advantage with 7:08 left.

–Bridgeport killed the first but now has another to kill with exactly five minutes left.

–And off the draw, the Phantoms’ Nodl scores on a rebound. The call was MacDonald for kneeing. He did not seem to believe it.

–Surreal moment. Ross and Bentivoglio collided near the Adirondack blue line, and Joensuu went straight for Ross. The penalty puts Bridgeport down with 1:58 to go.

–Joey Mormina came in with no points in nine games; he’ll leave with three points after scoring the Phantoms’ third power-play goal.

That’s it: Adirondack 4, Bridgeport 2. Back to morning-normal. More in a bit.

A few line tweaks from last night have apparently taken. Meanwhile, Joel Rechlicz returns and plays in Tomas Marcinko’s spot; Jon Gleed gets back in for Klementyev.

Brian Boucher is in on a conditioning assignment and is starting for the Phantoms.

BRIDGEPORT
F: DiBenedetto-Moore (A)-Mauldin (A)
Joensuu-Romano-Martin
Smith-Haskins-Bentivoglio
Figren-Morency-Rechlicz
D: Wotton (C)-Gleed
Kohn-MacDonald
Katic-Westgarth
G: Lawson
Koskinen

ADIRONDACK
F: Maroon-Matsumoto-Laliberte
Kolanos-Ross (C)-Ward (A)
Nodl-Kalinski-Kaspar
Klotz-Beaulieu-Clackson
D: Bartulis-Bourdon
Marshall-Mormina (A)
Ratchuk-Curry
(Lehtivuori-apparent scratch)
G: Boucher
Riopel