Soundin' Off

Devastating news coming out of Russia: A plane crash near Yaroslavl has reportedly claimed the lives of many members of the KHL’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Have seen conflicting reports on survivors in the past few minutes on Twitter, but either way, what a tragedy. The playing roster includes many names familiar to North American hockey fans (though none who played here), including head coach Brad McCrimmon and assistant Igor Korolev, both former NHLers. Edit: Tom Gulitti says former Rangers and Islanders defenseman Alexander Karpovtsev, a Cup-winner with the Rangers in 1994, is also an assistant. There’s still no confirmation even of who was on the plane. Very much developing. Very much heartbreaking.

Edit2: Via Dmitry Chesnokov, a list of the dead from SovSport. It does include Karpovtsev, former Islanders forward Josef Vasicek and former Rangers/Devils defenseman Karel Rachunek.

Edit3: In happier news, Jean Bourbeau to Elmira is official.

Only one change today: Jean Bourbeau has been sent down to Odessa.

Unlike yesterday’s moves, sending down a guy who wasn’t playing much and a goalie who probably wouldn’t play much, this one’s different. Bourbeau had been a big part of this team when healthy. And unlike yesterday’s moves, this one seems to be more for Odessa than for anything else.

“Joel Martin is their No. 1 goaltender. Jean Bourbeau is an integral part of their team the past two years,” Pat Bingham said. “They never called to ask for those guys back the whole course of the year. Now that we’re mathematically eliminated — both guys, we know. We saw them day in, day out. … Personally, I hate to see (Bourbeau) go. He’s a character player. He plays the game the right way. At the same time, he can help our affiliate make a playoff run.”

The Jackalopes play their final regular-season game Saturday, then begin the playoffs.

Bridgeport, meanwhile, is short one forward. Got to figure they’ll be wheeling more people in.

Tip of cap to retiring Masuk girls basketball coach Dave Strong.

Glad Isabella was found safe.

The queasy might want to skip this, but I enjoyed it: People from Japan have different digestive abilities from the rest of us… and they apparently got it from the ocean. (This actually appears to be an old series, but it was brought back.)

And RIP, Pinetop Perkins and Elizabeth Taylor.

The usual assortment of players absent for an early-week practice without a mid-week game. Mark Wotton, Micheal Haley, Dustin Kohn, Dylan Reese, Rhett Rakhshani: All sat out this one, which was a pretty tough one. Battles, skating, a good bit of conditioning at the end.

Jason Pitton did take part for the first time since he took that hip check in Worcester. And Jean Bourbeau is back from Odessa, as was foretold the other night.

Absent: Dustin Friesen, who’s going back to Idaho, Pat Bingham said. “Great guy. It was so tough to find a regular spot for him in the lineup.” He’ll get back to playing regularly, and playing defense, in Boise. “He’s a defenseman. He really is,” Bingham said. “He helped us out a great deal with the hectic schedule, being able to take a regular shift at forward.”

Early-Saturday news, which may be updated:

–The Islanders called up Mikko Koskinen for tonight’s game with Ottawa. Tonight’s backup here is expected to be Riley Gill, who was with Kalamazoo. Here’s a story on him from Kalamazoo last spring, when he joined the Wings while finishing up at Western Michigan.

–Pat Bingham said Jean Bourbeau will be back this week. There was a thought about trying to get him back tonight, but the weather left too many variables, so he’ll likely be here for Monday’s practice.

–Tony Romano skated in the morning. They’ll see how he’s feeling in the afternoon before deciding if he’ll be in tonight.

Edit: The Odessa American reported tonight that Jean Bourbeau is going down to the Jackalopes for the all-star break.

(I am prepared to surrender. I have prepared a white flag for the occasion. Winter, you win. Now leave us alone.)

Practice had an hour delay, and then after that came several meetings between coaches and players. When we got to poke our head in, Pat Bingham said that Mikko Koskinen is going to sit out the weekend to rest the (yet undisclosed) injury that has nagged him for a little while here.

“It’s the only way that’ll cure what he’s got,” Bingham said. “He needs a little R+R. … We’ve got the weekend, and then we’ve got the break. It’s not a long-term thing.”

Leni DiCostanzo took over the net opposite Joel Martin, but it doesn’t look as if he’ll have to during the weekend: At about 1:15, Dylan Reese and Kevin Poulin walked through the door to the welcomes of their old mates. They’re here to play, Bingham confirmed, if the fact that they had all their gear and sticks wasn’t confirmation enough.

Wes O’Neill did practice, as did all those who played Tuesday or were healthy scratches.

(One funny-for-me moment to see: Reese came in and introduced himself to one of the new guys: Jason Pitton. Reese has been around for almost a year; Pitton was here for the better part of three. But they’d never been in the same room.)

They were changing over some of the signage inside the arena after practice. New signs with the sponsor’s name; new signs with Sound Tigers and Fairfield Stags logos.

Edit: Moments after I hit publish came a press release: San Jose sent Jamie McGinn and Benn Ferriero to Worcester.

Word late this afternoon that Matt Moulson agreed to terms to stick around for another three years.

In Glens Falls, Phlex is gone. New mascot: Dax.

As seen on Uni Watch, it’s 15 years ago today that the Kings unleashed this on an innocent world. Fascinating story.

Language Log, Geoffrey K. Pullum in particular, takes on the passive. Good stuff.

And RIP, Gladys Horton.

–The big club recently made it official that Jesse Joensuu and Dylan Reese are called up before they hit the road for a week and a half.

–Jean Bourbeau was under the weather this morning, so they told him not to come in for the skate. With the other two guys gone, with Jeremy Yablonski not skating and with Dustin Kohn not yet cleared, an absent Bourbeau would leave them at 17 skaters. The plan is for Bourbeau to give it a try tonight at Worcester. Pat Bingham was working on finding a body as Plan B if Bourbeau can’t play. Failing that, Bridgeport would play a man short for the first time in over three years.

Edit: Plan B is apparently Mike Sellitto, called up from Danbury. So I guess it did get him closer to the AHL.

–Nathan Lawson goes tonight.

The Islanders put Jon Sim on waivers today, so there’s a chance he could be here for tomorrow’s game. It’s already a crowded house at forward for these guys.

It’s the first 15-game night in AHL history, so here’s one-fifteenth of the league’s lineups:

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

SPRINGFIELD
F: Calvert-Blunden (A)-Kubalik
Pandolfo-Frischmon (A)-Byers
Mayorov-D’Alvise-Filatov
Ratchuk-Tarnasky-Regner
(Murovich-scratch)
D: Sigalet-Savard
Holden-Goloubef
Moore-Guenin (A)
G: Wesslau
LeNeveu

R: R.Fraser. L: Simeon, Redding.

Edit, with thanks to Jamie Palatini and Ian Healy, to reflect that Figren is not in two places at once. That would be cool.

Both teams have one to scratch. But Jean Bourbeau and Tyler Murovich never stood up during line rushes, so I’ve got a guess. Edit2: Indeed, those are the two.

Bourbeau, by the way, out there in the full cage, is now wearing No. 20.

Talented young’n Nikita Filatov, who’d been banged up during the week, is apparently in for the Falcons.

If you weren’t here earlier, the breaking news of the day: Mark Wotton is the Eastern Conference all-star captain.

The team had an early practice and got on the road for Syracuse. Rob Hisey skated in what had been David Ullstrom’s spot and was more recently Dustin Friesen’s spot. (Friesen skated with the defensemen.) Hisey seems like a possibility. Justin DiBenedetto also traveled. But so did Ullstrom; he didn’t skate Friday morning, but the bruises he suffered Wednesday are feeling much better. If Ullstrom feels all right tomorrow or Sunday, he could be right back in.

Also skating: Jean Bourbeau again, with the full cage; and Jeremy Yablonski, who Pat Bingham said was a surprise addition Friday.

Yablonski believes he’ll be back in next weekend, though he still wouldn’t say what was wrong with him. “When I can’t be out there helping the team, the physical presence: I’m just champing at the bit,” he said.

Bourbeau is feeling good, too. With an orbital bone blowout and with the swelling and the pressure around the eye, doctors wanted him to take plenty of time off as a precaution. “You don’t want to take chances around the eye,” he said. He has been feeling fine for a while, though.

They both said they’ve been impressed with the guys who have filled in. “That allows us to heal up,” Bourbeau said. “We pull together and fight through. That’s all you can do.” Said Yablonski, “some of the guys who are injured … are going to have to earn their spot in the lineup.”

The lines otherwise looked how they’ve looked.

A third of the way through the season, Bridgeport has lost 107 man-games to injury. That’s as many as the inaugural Sound Tigers team lost the entire season. (That does include the 15 that Jason Krog lost to a preseason injury, so 2001-02 is really 92. If you include Lawson’s five this year, it’s 112.) Team record is 355 in 2005-06; Justin Papineau, Jody Robinson, Joel Bouchard, Paul Flache and Chris Madden each missed more than 30 games and accounted for 255 of those by themselves. They lost 315 the year before that, plus another 26 to illness.

Syracuse plays at home tonight against the Phantoms. The city apparently has received multiple feet of snow. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, we wait for the cold snap to snap. What state is this?

Connecticut (the team, not the state) announced that Howard Baldwin Jr. is the new president/chief operating officer of Whalers Sports and Entertainment. “Bubba” helped Joe Franke out with the equipment late in the 2008-09 season.

Providence had the roster shaken up last night with two trades, bringing Juraj Simek and Sean Zimmerman in from different directions, sending three forwards out.

Great ESPN story about Marc Savard and his battle with post-concussion depression. Insidious things, concussions.

And Ken Levine, asked for his favorite TV scene, links up Chef of the Future from the Honeymooners.

Lots of bumps and bruises, so they went with an optional skate this morning. They had 10 and two plus two goalies — or, since Dustin Friesen was one, you could say 11 and one plus two — for about 45 minutes. They’ll go for real tomorrow and hit the road for Syracuse.

Rob Hisey, Justin DiBenedetto and Jean Bourbeau all took part in the optional, all making progress. Whether they might play this weekend was still a decision for down the road. Bourbeau was in a full cage.

From the transactions: Houston sent Peter Zingoni, just back from a long stretch of injury, to Bakersfield (ECHL). Peoria let Jake Gannon go from his PTO.

And RIP, Vic Lynn and former Bridgeport off-ice official Kevin Sheehan.

So who the heck said goal-scoring was gonna be a problem around here?

Not tonight. Not at either end. Not with the odd-man rushes flying back and forth; not with the turnovers showing up in the back of the net.

“I think the offense will come for everyone,” Bridgeport sniper Micheal Haley said. “It’s not like in past years, where we had certain guys.

“We don’t care where it comes from, as long as it comes. It’s not really a concern for us. If we win 1-0 every game, it’s still a win.”

It didn’t take long for this game to avoid the 1-0 score. It didn’t take long after that for Rob Hisey to make it 2-1, either. And then it didn’t slow down again until the last 12 minutes, though the chances didn’t disappear.

Having their moments in both ends was Haley-Tomas Marcinko-Robin Figren. Haley and Figren both challenged Sharks to force turnovers that the other finally converted. Marcinko was in the middle on Figren’s goal, then put the shootout away.

“We know our job is to get in on the forecheck and cause problems for the defense,” Haley said.

As Figren said, sometimes they had trouble getting out of their own zone. (That happened right after a shift where they buzzed for a long time, which might not have helped.) But they created some chances for themselves.

So did other guys. Martin, Hisey, Tony Romano in overtime. That Ullstrom pass was a thing of beauty.

“The whole team, we battled,” Figren said. “We’ll get better down the stretch. Our line, I think we did a lot of good things.”

A good start, anyway.

….

(Testing that. It seems stuff underneath dashes disappears when the system changes.)

Jack Capuano pointed to the fourth line of Romano, Yablonski and Bourbeau, too. Bourbeau “answered the bell” when Garet Hunt went at him and Dustin Kohn. Romano had moments in both ends in overtime, then scored in the shootout.

The warmup-goalie mystery, solved: Mikko Koskinen’s skate broke earlier in the day, then broke again before the game. He got it fixed up in time to get out there, but not in time to lead them out.

Haley noted that he has more points that PIMs. I asked if he planned to do something about that. He justifiably wasn’t disappointed.

That might be as physical as I can remember Dustin Kohn playing: The tag-team hit with Bourbeau that knocked DaSilva into the bench, grabbing Marcou out of the crease, a hit on I think Zalewski behind the net.

Capuano said it was an upper-body injury for Hilbert, who’ll remain day-to-day.

The bench got very short late in regulation, though Anton Klementyev was moving kind of gingerly in the dressing room, so maybe there was a reason for that.

Prescout. Defense was not a watchword tonight.

The first WBS-Hershey showdown this year was a tie.

The Wade Redden era begins with two power-play assists.

Rangers rookie Derek Stepan had a hat trick in his NHL debut tonight. John Tavares has a concussion.

Mikko Koskinen gave up a goal off a power-play faceoff 75 seconds into the game Wednesday at Victoria. He didn’t allow another one. Koskinen made 23 saves on 24 shots as Utah clinched a playoff spot.

Odessa avoided the dreaded 3-0 hole with a win on the road. Jean Bourbeau was plus-1.

And defenseman Jared Spurgeon, a sixth-round pick two years ago, and Spokane lost deep in the first OT in Game 7 to Portland. The road team won every game in a 2-3-1-1 format; the Chiefs surrendered a 3-0 lead in this game. Don’t know for sure if the NYI/BST plan on bringing him in, but if they do, he’s available now. (Here’s a feature on Spurgeon.)

Fixed many of the photos that disappeared when the blog moved last summer (more accurately, when the old blog was shut down recently). If you notice a missing photo within the body of a blog post, let me know. (Not in the header or the margins. Those aren’t mine.)

Also fixed links to several old pages, like the old free-agent scorecards and signed-player scorecards. And also… Well, as mentioned in the live chat, pages don’t work very well on this blog server, at least not if they have tables. So I tossed them on a free Web hosting site. Apologies for the ads.

But that also allowed two other things:

AtlanticWatch ’10! With four columns, to which we’ll add if necessary. (Or maybe subtract if it will be easier soon.)

And EastWatch ’10! With, like, 15 columns. If we have to add to that, we may break the Internet.

Apologies for the Lowell color choice. Going throwback.

Don’t know how many of you actually use/have used these pages, but I know one person was wondering. So there they are. There are permanent links to both pages in the bottom of the right-hand column.

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In case you missed it earlier in the chat, the Sound Tigers sent Jean Bourbeau back to Odessa, at least for Wednesday’s Game 3 of its playoff series. Game 4 is Friday. No word if Bourbeau will come back up after Wednesday or stick around with the Jackalopes. Anton Klementyev was back. Smith and DiBenedetto remained out.

Mark Flood earned his first NHL point on Blake Comeau’s second goal tonight.

The Sound Tigers are honoring Connecticut’s Erin Pac, a bronze medalist in bobsled, at Saturday’s game.

Jason Pitton went back down to Stockton.

Farmington’s Nick Bonino has his first NHL goal.

And as noted in the comments, Sean Backman signed with Dallas.