Soundin' Off

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.

You know it’s a good night for a team when you have to work to pick only three stars. DiBenedetto-Lawson-Bentivoglio is a fine choice, but I can’t leave Marcinko out.

Not sure how I could leave Bentivoglio out of mine, either. “Sean Bentivoglio was outstanding,” Capuano said. “He blocked some shots. He scored the short-handed goal. We need to play with heart and desperation, the way Benti played.”

The combination of effort and achievement have to make this the best game of the first 10. Solid effort, hard work on the penalty kill, sacrifice (would love to have the blocked-shot count), and four whole goals.

And they’re on pace for another 48 wins, too.

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DiBenedetto’s postgamers have been coachspeak to the point of comedy. (Granted, I’m no Edward R. Murrow, neither.) Tried to break him out of it and asked if he was expecting the first goal to be disallowed for some inexplicable reason. He chuckled an “I dunno” and went into the great-feeling-credit-my-linemates bit. We’ll get him eventually.

Capuano said Haskins was held out with an upper-body injury. Kohn and Mauldin were held out after blocking shots. (Yes, even that is a “lower-body injury.”) None sounded too severe. No details on Koskinen, even confirmation that he’s injured, are available at present. Hopefully more in the next couple of days. (They’re off tomorrow as usual after three-in-three.)

Bridgeport scored on four of its first six penalty-shot attempts; the Sound Tigers are 0-for-6 since then.

This ice is coming out for the circus. They’re striking the set as we speak I type.

A nice appreciation of Bill Chadwick. As tweeted, I never heard him call a game (nor, obviously, saw him call a penalty), but I heard all the stories. Last night’s postgame header is in my vocabulary for good.

Apologies for the lack of communication. Spent an hour and a half on the phone with the phone company yesterday. Tech support says my line is bad. Maintenance says my line is good. Dollars to donuts says I’ll try something different if changing the jack fails.

Anyway.

Trevor Gillies has been hit with a two-game suspension for his part in the brawl Saturday in Wilkes-Barre. He’ll miss the weekend. Drew Fata received a four-game suspension in the same press release. Haven’t heard what he did.

Joel Rechlicz was in town and skating with Gillies on a shortened fifth line; Pascal Morency was with Haskins and Martin, because Sean Bentivoglio was given a day off, Capuano said. A good day to get a breather. Capuano said the other day he was upset at the conditioning level? At the end of a 45-minute practice, he had them sprinting. Three times, goal line to blue line, goal line to red line, goal line to far blue, goal to goal. That’s about a half a mile of stops and starts in full gear. “I didn’t like our third period,” Capuano said.

Micheal Haley remains out, and since he has a doctor’s appointment on the Island on Thursday, it doesn’t sound all that promising. “Upper body” is the only report.

Meanwhile, Allentown may be a little closer. (HT: Dartmouth writer Tris Wykes.)

And forget Houston. The official unofficial nonlocal local team is Olimpija Ljubljana. I count five Tigers and a Beast.

Bridgeport had two things going from the start: The Haskins line, and Nathan Lawson.

Jonathan had a ridiculously amazing Penguins stat over on his blog the other day: The Penguins utterly annihilated non-division opponents in the first 10 minutes here last year, outscoring them 15-0.

Good gravy.

“Wotts spoke about that, that they were going to come out (aggressively) in the first 10 minutes,” Lawson said. “Luckily our defensemen blocked guys out.”

Lawson was phenomenal. The kids handled the pressure even as the Penguins pressured. Romano, DiBenedetto and Martin each made key plays leading to one of the goals. Katic played with poise.

Even if there are only — quote-unquote — 5,800 people here, it’s not an easy place to play.

“It was a much different atmosphere than the playoffs,” DiBenedetto said. “At the same time, we knew they were going to be ready.”

Bridgeport handled it, made the big play of its own at the end, and is 3-0.

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A real cynic would point out that the Sound Tigers’ only other 3-0 start was 2004-05, a young team that wound up out of the playoffs. Just dumb coincidence.

It is very weird to think that this is the only trip here this year, barring the very-unlikely April return.

Mentioned it on Twitter: I almost turned to Tom Venesky and said something about how, gee, you dress a line like that, and you expect a bloodbath, and nothing’s happening. Two seconds later…

Guesting at Islanders Point Blank, Justin Bourne on Trevor Smith.

Bombulie was missed: at a wedding. Still tweeted, though.

The usual nail-the-visitors video: “Who’s your favorite tiger?” Tiger Woods, Tiger Chung Lee, Tony the Tiger (by far the biggest cheers), Daniel Striped Tiger… and the BST. Yeah: boos. (My favorite is still the New Year’s Eve 2004 video, with highlights from the playoff series set to a hard version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Have that on the hard drive somewhere.)

Ilya Zubov wasn’t in Bingo. They (prescout) probably were in trouble tonight even had he been there.

Late practice tomorrow.

And there are an awful lot of exclamation points in official Twitters. That’s all I’ll say. (You know it probably won’t be.)

A couple of weeks ago, maybe, this might have gone differently. Mikko Koskinen wasn’t as comfortable on the North American ice back then.

Um, the kid looked pretty comfortable tonight.

He has things to work on — he mentioned, especially, managing to cover up or get the puck to the corner when it’s in tight — but it was a solid first start, especially in that first 15 minutes, when Worcester could have run away with the evening. The Sound Tigers popped in three goals in a little over three minutes, and that was that.

(Literally. Until the bonus round.)

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Bentivoglio, Haskins and Martin had a combined one point tonight, and that was Martin’s on the five-on-three, but they were buzzing, forechecking, wreaking some havoc for the second game in a row. “They’ve been good,” Capuano said. “They’re doing the right things at the right times. They understand the system. They believe what we’re trying to teach, and they’re having success. We hope to get more guys on the same page.” Was a little surprised to see they got only four shots to the net.

Eric Boguniecki in the dressing room afterward, visiting the folks, so he visited the boys. He’s still hoping to latch on somewhere.

Thanks to Gerry Cantlon: Junior Lessard landed in Finland with Ilves. And Mark Parrish landed in Norfolk on a PTO.

So the Devils trapped, and the Sound Tigers threw pucks around (did everyone put a pass behind Katic at one point tonight?), and it wasn’t always the prettiest game, but hey, you get a crowd like that (biggest announced crowd ever by five), you give them a win, a lot can be forgiven.

The Bentivoglio-Haskins reunion paid dividends. Haskins came out hitting, they drew a power play, and a pretty power play later, 1-0.

Six power plays later…

Weird first period to watch, that way. The second was a little better. The third wasn’t terrible, but… The ice, only skated on a few times and in a crowded house, couldn’t have been great, especially by the end of the night, and they were being too fancy on it. (At the same time, if Zharkov could have pulled the trigger, he’d have had two or three.)

In overtime, Haskins won a draw, got it to Bentivoglio, who got it back to MacDonald. MacDonald shot as Haskins went to the net. Goal.

Simple won out.

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A moment of silence for Roy Boe before the game, eight years since he stepped out at center ice to introduce this Sound Tigers team.

Chris Elsberry’s column today is on the Sound Tigers’ on-ice results since 2002.

I never got Nighthawks tickets for reading. Darn it.

The Lighthouse deadline is gone, “and apparently (Charles) Wang’s patience is through, too,” Chris Botta writes. Then the kid went out and scored a goal.

Oh, Louis Robitaille. How you’ve been missed.

And so Bridgeport is tied for first with Springfield (with four former Sound Tigers), Worcester (spoiling Glens Falls’ return) and Manchester (coupla points for Kevin Westgarth).

Back-to-back Bombulie tweets tonight: “Wyatt Smith tips in a Chris Lee point shot as Eric Tangradi crashes the net. 1-0 WBS.” “@fornabaioctp No, the second assist didn’t go to Masi Marjamaki.” Smith finished with two goals and an assist in his first Penguins game.

Two goals for Peter Zingoni tonight.

Jason Krog was named captain of the Wolves.

Austin to San Antonio is about 80 miles. The American Statesman didn’t staff the Stars’ first game. Well, it was Friday night.

If Safety Graphic Fun isn’t in the RSS reader by now, I mean, c’mon.

Wha? OK, second source.

And deepest condolences to Phil Giubileo, whose brother passed away today.