Soundin' Off

Hey, respiratory infections are fun. Let’s catch up.

An already-thin defense corps takes a hit: Mark Katic may need surgery on that left shoulder, Katie Strang reports. Katic had surgery for that same torn labrum in February 2010 and had issues with the shoulder both earlier that season and in junior.

Josh Bailey beat the clock and signed a two-year deal. So, he’s in camp. One who’s not: Art Bidlevskii, sent back to Regina. I’m not positive on the rules, but I think he can still sign a pro deal.

Mike Souza joins the coaching ranks, becoming an assistant at Brown.

And after we dealt with Irene (which I suspect had something indirect to do with said respiratory infection), thoughts are up in Newfoundland as they deal with Maria.

Atlantic City will host the 2012 AHL All-Star Classic. The AC Convention and Visitors Authority has been aggressive in going after events — the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball tournament and the ECAC Hockey tournament, as noted in the release — that don’t otherwise seem to have a tie to the Boardwalk. And, becoming the first AHL All-Star host without, you know, an AHL team, this certainly qualifies.

Skills Jan. 29, 3 p.m.; game Jan. 30, 7 p.m., at Boardwalk Hall.

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Yesterday, the heartbreaking Lokomotiv front page said roughly, mixing the Babelfish and Google translations, “Dear Users! The site is temporarily closed due to the extraordinary accident.” Still surreal to wake up a day later. And then you go back to the site and see a black background, the team photo in black and white, and over it, “Our team… forever…”

Larry Brooks has memories of Alexander Karpovtsev from Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky.

A different kind of disaster up and down the I-81 corridor and up into Albany. They closed downtown Binghamton; they evacuated up and down the Susquehanna, including in Wilkes-Barre. Not just a human toll.

Never noticed until today, looking for the path of Swatara Creek, that there used to be an airport across the street from Hersheypark. Have driven alongside that runway how many times?

Art Bidlevskii story from Regina. He’ll of course be with the Islanders beginning this weekend.

Awesome stuff from Teebz of Hockey Blog in Canada: While digging into the Leafs’ infamous blue-names-on-blue-sweaters story, he found video — no kidding — of a Toronto visit to the Coliseum, Feb. 28, 1978. (H/t: Uni Watch.)

And RIP, Charles Dubin.

The Isles have posted their development camp list. A few non-roster, non-draft-pick invitee names that stuck out: Art Bidlevskii, you’ll remember from the spring here; Max Capuano, son of Dave and nephew of Jack; and goalie Nic Riopel, former Flyers draft pick with two years in the minors, whose first professional win involved a few other campers.

Hoping to get down there at least once. Hate to take requests and then not follow through*, particularly as I have some ideas of my own, but are you guys particularly interested in anything from that camp?

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Montreal signed Brian Willsie, then picked up Michael Blunden from Columbus and Springfield for Ryan Russell. Winnipeg made Jason Gregoire official. Philly signed Jason Bacashihua and Jamie McGinn’s brother Tye, from the Philly Daily News. The Penguins lost Chris Conner to Detroit. (May add to these if notes come across.) While we wait for the full schedule breakdown, Brendan McCarthy says St. John’s will play Bridgeport four times. The newbies won’t play Albany or Adirondack within the Eastern Conference and will play division rival Providence only four times.

Edit: The AHL’s Team Business Services program honored the Sound Tigers‘ corporate-sales department for generating the biggest growth in the Eastern Conference. We wrote a little on that early in the year.

The AHL’s front-office excellence awards included a Thomas Ebright Award for Mark Chipman.

A really nice read on the B-Sens’ Web site from our ol’ pal Mike Sharp on Grady Whittenburg.

And RIP, John Mackey and Dick Williams.

*-”We’ll try to answer a few requests now.” “Thank you very much for your suggestions, but we had something in mind.” –Dave Guard/Nick Reynolds

As noted on Twitter, Chris Elsberry believes this happened because the Sound Tigers got the heck away from me.

Why not. The power play has become lethal again. They’ve spotted teams a goal, then run away from them, back to back nights.

Already got one e-mail calling for suspensions for the hits on Ginand and Lawson. If you want to see for yourself, the various fights (and the hits that led to several of them) are here. (Note to self: stay out of range of Art Bidlevskii’s right hand.) Trying to figure out the sequence of manpowers through that first period… it’s giving me a headache just looking at it, let alone doing it.

Speaking of, appears Ginand was back in for DiBenedetto, who I think took that elbow from Conboy late Friday night? See what kind of update we get tomorrow.

Edit: In looking back… this is Bridgeport’s biggest win in Hartford. By three goals, but never by four. In fact, since Steve Valiquette shut the Wolf Pack out on Dec. 23, 2001, in a 6-0 win, Bridgeport had defeated Hartford by four goals at home only once. Meanwhile, this is only the second time Bridgeport has won back-to-back road games by four or more (Nov. 9 and 14, 2003, 6-2 at Philly, 6-1 at Lowell), but there was a home game in between, so never in back-to-back nights on the road. Edit2: Now, hang on, this gets better: Bridgeport has won by four or more goals 39 times in almost-10 years. (Heck, include the three times they did it in the playoffs: 42.) This is only the second time they’ve won back-to-back games by four goals (Dec. 5 and 11, 2009, both against Springfield, both with Rick DiPietro starting but not finishing, 7-3 here, 6-2 there). So, yep: This is the first time Bridgeport has ever won back-to-back nights by four or more goals. Now back to your unscheduled blogpost.

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Springfield took out 12 games’ worth of anger on Worcester and remained six points ahead of Bridgeport. The Falcons have seven games to go, and Bridgeport has eight. (The Sound Tigers will probably have to finish ahead in points because of the wins tiebreaker.)

The top five teams in the division all lost tonight.

Another wild night at the barn in Bridgeport. It’s a shame when the night turns into a quest to interpret a rule book with which you’re unfamiliar. (Moreso when it takes you too long to find said rule book, with your computer giving you grief and with the book appearing to be in the women’s hockey section.) But it happens. Congrats to the Bulldogs. A wild day of hockey around the NCAA, no?

Back to the pros tomorrow. Well, at least most of them aren’t on amateur tryouts.

Looks like we missed a heck of a game while covering a heck of a couple of games.

The usual suspects look to have made the difference. Rhett Rakhshani with his first pro hat trick. Jeremy Colliton with four assists — four primaries, no less — to tie the team record; it’s his second four-point game as a Sound Tiger. Rob Hisey with a goal and an assist. Mikko Koskinen came back with 17 saves.

But Brian Day got his first pro goal on a five-on-three late, too. Art Bidlevskii had a tilt with Maxime Legault that unfortunately left Legault out for the year. Shayne Neigum and Tyler McNeely also made their pro debuts. Joe Pereira played only his second pro game and his first with these guys.

And all these kids do is waltz into Portland, a place where Bridgeport was winless in six and had one win in 12… and win.

OK.

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Rakhshani now is 20-34-54; that’s one point better than Colliton was in 2005-06 (21-32-53). Jeff Hamilton, speaking of Yale, scored 22 goals as a rookie in 2002-03.

Even worse for the Pirates if Luke Adam is hurt badly on top of this.

Appears Bridgeport will bring in Shayne Neigum on an ATO (he’s apparently on Twitter as @Neigz27), as well as Artem Bidlevskii. Between them, they have 1,083 penalty minutes in 511 WHL games.

They may be here for Tuesday’s practice, after which we’ll have our usual chat Tuesday at 1:30, right here.

Edit: The AHL transactions have West Haven’s Joe Pereira joining Worcester on an ATO.

Meanwhile, hoping only the best for Manny Malhotra.