Soundin' Off

Weird that it’s over like that. It happens.

It does appear that Kevin Poulin’s 50 saves on 54 shots set a team record. Wade Dubielewicz made 45 on 48 shots in Game 6 of the 2006 playoffs. His 22 in the second aren’t a record, though; Dubielewicz made 26 on 27 in the second period that night. That game also ended on an overtime power-play goal, Ryan Stone’s.

Did up the stats today after the chat. Updated the all-time lists. Most notably, Rhett Rakhshani moved into 10th in all-time scoring, two points ahead of Jesse Joensuu. Jeremy Colliton caught Jeff Hamilton in one category: He has more shots than Hamilton, 685-653. (Jeff’s still got him by 12 goals.) The team’s games-played list: (1) Wotton 368, (2) Colliton 326, (3) Regier 290, (4) Haley 247, (5) Marcinko 243, (6) Mapletoft 240.

Considering that fully half of the franchise’s playoff games occurred in the first two seasons, this probably isn’t stunning, but… of the Sound Tigers’ top 18 players in playoff scoring, not one played for the team after 2006. The 19th was Trevor Smith, 2-5-7 in 10 playoff games over two springs. Those 18 players include eight who weren’t in the 2002 playoff run.

Bridgeport is 43,833 away from 2,000,000 fans all-time. (ahemyes, tickets distributedahem) Take out two games at Nassau and two in the Maritimes, and they’re 77,198 away from 2,000,000 at Harbor Yard. So there’s that to look forward to, sometime in the first half of next season.

….

Below the fold are selected quotes from some of the people I pestered for a few minutes on Monday. And then we’ll go to summertime blog mode. The playoffs (Sean Bergenheim, again!), the Worlds, we’ll keep an eye as best we can. They’ll make me work, no doubt, but I’ll be around. Hope you’ve enjoyed stuff here for seven years and in the paper for 11.

Thanks to the bosses. Thanks to the PR folks and the league and the organeyezation and the fellow writers all over this league. Thanks to players and staff and coaches and Leni, Matt and Kevin and everybody else over there for putting up with me.

And most of all, thank you for reading and being here.

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(more…)

Cam Talbot, pride of Alabama-Huntsville (at least since that last UAH guy, who played here), made 42 saves the other night. He made 41 more tonight. He’s a huge reason the Sound Tigers suddenly need a three-game winning streak over the next seven days, or their season is done.

“You’re running into a hot goalie,” Brent Thompson said. “They’ve obviously played very well. For us, we’ve just got to stay the course. We’ve got to find a way to create offense, whether that’s more shots, on the rush, net drive, net presence, cutting back, puck possession.”

Thompson seemed most frustrated with the start. The five-on-three didn’t do enough; Wade Redden and Tim Erixon blocked some shots, they only got one through (and that from a bad angle). And then Jon Landry throws one into the slot, and Jonathan Audy-Marchessault makes them pay.

Two more along the way, but 1-0 or 3-0, it didn’t matter at that point. They have 83 shots. They have no goals. Simple as that.

And if that doesn’t change tomorrow, well, yeah.

….

Bridgeport had been shut out just once at home in the playoffs, and now this. Hartford had never had back-to-back shutouts in the playoffs, and now this.

David Ullstrom turns 23 tomorrow. Sound Tigers seem to score inordinately on their birthdays. Cam Talbot is out of his gourd. Something’s got to give.

Casey Cizikas’ game misconduct was finally written up under the more lenient piece of the abuse-of-officials rule. The category (Rule 39.5 (ii)) deals with language and gestures. Had they gone with the physical-abuse section, considering how hard he was working to get away from Brent Colby, that could have carried an automatic suspension. Cizikas wasn’t available for comment.

Rhett Rakhshani also wasn’t up for comment for a very different reason: He took a clearing pass in the mouth in the second period. The extent of the damage wasn’t immediately available, but it sure looked like enough that it was impressive to see him appear early in the third.

Other teams with 2-0 leads include Wilkes-Barre (decisively), Toronto, San Antonio (links left as an exercise for the reader), of course NorHOLY CRO NORFOLK LOST A GAME. Had to happen sometime this century, I guess. Big nights for Martin Jones and Linden Vey. That series comes up to ManchVegas beginning on Wednesday, suddenly a best-of-3. Also a best-of-3, though going further northeast, is Syracuse-St. John’s. The Caps kept the Crunch’s big boys mostly quiet, but they put only 21 shots on Iiro Tarkki, and Kyle Palmieri got the puck to the crease for a good-bounce winner.

Guess 41 was the number of the night. Brian Boyle is a huge loss.

And finally, my 20th annual Stanley Cup pick of San Jose doesn’t seem to have panned out. Ah well.

Bridgeport puts a few of the regulars back in; but for the injured Landry, for instance, this is pretty much their defense, and Poulin gets himself one more day of work before the playoffs. There are some differences on forward, but Cizikas gets himself back in in the AHL for the first time since Feb. 20.

The Pens’ lineup looks different from yesterday’s as well. Scott Munroe starts again here.

BRIDGEPORT
F: McNeely-Cizikas-Rakhshani
Haley (A)-Mouillierat-Halmo
Ullstrom-Nelson-Howes
Gallant-Marcinko-Johnston
D: de Haan-Wishart (A)
Donovan-Oleksy (A)
Ness-Katic
G: Poulin
Reiter

WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON
F: Lerg (A)-O’Reilly-Thompson
Petersen-Street (A)-Walker
DeFazio-Sill-Payerl
Barton-Rust-MacIntyre
D: Hotham-Bortuzzo (A)
Despres-Merth
Samuelsson-Grant
G: Munroe
Killeen

R: C.Brown. L: Redding, Colby.

It looks, from the lines at Wonderland at least, as if David Ullstrom will be OK to go tomorrow, though they might give Casey Cizikas another day (or two) (or more). “We’ll go day to day with him,” Brent Thompson said. “There’s a slim chance he could get in one game. We’ll see how things play out.”

Still no Trevor Frischmon or Jon Landry, and Thompson said they won’t make the trip tomorrow. Marc Cantin joined the group from Reading, making 18 forwards, eight defensemen and two goalies on the ice.

The transactions report that Houston has called up Benn Olson from the ECHL and released onetime (literally) Bridgeport goalie Joe Fallon from his PTO.

Edit in the afternoon:
Awards from the league: Cory Conacher is rookie of the year, and Nick Petrecki of Worcester is the Yanick Dupre Award winner as the league’s man of the year.

Since it went up in the middle of the night on a holiday, I’ll just point you toward our Fake Team Awards, in case you didn’t see them.

The Islanders sent Micheal Haley and Matt Donovan back to Bridgeport this afternoon as their season ended. Casey Cizikas was conspicuously absent, which doesn’t seem to be cause for concern: He can’t be sent down while injured, and he’s apparently still not cleared from his reported upper-body injury. You may remember a similar thing happening with Blake Comeau in the 2009 playoffs; the Islanders were done but couldn’t assign Comeau back to the Sound Tigers until a broken wrist healed.

More thinking-too-hard stuff on Easter:

–I think St. John’s can drop its magic number to clinch the No. 2 seed to one point with a regulation or OT win over the Falcons today. The Caps would be at 92 with 38 ROWs; Bridgeport, the only team that can catch them, is at max 93 with max 38 ROWs, and St. John’s won the season series.

For what that’s worth.

–This could be, by any measure, Bridgeport’s third-best season at home. It’s 24-9-2-2 with one game to play. The 2008-09 season, you may recall, was the best by any measure at 29-7-1-3, with two shootout wins. In 2001-02, Bridgeport was 26-9-4-1 (W-L-T-OTL), a .713 points percentage on its own terms and .700 in “real” (no OTL points) terms; 2008-09 was .775 with the shootouts, .750 taking out the shootout wins, .738 without bonus points whatsoever.

With one game to go, Bridgeport’s percentages this year are .703/.689/.662. A regulation or overtime loss next Sunday, though, would drop it behind 2003-04 (24-10-4T-2OTL, .675/.675/.650) in at least one column.

Those earlier teams led the league at home; Bridgeport can’t catch Norfolk (27-9-1-1) anymore, but it’ll hold on to second if Toronto loses or wins in a shootout at home today, or if it gets at least a point in next Sunday’s finale.

For what all that’s worth.

–Worth substantially more: RIP, Mike Wallace.

The Islanders announced this afternoon that they’ve recalled Matt Donovan; Arthur Staple says he could spell a couple of banged-up veterans (it’s that time of year). Donovan, who’s had a strong second half, could make his NHL debut tomorrow night.

Edit: Bridgeport also released Tyler Gron.

Bridgeport nominated Casey Cizikas for the Yanick Dupre Award, the AHL’s humanitarian and charity award. Joel Rechlicz is Hershey’s nominee.

The benches cleared in the Rockford-Milwaukee game Sunday. Wow. (Box score.) Another wow in the Springfield-Worcester game: an aggressor penalty against a player from each team.

Like I tweeted, we were totally watching the wrong game. (Aw, that one wasn’t bad, either.)

Edit: Yeah, let’s do the chat Tuesday, 1:30.

Again, no Albany for us. We’ll listen in and liveblog here, while following Bridgeport and Albany on Twitter.

Casey Cizikas’ first points in the Show give me an excuse to share this Marc Cantin story, which didn’t make the paper. I asked yesterday if he’d had a chance to catch up with his junior teammate since the Bruins traded him here Monday. He said he hadn’t yet, but when he heard he had been sent to the Islanders, he knew Cizikas had been here. He pulled up the Bridgeport roster online… and, not realizing Cizikas had been called up, got worried for a split second, wondering if maybe Cizikas had been traded, too. Nope. But they’re not quite yet reunited, either.

Taking a lengthy optional skate this morning at Wonderland: Nick Niedert, Steve Oleksy, Mark Katic, Russ Sinkewich, Tony Romano, Yannick Riendeau and Brett Gallant. That could be indicative of tonight’s lineup, or it could just be a numerical coincidence. Edit: Guess it’s indicative.

Elsewhere: Brandon Gentile hooked on with Charlotte on a PTO. New daddy Keith Aucoin is expected to play his 10th game tonight for Washington, which means he’d have to clear waivers to go back to the Bears.

RIP, James Q. Wilson and Rick Porto.

More closer to gametime.

–Not slowed by his brief detour to Bridgeport, Riley Gill is the ECHL’s goalie of the month for February.

–Given those scratches, not sure what they’ll do with the defense pairs. It had been de Haan-Wishart, Ness-Landry and Donovan-Oleksy; losing the one righty may switch some things around, or maybe Donovan just slides right. We’ll see.

–Poulin vs. Frazee, Jamie tweets.

–Going to imagine the lineup looks something like this; will adjust if tweets indicate it.

BRIDGEPORT
F: DiBenedetto (A)-Colliton (C)-Rakhshani
Haley-Mouillierat-Howes
McNeely-Frischmon (A)-Backman
Gillies-Marcinko-Riley
D: de Haan-Wishart
Ness-Landry
Cantin-Donovan
G: Poulin
Niedert

ALBANY, via Twitter
F: Gionta (C)-Zalewski-Tedenby
Zharkov-Mills (A)-Whitney
Sislo-Zajac-Hoeffel
Perkovich-Nagy-Berube
D: Corrente-Gelinas
others to come: Burlon, Harrold (A), Young, Kelly are in
G: Frazee
Kinkaid

R: McIsaac. L: F. Murphy, Lemay.

Radiocast will apparently be up at about 6:47.

–Funny enough that Bridgeport is done with Adirondack and Albany after tonight; Josh Heller notes that Albany will be done with every divisional team except the Phantoms after tonight.

–Jamie tweets those lines and pairs, but has Howes and Haley on the other wings, has Landry on the left of Ness, and Cantin on the right of Donovan.

–Game on.

–From a press release on e-mail, will try to dig up a link: Peter Mannino has been assigned to Portland from St. John’s in a swap that’ll send Brock Trotter to the IceCaps. Mannino had been with Chicago (ECHL). Edit: link.

–Long five-on-three coming with Rakhshani and then Frischmon in the box midway through the period.

–Steve Zalewski, who drew the Frischmon penalty, scores on a redirection to make it 1-0.

–And Zalewski scores again off Tedenby’s pass, and the Devils capitalize on both ends of the power play. 2-0.

–Cantin gets himself onto the scoresheet: a roughing minor. Albany’s third power play.

–Cantin, from the box, was on the ice for the second power-play goal, so getting a good look, apparently. His penalty has expired with about three and a half minutes left in the first.

–Cantin for a hook that’ll last just about the rest of the period, if the Devils don’t score.

–Bridgeport survives those last two penalties but trails 2-0 after one. Shots 13 12 13-7 Albany; think a bunch of those were on the power play. Heller says Poulin’s right hand may be banged up, maybe bleeding.

–Tim Wallace, say the various Tampa Bay and Rangers beat writers, is scratched tonight, so no local TV appearance for him tonight.

–I can’t keep a computer functioning for some reason. Anyway, I get it somewhere resembling functional just in time to learn that Rhett Rakhshani has returned to the lineup with a goal 1:02 into the second period: 2-1 Devils.

–And it’s not all that functional before Mills makes it 3-1 at 4:17. And it’s STILL not functional when Joe Whitney makes it 4-1. Trust the tweeters while I try to figure this thing out.

–Hey, think we’re working. TweetDeck lights up with news that Jeremy Lin is in Levien Gym for Harvard-Columbia. The Devils still lead it 4-1 midway through the second.

–Colliton gets a hooking minor late in the period, and Blair Riley goes with Matt Corrente afterward. Meanwhile, TSN reports that Ron Wilson is out as coach of the Maple Leafs. A contract extension for Christmas; fired by Easter?

–McIsaac apparently gives Corrente an extra minor (unsportsmanlike conduct) out of that sequence and is putting the teams at four-on-four. I still don’t understand that, given the rule book’s emphasis in my memory of one minor for one player from each team. Anyway. Albany leads 4-1 after two, shots 25-15.

–Heller says they start at four on four “for these two teams.” I was hoping he was going to say “for some reason.” Anyway.

–Mattias Tedenby makes it 5-1 on a wraparound early in the third.

–Bridgeport hadn’t trailed by four since losing 5-0 at Hershey on Dec. 17. It’s the first time the Sound Tigers have given up five since then.

–Jeremy Colliton goes off for the third time tonight as time dwindles. Forgot to link earlier, when it might’ve killed some time: Prescout. The Bruins also play Saturday against Worcester, where Bridgeport plays Tuesday.

–Matt Donovan scores with 1:36 to go to make it 5-2. Marcinko gets an assist. Window dressing. Albany 5, Bridgeport 2, final.

–If you’re scoreboard watching, the Whale fell to Portland; onetime Sound Tigers forward Ryan Duncan scored the winner. Bridgeport remains a tiebreaker ahead, but Albany closed to within four points.

–Brent Thompson’s hoping this was just one of those dud nights; he thought Albany outworked them in most of the one-on-one battles. “It’s something we need to be better at,” he said. “We don’t usually lose those. … It seemed the bounces were not going our way (either). … They just competed a little harder than we did. We worked hard at times, but we’ve got to work a little smarter.” They got a look at Cantin; “you can see there’s potential.”

They’ll practice tomorrow, so more then.

They’ve set something of a standard the past two months. So-so doesn’t cut it for them, even if it almost cut it on the scoreboard.

“When the other team outworks you, it’s not good enough,” Brent Thompson said. “I’m not going to say it was the whole game, but they outworked us the majority of the game.”

There wasn’t much momentum. They didn’t get pucks back when they got them deep; they seemed to be going east-west sometimes when they could’ve gone north-south, and it cost them position if not always possession. They had one failed clear that ended up in the back of their net.

Jeremy Colliton called it “a little scattered.” They’ll try to pull it back together tomorrow night.

….

Road winning streak ends at eight; first one since New Year’s Eve in Wilkes-Barre. Winning streak ends at five. Anders Nilsson’s winning streak ends at nine. But Blair Riley’s scoring streak rolls on.

Thompson said Calvin de Haan is possible for Saturday; Mark Katic, probably not. “I wish I could put Marcinko in,” he joked. Well, the sentiment wasn’t a joke, actually. Two games to go on that suspension.

Bridgeport played 142 minutes, 28 seconds without allowing a goal, back to the Hershey five-on-three goal Sunday. Nilsson’s personal shutout streak of 141:41 (he was off the ice for a crazy long time on a delayed penalty Monday) would have passed Peter Mannino’s post-lockout individual record, if not for that pesky streak Kevin Poulin went on to start January.

The net rippled on Dane Byers’ shootout attempt, leading off the third round. Officially, it’s because the puck clipped it as it went past, wide. Byers asked Chris Cozzan and the linesmen to take a look and see if they could find a hole in the netting. They did not. A few fans yelled for a replay. Wrong arena. Five of the first six shooters appeared to miss the net (Paul Dainton gloved Tony Romano’s shot), and then five shooters in a row scored before Kael Mouillierat hit the post to end it.

Prescout. Worcester had a crowd over 10,000 for an appearance by the Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski. I’d say “Providence sent them home unhappy,” but got to figure Bruins fans make up a bit of that 10,000, between the proximity and the Patriots thing, so. Providence sent some of them home unhappy, and some home happy. Some probably were just on sugar highs. I’ve painted myself in a corner here.

Always nice to see Fran Sypek.

Casey Cizikas played 11:33 in his NHL debut.

Big NHL deal sends three Devils to Minnesota for Marek Zidlicky. Two and a half days to the deadline.

The Sound Tigers had the Player of the Month and Goalie of the Month in January, big reasons they were pretty much the team of the month. “Our team’s been playing well,” Brent Thompson said. “They can’t do it without the team.” Tomorrow, they get cracking on continuing to play well.

Poulin was back in practice. Things looked similar otherwise. As noted in the chat, Brent Thompson said Calvin de Haan and Brett Gallant may actually be further away than Mark Katic, whose contact clearance won’t come for at least another two weeks.

Bring three cans of food Saturday, get a ticket for Presidents Day, Feb. 20.

Gordie Howe battling dementia, reports the Globe and Mail.

A wild, horrible way to lose a game: the clock stops at 1.8 seconds, long enough to let the other team beat the buzzer to score the winner.

Have found a way to reintroduce the lost blog posts of the spring of 2006. Will do that over the next few days. (You don’t care. But (a) hey, they’ll be in the archives again; and (2) there’s a nice little reason, pointed out by Dan Hickling today, that’ll make one of those lost posts worth noting tomorrow; it’s already reintroduced.)

And RIP, Angelo Dundee.

The league announced Casey Cizikas as its Player of the Week this morning. A mere nine points in three games (2-1-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, in order) for the rookie; a mere 18 points in 11 games this month.

Probably the funniest thing about this week is that Cizikas went on this nine-point tear after they named him to the all-star team. Not that things weren’t going well before that, but still.

The third time Bridgeport has had two POTW honors in one season. First time two in a month (Kevin Poulin, Jan. 9 — he’s got the nod in the Show tonight, and Rakhshani’s in for the first time this year, too).

Deepest apologies to Bruce Springsteen. And his fans. And his non-fans. All of you. Sorry.

We’ll liveblog game thoughts here, or again tweet if we’re moved. According to the board in the East dressing room, Casey Cizikas is with Carter Camper of Providence as the 13th/14th forwards, Cam Atkinson plays with Corey Locke and Kyle Palmieri, and Trevor Smith skates between Norfolk teammate Cory Conacher and Wethersfield’s Colin McDonald.

By the way, neglected in the previous post, but a note from Hershey: Joel Rechlicz got an NHL deal from Washington and got called up today.

–It’s only 10 years later that I discover they took a point away from Ray Giroux in the 2002 AHL all-star game. So, Rhett Rakhshani holds the Bridgeport team record alone: 1-3-4 in an all-star game. #completelymeaninglessstats

–Oh, thank goodness. The warmup jerseys were borderline unreadable from up here. The game sweaters are different. (Merchandizing!)

–Cizikas behind his own net just now on his first shift. Someone explain the whole “all-star game” to him, please.

–Second shift was better. He flew the zone off a faceoff, then changed in time to avoid a minus. 2-1 East early.

–Cizikas’ll get credit for this one, pinballing back and forth and then through Hackett to make it 3-2 East at 10:32.

–Atkinson has an assist on Kyle Palmieri’s goal earlier. He tried a bank-in from behind the goal line shortly before the West made it 2-2. It’s 4-2 East now at 10:58. Not sure if Barberio’s shot got through cleanly or if Andy Miele got a piece. Edit: Miele did; Audy-Marchesssault apparently shot it.

–Zuccarello scores on a breakaway. Three points for him and Jonathan Audy-Marchessault already. It’s 6-2 East after one.

–Internet and runnin’-around delays, but the West has put on a charge and trails just 6-4 with 2:32 left in the second. Yann Danis has made 10 saves on 10 shots in the period for the West.

–The West wears down the East, outshoots ‘em 22-11 in the second, and cuts the lead to 6-5 East after two. Danis 11-for-11.

–Goaltending clinic. Tyson Sexsmith of Worcester has come on for the third and made three or four point-blank stops. (The West has also hit the post at least three times.) This after Danis.

–By the way, got to hang out a bit with Rich Bocchini here this weekend. Rich is with Houston now. A bunch of the Aeros’ staff in town for the event.

–Cory Conacher stops the bleeding with his second of the night, 7-5 East. Trevor Smith gets the second assist with Albany’s Alexander Urbom in between. Now 9:43 remaining after Ben Bishop stops Cizikas’ shot from the slot.

–A “Let’s Go, East” chant breaks out with 5:40 to play. It’s 7-6 in favor of the object of their affections. The first and so far only puck to beat Sexsmith went in off East/Norfolk defenseman Mark Barberio.

–Tie game, Kevin Connauton with 4:07 left.

–Shootout. Ah, jeez. 7-7.

–The West wins the shootout 2-0 and the game 8-7. MVP is Ben Bishop, 10-for-11 in the third and 4-for-4 in the shootout.

–So Cizikas got himself a goal, with his family in the house watching. “It was definitely a learning experience,” he said. “I got to meet all the guys around the league. It was definitely fun, to be in this kind of atmosphere, to get this experience. I never thought I’d experience this coming into my rookie year. … Everything was top-class.”

I’m thinking Yann Danis got robbed for MVP, but whatever. “The guys were backchecking,” Danis said. “I didn’t face any two-on-ones, breakaways.”

So that’ll wrap it up from here, more or less. Headed home. Day off tomorrow (as noted a post below, leaning toward Thursday 1:30 for a chat). Practice Wednesday afternoon. Fewer Springsteen quotes. Back to some sort of routine.

Going short on this one in hopes of making it home, so a couple of notes of note:

–Casey Cizikas said he didn’t realize his first goal went in. Took him a second. No mistake about the second one.

–Anders Nilsson called that “probably the best defensive game we’ve played. … They had a lot of shots, but most of them were from the blue line, from the boards. I saw pretty much every shot.”

–Bridgeport shortened the bench late in the second and in the third. Haley-Frischmon-Marcinko, Ullstrom-Colliton-Romano, DiBenedetto-Cizikas-Wallace. In the third, Backman had a few shifts, Kissel had I think one, McNeely didn’t play. The three lines as reassembled, “I thought, gave us the best opportunity to win tonight,” Brent Thompson said. “The three lines were going well. They were carrying momentum.” He said he was looking for players to win battles on the wall, looking for second effort, players who were strong on the puck. They also went down to five defensemen, leaving Olesky out, late in the third.

–The four later regulation-time game-winners:
<  ><  ><  >–Nov. 1, 2008, Jack Hillen at Binghamton (9.3)*
<  ><  ><  >–Oct. 10, 2009, Sean Bentivoglio at Wilkes-Barre (10.0)
<  ><  ><  >–March 13, 2004, Jeff Hamilton vs. Hartford (13.5)
<  ><  ><  >–Jan. 31, 2009, Ben Walter vs. Portland (14.4)

–Got a kick out of this tweet from Rhett Rakhshani about Latino Night.

Team’s off tomorrow. Back at it Monday. Chat Tuesday. Game Wednesday morning. Busy week, come to think of it.

*-You’ll recall the funny part about that one.