Soundin' Off

The Islanders recalled Josh Bailey this morning. Assuming nothing crazy happens over the next nine hours, the moment he steps onto the ice for his first shift, he would have to pass through waivers before the Islanders could assign him to Bridgeport.

The Sound Tigers were 8-11 the day he showed up. They went 6-2-1-2 with him in the lineup*. He scored six goals and 11 assists in those 11 games. If that’s enough of a sample size to excite you, that makes him Bridgeport’s all-time leader in points per game at 1.55. He leaves, perhaps, a perpetually active eight-game scoring streak.

From Bridgeport’s perspective, it’s impossible to replace a talent like that, but they’ll have to do so in all situations. There were times when he, when that line, seemed quiet, and then they’d fall into a goal. That doesn’t happen often. You’ve got to look at it as a bonus for the month he was here, special while it lasted.

*-Take out the shootout loss at Hartford if you want to throw out the game where he missed two periods with the pectoral strain; he also missed the Norfolk win the next day, which made Eric Castonguay one of four players to score 1.0 points per game for Bridgeport. That Hartford game, the Connecticut Whale debut, is the only game in which Bailey didn’t score a point here.

That’s what Pat Bingham was calling this one. One big reason, he pointed out, was the fourth line. At the end of three-in-three, they needed to use the whole bench, to give guys like Bailey as much of a breather as they could. And that line brought all kinds of energy, which matched Portland’s energy.

That — along with, ho-hum, another Kevin Poulin performance; must’ve been a league game — turned into another big win before the break.

Hey, remember what happened Friday? I don’t think they do, either.

….

Eight consecutive games with a power-play goal. That’s the longest such streak since 2003-04, when they set the record with nine. They had an eight-game streak in each of the first two seasons.

Rakhshani’s streak ended. He only got one point, not two. (Seriously, point in seven games in a row.) Bailey has a point in eight in a row.

Edit: Lately official: Chris Blight released from his PTO.

Tim Leone said Hershey’s holiday sweaters were the worst he’s seen since a certain New Haven team. And as the Zambonis once noted, nobody beats New Haven.

Mike Vaccaro presents his annual Christmas carols for New York sports fans.

Dear New York Football Giants: Are you (Boudreauian adjective) kidding me? Sincerely…

Team’s on break until the Hartford game next Sunday in Bridgeport. A few of the players were getting out of town, though some were sticking around. (The Islanders play twice before the Tigers play again, and then they’re back at it the day after Christmas, too.) At least one story coming during the week, maybe two. And we’ll do the weekly chat at 1:30 on Tuesday. See you then.

So Josh Bailey has a seven-game scoring streak. In fact, he has at least a point in nine out of 10 AHL games. His only miss was the game where he didn’t get out of the first period at Hartford.

Now Rhett Rakhshani, he has a point in six consecutive AHL games. Lemme amend. He has at least _two_ points in six consecutive AHL games. He’s 3-10-13 in the past six. He has two assists in the last three games and in four of the past five games.

Appears the Sound Tigers are going with the exact same lineup, right down to Kevin Poulin’s second back-to-back of the season.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Colliton (A)-Bailey-Rakhshani
Hisey-Ullstrom-Svendsen
Haley-Marcinko-Figren
Bourbeau-Romano-Labelle
D: O’Neill-Klementyev
Katic-Reese (A)
Friesen-Wotton (C)
(Motherwell-apparent scratch)
G: Poulin
Koskinen

PORTLAND
F: Whitmore-Pyron-Legault
Stuart-Roloff-Tropp
McCauley-Gongalsky-Lagace
Adam-Ellis (C)-Mancari (A)
D: Crawford-Conboy (A)
Brennan-(Biega-scratch)
Gragnani-Schiestel
Persson
G: Leggio
Enroth

R: R.Fraser. L: Redding, Colby.

Edit: Guessed wrong at first on Portland, I guess…)

They hadn’t had a clinker like this one in a while, and they hadn’t had one of these here at all, except maybe the morning game. It’s thus a little tempting to wait awhile to put this thing in context.

You know, if they come out tomorrow and take it to Worcester, well, this night was something. If they come out tomorrow and do this again, or even Sunday against Portland, well, that’ll be something else entirely.

Nothing doing at the start. About half and half as far as who was ready, Pat Bingham thought. The defense sometimes gave their partners little help. Even on the third goal, the one where Mikko Koskinen whacked his goal stick across the post until the stick broke, a short-side goal from the top of the left circle, Bingham ticked off three things David Ullstrom (he didn’t call him out by name, but that’s who was there) could have done to help.

This may just be one night. We’ll see.

….

Only Olivier Labelle and Jeremy Yablonski escaped without a minus.

Bingham said he thought about making the goaltending change after one period, and in hindsight, he wished he had. “(Koskinen) isn’t one of the guys who falls on the list of ‘wasn’t-ready,’” Bingham said.

Garth Snow and Jack Capuano in the house.

Josh Bailey and Jeremy Colliton have the first six-game scoring streaks of the season for Bridgeport. Bailey has 11 points in those six; Colliton, eight.

As noted on Twitter, this was the first non-Hershey, non-Rick DiPietro goalie change for Bridgeport since March 2009. Not a bad run. (Not that there weren’t nights when others might have had a quick hook.)

Blaine Down, Mike Iggulden and Marty Kariya on Canada’s Spengler Cup team.

Prescout. Jonathan Cheechoo has 11 points in seven games. Hartford is 8-0-0-2 in the past 10.

Denis Hamel scored his 300th AHL goal, and the Phantoms beat Hershey.

Most of Binghamton had a point tonight.

And that was quick: Ryan Johnson signed with the Blackhawks.

Mark Katic and Josh Bailey both escaped from practice unscathed (high-tempo practice, Pat Bingham pointed out, with special teams, but not a ton of contact/battle), and both think they’re ready to go. To toss a bit of cold water out there, Bingham has stressed over the past few days that even though players say they’re ready to return to practice or games, the team might be a bit more cautious. So either way, they’ll make the decisions tomorrow for tomorrow night’s game.

Bailey was back in the middle with Svendsen and Rakhshani. Colliton to Ullstrom’s wing.

Meanwhile, a stick company has offered to send me a new model for review. Hopelessly unethical, and I’d never actually review it. Still, so, so tempted. (Hand? Left. Flex, curve? Umm… whatever Mylec was making that year.)

Suddenly only one point out of playoff position again, the Sound Tigers put together some crazy kind of win today.

Counting Jeremy Colliton — which you know we shouldn’t — there were nine PTOs in Bridgeport’s lineup. Half of the skaters. And they won.

And they shut out the highest-scoring team in the league.

“Three games in three nights, they came out flying. They were all over us the first 10 minutes,” Kevin Poulin said. “We did a great job the last 10 minutes of the periods. We took the momentum. Hockey’s about momentum. We scored. We did a great job defensively.”

Like last night, the thinking was that at least Poulin got to see all the shots. They added up, to 40, but he had that chance.

Oh, and then he made a bunch of acrobatic, sprawling saves, in the splits, that two-on-one late, on and on. Yeah, he’s OK.

“He’s unbelievable,” David Ullstrom said. That works, too.

You could joke and say that enough players have changed around here that it wasn’t really eight games in 13 games for all of them. But they fought their way through this grueling stretch, which followed another grueling stretch, and in between those stretches, their world changed.

In fact, the last time Norfolk was here was the last game Jack Capuano coached here. They took the next day off. They came in Monday morning and didn’t find Capuano.

Eight games in 13 days later…

“I can’t say enough about the team,” Pat Bingham said. “The amount of games we’ve played in a short amount of time, it’s physically and mentally taxing. It was a quick turnaround after two emotional games with Hartford against a very good Norfolk team.”

And they won. The PTOs were as solid as ever; newbie Eric Castonguay got the spotlight, but you had to love Chris Blight’s game. He helped set up the first two.

Blight said it was an opportunity for those guys to show what they can do. They’re playing against a Norfolk team with a lot of skill and some experience.

“Since he’s played here,” Bingham said, “he hasn’t played a bad one yet. It takes a special kind of player.”

….

Blight, in his 39th AHL game (plus a playoff game), finally put one in the net. You could hear it in his voice, how important it was. Great stuff in the gamer. Gave Svendsen credit for the good play to get it to him.

Castonguay went right back to Reading afterward. Had a feeling, because a guy I’m pretty sure was him had a bag packed. (It’s like training camp. I’ve been around Blight for almost two weeks and had to think twice to make sure it was him.)

Katie Strang just tweeted minor pectoral strain for Bailey; day-to-day. Not sure about the other seven injured. They’re off Monday; we’ll see who’s where Tuesday morning.

Islanders draft pick Jared Spurgeon got a call-up to Minnesota. He could have also been the first 46 in Sound Tigers history.

Prescout. The Falcons had a lead, which changed in 29 seconds. (Three penalties. Good times.)

Game 2 attendance in Hartford: 3,012.

Mike Vaccaro on The Spectrum.

The Reading pipeline brought Eric Castonguay up this morning to replace Josh Bailey, whom the Islanders announced has a pectoral strain. Castonguay is 2-7-9 in 53 AHL games, all with Lowell. He had a big year with Trenton last year.

(And when I heard Castonguay’s name and “Reading,” I heard “Redding.” Was there a Castonguay at Barlow? Memory is weird.)

BRIDGEPORT
F: Svendsen-Colliton (A)-Rakhshani
Castonguay-Ullstrom-Blight
Haley (A)-Marcinko-Figren
Campbell-Romano-Labelle
D: O’Neill-Klementyev
Motherwell-Landry
Friesen-Wotton (C)
G: Poulin
Koskinen

NORFOLK
F: Wright-Szczechura-Fornataro
Harju-Pouliot-Berry
Labrie-Durno (A)-Angelidis (A)
Fritz-Marks-Giliati
D: Wishart-Gudas
Quick-Vernace
Jackson (A)-Milam
G: Tokarski
Desjardins

R: C.Brown. L: Wahl, Galvin.

Sorry not to see Desjardins this year. Oh well.

Nathan Lawson insists that he never felt bad. He was giving up those goals, sure.

“I felt I was still playing well, like usual,” Lawson said. “I wasn’t getting bounces. It was hitting the post and going in. It was hitting me and somehow going through.”

Not much of that in this one. Two deflections. The first one was one of the few times, by Pat Bingham’s reckoning, that there was too much traffic in front of Lawson. The second one, there wasn’t much Lawson could have done.

Otherwise, the man made 43 saves.

“Yeah, but don’t be misled by the shots, even if they were accurate,” Bingham said. “I thought he saw just about everything.

“I noticed he was on top of his crease. He was really confident. … He not only made the save, but he ate it. He got us a whistle.”

On that five-on-three in the second, Jeremy Williams’ shot hit the crossbar, and Lawson started expecting the one-timers. He stopped five shots there.

Now, he has stopped 69 of 72 shots in two games.

“I felt really good. I had a really good warmup. I had a really good soccer game to start,” Lawson said. “It just carried over into the game.”

And the team came back twice. The trouble, as Rakhshani said, was they didn’t beat Chad Johnson once in the shootout, so they gave themselves absolutely no chance to get Lawson a win once he got them through 65 minutes.

“We’ve got a good group here, guys who care about winning every single night,” Rakhshani said. “They don’t care what the scoreboard says.”

…..

Bailey took a hit in the first period, then felt a pull on a slap shot later in the first period. They’ll take a look at it Sunday, but it’s not supposed to be serious.

I’ve lost track of how many great scoring chances Olivier Labelle has in the past three games. No luck.

Lines got very mix-and-match after Bailey left. Lots of different combinations. We’ll see what they look like tomorrow, if Bailey can’t go. Doesn’t sound like any of the injured were ready to be back, either.

Bingham, who wanted his guys to shoot last night in the shootout, saw several more dekes tonight (though you hadda love the Robin Figren wind-up slapper). Bridgeport was 1-for-11 in two nights and were lucky to get a win out of that. “It’s definitely an area we need to practice,” Bingham said, “to really come to a conclusion about who’s got the best shootout moves.”

Second-biggest regular-season crowd in Hartford. Second-biggest regular-season crowd to watch a Sound Tigers game (first Nassau Coliseum game, 16,297, during the lockout; last game of the ’02 Final was also bigger, 15,132, at Rosemont, Ill.)

Klementyev declined an interview request: “No English.” He declined with better English than I speak**. We’ll get him.

Haley got a stick up in Zuccarello’s face in the third; no call. They showed the replay almost as often as the Isles showed the Minard goal in the playoffs two years ago.

Speaking of Chris Minard… Good gravy. Tomas Tatar: 2-5-7, plus-7. Two minus-5s the other way. It’s the highest-scoring game in the AHL since the Connecticut Whale weren’t even the Hartford Wolf Pack yet: They were the Binghamton Rangers, and their opponent was from Baltimore.

Edit: On another good-gravy note, how about Greg Mauldin?

*-Because sometimes the whale wins
**-And sometimes write

We’ve seen some crazy stuff around here. We’ve seen Louis DeBrusk send a playoff series to Game 7. We’ve watched Drew Fata take a penalty in the last two minutes, and Bridgeport score short-handed to tie it. We’ve seen a couple of last-second tying goals.

Has it ever been more unlikely than a big defenseman, the one who wasn’t a good enough skater to get an NHL contract, busting past a defenseman for a breakaway to turn this thing around?

“The big man was legging it out,” Pat Bingham said with a smile.

“It gave us a huge spark. We fed off that.”

Rhett Rakhshani knocked it away from Jeremy Williams (making me regret my third-star pick, seeing on replay who it was) to give O’Neill the chance. He flat outraced Pavel Valentenko to get the breakaway. He got the penalty shot. He shot the puck. He scored.

Rakhshani scored a few seconds later. And then who’s open, wide open, at the end? Wes O’Neill.

One of the players said this reminded him of two years ago, when no two-goal lead was safe, when they found ways to win games they had no business winning.

“Every team has its own unique personality,” Bingham said. “There’s experience from the past you can draw on. Whoever it was who said that was part of a pretty special group that didn’t quit*.”

Bingham said he could point to several cases tonight where players could have done something selfish, could have taken a shortcut. Stuff like Robin Figren almost throwing his face in front of a shot late in regulation.

“Micheal Haley so desperately wanted to take a swing at” Devin DiDiomete, Bingham said — but he couldn’t do it without giving up a power-play chance. “Down 3-0 at that point, if he takes that penalty, I don’t think we win this game.”

…..

Dylan Reese, Jon Sim and Travis Hamonic are on the transactions as sent down tonight. Unclear whether they’re here to play, or if it’s just paper to save money.

Both O’Neill and Bingham said they were sticking with what brought them through two periods. But once Hartford took that 3-0 lead on Williams’ goal, Bingham wanted to change up the forecheck, get a little more aggressive. But he didn’t want to do it piecemeal. He figured he’d do it at the 14-minute time out. Trouble: They didn’t get the 14-minute time out until 11 minutes and change remained. They got it figured out.

I went back and forth on whether that should have been a penalty shot. On third thought and second look, Valentenko got his stick between O’Neill’s legs from behind, so under the modern, looser standards, probably the right call.

Bridgeport shooters are 9-for-17 all-time on penalty shots, including goals on the last five in a row. The last three have come against Hartford (Martin vs. Valiquette, Tyler Haskins vs. Chad Johnson).

Bingham saw some looks in the shootout, begging for him to put O’Neill in. The coach thought about it. It was coming. Colliton went and won it first. “(Colliton) turned around and made eye contact,” Bingham said. “He really wanted to go.” He noted, also, that O’Neill and Colliton both shot the puck. No deking.

Bailey was unremarkable until late. O’Neill gave him plenty of credit on the tying goal, fired it across, “a saucer over two sticks,” he said.

Not on the send-down list but back in town: Jesse Joensuu, today’s game-winning goal-scorer on the Island, who watched and stopped in to congratulate the team. He received some of his own.

On Petr Prucha’s arrival in San Antonio.

And so ends the Hartford Wolf Pack era: 571-346-66-49-30, a Calder Cup championship and a mixed finish. At least tomorrow we’ll get to hear the song again. But we’ll miss that name, those sweaters (most of them, anyway), and that ping.

*-”We never quit.” –Jack Capuano

Let’s make this quick; gotta be up in like an hour and a half*…

Kevin Poulin was ridiculous again, and more on/from him and the state of the goaltending rotation (everybody’s getting a start this week) will be in the paper.

What bugged Pat Bingham was some of the little things. “A couple of more fortunate bounces, we win the game, but justice is served when we lose by one. I’ve seen us more accountable,” he said. “Our decisions with the puck. We were careless at times with the puck. We were lackluster at time with the backcheck, with shift times. It wasn’t our best. It wasn’t our A-game.”

A change half-made helped get Jamie Arniel open up the left wing for the game-winner.

“We didn’t take enough pride in keeping our shifts short, in driving our legs the entire shift,” Bingham said. “The goal at the end of the game was a result of that. We didn’t sprint to the bench. We didn’t sprint to position. We weren’t as ready as we needed to be.”

….

Bailey said he felt better as the game went along, and Bingham said he looked better. He had a few turnovers early, although it seemed as if both teams needed a while to get into a flow. He was in on the scramble that turned into Landry’s goal. Hutchinson robbed him on a one-timer in the third, and he had a partial breakaway in overtime. He got the regular shift with Sim and Rakhshani, and they were together on the power play, too.

“You can definitely see the skill there,” Bingham said. “As the game progressed, he started to find his legs, got in synch with his teammates. When you just drive down, suit up, play for a new coach, a new group, a new set of teammates, when you’re skilled like Josh with the puck, it takes a little while to get used to your linemates. … They created a lot of opportunities.”

No word on a timetable for the assignment, if one exists.

Bailey, on how he’s approaching this, after his struggles over the past month: “Just get better. I’m taking everything in stride. I look at it as a positive thing. The thing is, when they told me, I knew (the Sound Tigers) do have a really good group of guys. I knew it was going to be fun.”

On his goals here: “I want to get back to making plays, to being the player they drafted me to be.”

….

David Ullstrom, at least, is expected to be all right for Friday.

Norfolk led by one going to the last minute. Norfolk lost in regulation.

Team won’t skate in the morning. Which is OK, because I’ve got a football game. (Five in five, baby.) Unless something crazy happens, see you Friday.

*-Caution: May be hyperbole

News this morning from the Island: Josh Bailey is being sent here. He’s expected to play tonight.

Bailey went from being an utter force in that Columbus Day game against the Rangers; to no points and a minus-7, Eric Hornick notes, in 12 games since he was injured (none in the game before that, either); to the fourth line in practice yesterday; to, well, here. As Chris Botta notes from exile, Bailey was at 159 games, one short of his magic number before he’d need to clear waivers. So, last chance.

It’ll be his AHL debut. You may remember he was assigned to Bridgeport last year on paper and was on the Clear Day list, but he was injured late in the NHL season and never physically got here.

….

The latest addition to this year’s version of The Reinforcements? The latest addition to last year’s version of The Reinforcements.

Bridgeport will sign (if the ink isn’t dry already) Dustin Friesen to a PTO. Friesen was 0-2-2 in 11 games with, naturally, a team-high plus-3 in Idaho. He was 1-1-2 in eight games last year for Bridgeport. The goal, you may recall, came at Hartford.

(In case you were thinking of getting the band back together, Jake Gannon has a ways to go on a PTO with Peoria.)

And while we’re on defensemen, feature from Kalamazoo on another defense option, Corey Syvret, with Steve Tarasuk guest appearance.

The Islanders assigned Josh Bailey to the Sound Tigers before the deadline yesterday, they revealed this morning, which makes him eligible for the Clear Day list and to be sent here at any time.

Dustin Kohn and Andrew MacDonald were also sent down on paper.

To edit for clarity, all three were recalled immediately; just a paper transaction, technicalities to get them eligible for AHL play.

Here’s the quick refresher: Next Wednesday, AHL teams will submit their “Clear Day” lists of 20 skaters and two goalies each. Once the league clears the roster, it becomes somewhat set: Those are technically the only players a team is eligible to use for the rest of the season. (It has playoff-share financial implications, too, but let’s not overcomplicate.) However, if a team loses three skaters to injury, illness, recall, what have you, it’s allowed to dress one additional skater who’s not on the list to fill in the void. Same thing in net, where if a team loses one goalie, it can dress a different guy under emergency conditions*.

You may remember the Islanders did a similar thing last year with Kyle Okposo, sending him down at the deadline even though he hadn’t played an AHL game since the previous April. They actually didn’t put him on the Clear Day list, but he played two playoff games in emergency conditions before he shipped off to the World Championships.

Obviously, the Big Club called all three players back up (and why they waited until today to reveal it, no idea). MacDonald, given the timetable on his injury that was reported yesterday, might need playoffs somewhere to play again this year. If all three are placed on the list, the Sound Tigers would immediately be in the emergency and have one skater’s slot open.

The NHL CBA prohibits anyone else who was on an NHL roster yesterday at 3 from being sent down. And so no John Tavares pipe dream.

More later.

*-As tweeted last night, the Isles are perilously close to a different brand of emergency condition on defense. If Mark Flood can’t go and they don’t pass Brendan Witt through re-entry waivers and two guys step in potholes on the way to the rink this morning in Atlanta, and if I’m remembering obscure by-laws correctly, I think their defense tonight could** include Anton Klementyev and, like, Jyri Niemi.
**-Yeah, but it probably won’t.