Soundin' Off

The boys have been in British Columbia for bit more than two hours now. We knew Bobby Hughes wasn’t going to be among them; we had a vague idea he might be going somewhere else. Now today comes word that Hughes is going to be assigned to Utah.

Not a huge shock, though the legal issue makes it look funnier than it otherwise would. “A pure hockey-operations decision,” Howard Saffan said. I don’t doubt it; if not for some of the injuries and Hughes’ arrest, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had happened sooner. So he’ll play a lot for the Kinasewich-less and Sixsmith-less Grizzlies with no set timetable on a return to Bridgeport.

Speaking of timetables, interesting bit: Because he had to give up his passport, and because he didn’t have other photo ID, he wasn’t going to be able to fly. He’s taking the bus out to Salt Lake.

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In response to a comment, Rick Cohen said he might do some blog/journal type of things from Abbotsford. I imagine they’re just about settling in there now.

Chris Lee got called up. Jonathan Bombulie tweeted an interesting stat: If Lee makes his NHL debut tonight, Pittsburgh’s bottom-four defensemen will have played a combined 22 NHL games.

More from last year’s defense: a note on Joe Callahan from Bill Ballou.

Edit: TV writer Earl Pomerantz is recovering from surgery, and in the meantime, they’re re-posting some of his favorite blog posts. Today’s repost is a “The Greatest Hockey Story Ever.”

And finally: Grr.

Jon Gleed got off the ice early this afternoon, ready to take a shower and settle in for a day as a healthy scratch, to take in this one from up on the fourth floor.

And then Andrew MacDonald got recalled.

“The coach called me in and told me I was playing,” Gleed said. “I had to run to Subway and get something to eat.”

Forget that Jared guy: Get this kid an endorsement deal.

Gleed had a couple of assists, was credited with a third until the off-ice guys realized it belonged to Trevor Smith (who, says a trusted source, was about five feet offside on the winning goal)*, was plus-2 and continues to play his usual effective game.

“Jon’s played great,” Mark Wotton said. “He’s the kind of guy who works hard every game and practice.”

That sometimes doesn’t show up tangibly (unless he’s playing Superman, as Peter Mannino once called him), and when you’re on a team with eight defensemen and you’re the only one who has neither an NHL deal nor a ‘C’ on your sweater, you’re gonna sit sometimes. When he gets in, he does a nice job.

“I try to keep things simple,” Gleed said. “We happened to score some goals, and I benefited … when some guys made some great plays ahead of me.”

Wotton, camera-shy anyway, tried to motion us away after the game. “Talk to Jon Gleed,” he said. Yeah, we probably don’t do that enough.

It’s just, you know, Cornell.

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Martin had a great line about his line; it’s in the gamer. Capuano said they looked back at film of Bridgeport’s game in Portland on Halloween, and they really liked what those lines did against the Pirates, so they went back to them, at least the top three. The result: five goals in a game for the first time since April.

Meanwhile, check out what that goal today did to the Sound Tigers’ all-time overtime scoring list:

1) Jeff Hamilton       6-1-7
2) Rob Collins         2-4-6
3) Trevor Smith        0-5-5
4) Mark Wotton         3-1-4
5T) Blake Comeau       2-2-4
5T) Sean Bentivoglio   2-2-4
7T) Brandon Smith      1-3-4
7T) Bruno Gervais      1-3-4
9) Eric Manlow         0-4-4

Katie Strang reports Brendan Witt is out for personal reasons, hence the call for MacDonald.

Speak of the devil: Peter Mannino wins his first Chicago start.

Long weekend.

*-You know what? On video, it both looks as if Smith is easily onside and the assist should be Gleed’s. So strike that whole thing.

Why Munroe back to back, getting a win and making bigger saves than the raw 21 saves might necessarily indicate?

“Just changing it up,” Jack Capuano said. “I don’t know where the rotation’s going to go. Maybe Scotty will go against his old team, then we’ll get Lawson a couple of games. … We’ve got to get them feeling comfortable, too.”

(Asked Munroe about some of the bigger saves, including two or three good chances for NHL star Ryan O’Marra: “You’ve got to (make them),” he said.)

And what about going without the lids in warmup?

“Sometimes you just do something to rally the troops,” Greg Mauldin said.

Well, it worked out.

“We had good pressure on them, but we were keeping the third guy high. They weren’t getting many odd-man rushes,” Munroe said.

They talked about the week of practice, the focus on keeping things simple, working on tightening up the systems. They looked much more consistent with them.

Springfield caught a break to end the second period, when Greg Moore’s stick broke, and took advantage. Bridgeport got one in overtime, when two Falcons hopped off the ice, and took advantage.

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Bridgeport stayed out of the box. Amazing. Three power-plays against, one for only seven seconds; that’s the fewest in nine games.

The Falcons took a couple of penalties for some nasty hits and had some other hard ones that weren’t penalized. “They were playing hard, we were playing hard,” said Bentivoglio, who took one that looked uglier than, maybe, it was in the second period. But Greg Mauldin, who took three or four vicious hits and kept going, was proud of they way they battled through that, pointing to one time when Jesse Joensuu took a hit behind the net, went down but still had the puck when he got up.

Prescout. Maybe they won’t be happy.

Len DiCostanzo had been with Mississippi in the SPHL and spent some time with Charlotte before getting a concussion. Hope Matt Broyles comes back from the flu as well as Kyle Okposo did. (Though the Big Club gave up a lead, too.)

Four overtime wins is already halfway to the team record (eight, 2003-04) and more than they had in three complete seasons.

Faith Night here, which helps account for the attendance: 5,479. I have this urge to read my Bible. Gonna try to beat the kids out of here.

Daniel Tkaczuk signed with Charlotte.

Syracuse signed a long-term lease to stick around up there.

How about Central, smoking New Canaan 42-7 to get back to the FCIAC football title game?

And best of luck to Mike Murphy in his treatment.

Semi-big but down the road: Dan Martin’s interview with Rick DiPietro includes that he’s likely to condition in Bridgeport.

In o… Oh my goodness, look at Flash.

Alumni stuff: Chris Armstrong gets featurized in Springfield for tonight’s advance. Jonathan has his promised Q&A with Penguins captain Wyatt Smith. Tough break for Raffi Torres.

Have only seen this Tyler Myers kid once — one of those Islanders games, actually — but man, does he have a chance to be a force, or what?

These are some fascinatin’ throwbacks.

And who’s ready for Fantasy Supreme Court?

Off to Tim Hortons, and then, maybe, Springy…

Pretty much the same this morning as it has been, though with Bridgeport down to 12 available forwards this weekend, there was a possibility the Sound Tigers might consider calling up an extra body. Tony Romano was with Trevor Smith Sean Bentivoglio and Greg Moore, and Jesse Joensuu was back in alongside Justin DiBenedetto and Tomas Marcinko. Newsiest bit so far today is that they had their breakaway contest after practice, and the last man without a goal, Greg Mauldin, apparently has to grow a mustache.

Jeremy Reich and Joel Rechlicz skated in white jerseys while the team practiced. Tyler Haskins, hanging out and watching, remains off the ice with limited activity.

From Albany, Bobby Hughes had a court appearance Thursday. Have not heard yet if he’ll be rejoining the team right away, which might change the call-up thinking. Edit: Bridgeport president Howard Saffan said Hughes could be back with the team Friday.

Elsewhere: Wyatt Smith is the captain of the Baby Pens.

The coach you might have seen tossin’ sticks onto the ice in the big-time SPHL? It’s onetime (er, two-time) Nighthawk Brent Sapergia.

And RIP, David Lloyd.

So a month and a half later, here we are again, talking to Pascal Morency about coming off the bench. He had some things to say about Saturday’s situation, which will be in tomorrow’s story.

They were on the ice early today at Shelton — a school outing hit the ice at 10:30, so they had to bail out by 10:15 — and Jesse Joensuu was not among them, “under the weather,” Capuano said. Joel Rechlicz skated with them but isn’t ready to come back.

And then after they got off the ice the fire alarm went off four or five times. Fun. And loud.

Elsewhere: Ryan O’Marra made his NHL debut last night.

A nice story on Pelle Lindbergh’s legacy in Portland, 24 years after he died, horribly. That was the first year I followed hockey, and that wreck still resonates with me.

Jonathan found this Sporcle quiz demanding you come up with the 73 Calder Cup champions. (Nicknames are necessary.)

NHL suspensions made easy with this Down Goes Brown flow chart.

I forget whose link led me to this, the most… something… Twitter account yet. Whoever’s link that was… no thanks. No thanks at all.

On the other hand: Thanks, veterans.

No personnel changes today in practice, though the lines were rejuggled, most notably with Greg Mauldin moving between Smith and Martin, and Moore between Bentivoglio and Haley.

Lots of systems work, lots of one-on-one battle drills (there’s nothing like watching Moore and Mauldin go head-to-head; it’s like irresistible force and immovable object out there). All went with one big admonition: keep the stick down.

I’ve got Bridgeport facing 94 power plays so far (the league has 93, but I’m not ready to sift through and find where we differ). Through 17 games last year, Bridgeport had faced 76 power plays. (That’s where they were through 14 this year.)

Now, that’s not an incredible number; the two seasons before last, they had already reached 105 PKs by now. But they had faced only 47 through 10 games this year, and they’ve matched that in only the past seven games. They had given up only five power-play goals in those first 10 games; in the past seven, they’ve surrendered 10.

Keep going at it in the comments, but to answer two things: Joensuu seems to be his own worst enemy since training camp, beating himself up, which almost makes whatever funk he’s in a self-fulfilling prophesy. And Reich does have the cast off, but Capuano today said he’s not all that close to returning; he said there’s no timetable yet.

Elsewhere: Interesting stuff on onetime future Rangers captain Jed Ortmeyer, with bonuses from the blog. And a Steve Yzerman story on Justin Bourne’s Twitter account.

There’s a line in tonight’s walkout song — well, in the original version, not Bill Haley’s and his Comets’ — about rolling of eyes and gritting of teeth.*

This team might make you do that sometimes this year.

They gave up another quick one. Then they gave up three quick ones. The game was more or less over, dropping Bridgeport to 7-8, and for whatever it’s worth, they fell to fifth place, too. (And that eighth-place team is a-coming after them, too.)

There were all kinds. There was a pretty power-play setup. There was an intercepted clear. There was a bad break, where they blocked two shots only to have the second bounce straight to the open man. There was one funky one that deflected back through Munroe’s legs; there was one from the other side that somehow got through.** Five goals in 16 shots, and the Falcons were gone.

Bridgeport’s 36 shots probably included about 14 on the power play — maybe more, but give or take — including eight on that first chance that produced the goal. Of the 36, 12 came from either Flood or MacDonald. (Flood had four in the first period, and they might all have come on that one power play.)

At 12:22 of the first, Trevor Smith forced a turnover and got the puck to the net, where Devan Dubnyk stopped Greg Mauldin.

“It’s a whole different game, with Trevor Smith going to the net, if Greg Mauldin puts that in,” Capuano said.

The cynical response is that Springfield would then have taken its 2-1 lead at 12:37 instead of 19:01.

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Prescout. Typically good day for the usual suspects.

Montreal plucked Jay Leach off re-entry waivers. Jersey, meanwhile, signed Dean McAmmond.

Coupla-time Sound Tiger Jean Desrochers retired, his team announced.

Ryan Kinasewich was the ECHL’s Player of the Month.

Good stuff on Faith and Fear in Flushing today. Greg is happy with a Neil Best report on SNY’s Thursday offseason programming, and I’ve got to agree. (MSG had a Harry Howell film this morning that was fun to see.) Jason imagines the afterlife.

Good story from Ken Levine.

And there’s brighter Hughes family news.

*-In a breathtakingly different context, of course.
**-I say “somehow” because I was twitterin’ on the previous one at the time and couldn’t get a handle on the replays. Stupid technology.

Bobby Hughes is out on bail and on his way upstate, if he’s not there already. Howard Saffan (”We stand by Bobby. … We look forward to him getting back on the ice”) said Hughes has an expected court date within a week. Will he then be back with the team? Could depend on what happens in that court date, but it doesn’t sound as if the team will keep him away.

Anyway, they’re playing tonight in Springfield. Joensuu is out sick. Rechlicz apparently has a hand infection that’s keeping him out. Saw Klementyev here, but he’s not playing.

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

SPRINGFIELD
F: Trukhno-Potulny (A)-Thomas
Linglet-Wiseman-Fretter
Reddox-O’Marra-McDonald
Brennan/Paukovich
D: Arsene (C)-Taylor (A)
Armstrong-Motin
Peckham-Plante
Nickerson
G: Dubnyk
Sorochan

R: L’Ecuyer. L: Colby, Redding.

Edit: Change on Springfield. Guess I gave up on their rushes too soon./Edit2: BTW, Mauldin is starting with Smith and Moore.

Interesting swap on the third line, with Martin playing the left and Haley on the right.

L’Ecuyer usually let them play last year, though he had one or two whistle-happy games.

Meanwhile, Chris Armstrong. Not a whole lot of links to the 21 Finalists floating around this league anymore. (Except, of course, for the one who keeps dominating this league and has been to a couple of more finals.)

Haskins, Hughes and Rechlicz remained out, though Klementiev hopped back into practice. Their availability for Friday’s beginning of the three-in-three (or, heck, the rest of it): undetermined.

Steve Zipay reports that Steve Valiquette starts for the Rangers tonight in Edmonton.

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.

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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.

No Haskins this morning, but Greg Mauldin and Jesse Joensuu were out there (on a line with Justin DiBenedetto), as was Dustin Kohn on defense. Do they play tomorrow? “Not sure yet,” Jack Capuano said. He sounded as if he’s considering giving them an extra day, at least some of them. The team split up into two groups for a little competition: The skaters went five-on-a-goalie, one set on each end, and the first side to score earned a point. The losing team had to skate a couple of laps at the end. Mauldin’s team lost, but he was exempted from the skating. (Joensuu did skate and looked OK.)

Have kept forgetting to mention that Jeremy Reich is in town. He still has the cast on his wrist for another week or so, but he has been skating on his own and working out.

Just spent a few minutes perusing News from 1930, which has broken format for a few days to go back 80 years instead of 79 and examine how the Wall Street Journal reported the great crash of 1929. Fascinating.

And with that, unless something crazy happens, I’ll leave you alone for a few days. Phil’s making the trip, if I recall correctly (Edit: Actually, he’s joining the team Saturday in Portland), so you’ll have a local perspective on the radio Webcast for two games, at least.

Edit: OK, I lied: back with Eric Boguniecki’s signing with Alaska.