Soundin' Off

You could probably have written something like the script to this one before the game, though you might’ve taken a Providence power-play goal or two away for realism’s sake.

Depleted lineup. Depleted goaltending. Three-in-three for Providence after a Bridgeport day off. This is a game the Sound Tigers are supposed to win in fashion like this. They executed and got it done.

“It’s what we try to do, bang bodies, get pucks to the net, outwork (the other team),” Micheal Haley said. “It worked out tonight.”

Jeremy Colliton, Blair Riley, newbie Russ Sinkewich: They all had a memorable hit in the first period. The team went to work on the forecheck, forcing turnovers that helped lead to a couple of goals.

“I thought our guys played hard,” Thompson said. “Five on five, we moved the puck very well. We pushed the pace.” The defense moved it up; the forwards got it deep.

Thompson said they kept a pretty even keel through it all, not getting too high or too low as the scoreboard swung a bit early in the game. It’s that whole “we haven’t done anything yet” thing that they’ve talked about once or 300 times, I guess. But they kept playing the way they wanted to play, and against a beat-up team, it worked pretty well.

…..

Will clean up tags and messes from home. Computer’s being a pain, and I may be the only one in the building.

Well, there’s 20 games left, and I said I’d start looking at it then, so… Hartford came from behind to beat Manchester 3-2, so Bridgeport remains a tiebreaker ahead. Albany came back to tie Syracuse late, but the Crunch won it not two minutes later (with a primary assist from Ryan O’Marra). The Devils are five points back.

Mark Katic got his first body contact early on his first shift, stepping up to hit a guy. “I just wanted to get that out of the way early, put a hit in to see how the shoulder felt,” Katic said. “It felt strong.” A few seconds later, he found a seam toward the net and took the puck deep, then tried a wraparound. The kid was back. “It just felt great to be back out there,” he said; he wasn’t where he was at the end of last year, obviously, but a good first step. He wasn’t on the ice for a goal either way. “I thought he gave us a boost on the power play,” Thompson said. “He moved the puck. You could tell his offensive skill level. I’m very happy with the way he played.” Katic missed a couple of shifts to start the second period after a skate blade broke on him.

Riley went all those games without a goal, and now they’re coming furiously, three in the past six games. “It’s good to chip in. It’s not necessarily what I’m expected to do, but (getting down toward the playoffs) you need your third and fourth lines to chip in.”

Arbitrary numbers and other factors and all, but for what it’s worth, Jeremy Colliton is only the second player to score at least 10 goals in four Bridgeport seasons. (One of those factors is that he’s the only player to play in six Bridgeport seasons.) Justin Mapletoft is the other.

Anders Nilsson shut out New Jersey. An assist for Casey Cizikas, too.

Prescout. Nice comeback for a point.

Wade Redden is the new captain of the Connecticut Whale.

Tim Leone wrote a nice piece on the 10th year of Giant Center. He also has the Bears’ top individual moments there, which feature Bridgeport once or twice, and he has team moments, too, which surprisingly don’t include Bridgeport.

Under oddball circumstances, Erie (OHL) gave up 13 goals today with an injured centerman in goal.

And RIP, Alex Webster and Ralph McQuarrie.

It didn’t look like their night for a while. Chances weren’t going. Anton Khudobin was making saves. The Bruins built themselves a lead.

It wasn’t big enough. No Cizikas, no Ullstrom, no great shakes for once from the goaltending: No biggie.

Blair Riley takes a cross-check and takes offense. “He’s been great for us from the beginning,” Jeremy Colliton said. “He plays extremely hard, and he sticks up for his teammates. The past few games, we’ve seen he’s got some hands, too. He did help get us going.”

Tony Romano puts a shot toward the net that caroms over to Justin DiBenedetto for the first goal of the comeback. Tyler McNeely steals the puck and gets it to the net with Sean Backman and Trevor Frischmon. Sweet behind-the-back pass from Scott Howes to Micheal Haley. Haley gets another one, off a defenseman’s stick.

And then after Providence ties it up again, DiBenedetto battles through the guy behind the net… “I Kind of thought he was going to get it to me. I knew what I wanted to do with it,” Colliton said. “I was just praying it would come out on my side.”

It did. Colliton backhanded it in upstairs, off Michael Hutchinson and in. Bridgeport held on, a team effort all around.

….

Colliton’s 200th point kind of happened twice. He had gotten credit for an assist on DiBenedetto’s goal, but it turned out to belong to Aaron Ness. The real 200th was a little better than a second assist. “To get to 201, you’ve got to get to 200,” he said. Good to get it in a win, he said. Second place is Rob Collins’ 163, which of course was the team record for almost five years.

Calvin de Haan got himself back to work, and he said he felt fine. “I was a little hesitant. I was nervous, my first game,” de Haan said. “That’s expected.” He said he got his legs under him as the game went on and settled in. “It’s good to be back.” He started on the right side with Aaron Ness, but then he switched places with Jon Landry, going to the left side with Ty Wishart, his usual partner much of the season. “We wanted to get him back with Wishart,” Thompson said. “It helped him settle down and helped Wish settle down. Landry helped Ness settle down; I thought Ness was a little scrambly early on.”

Never asked about it, but Landry played a shift at forward on the second-unit power play in the first period. Haley played in that spot in the third period. That worked out.

Six home wins in a row ties for third in team history. But Blair Riley’s goal-scoring streak ends at two.

Not sure what happened to Anton Khudobin after the second period. He was still at the bench, which was two men short for the third, Bobby Robins (didn’t see anything happen to him, either) and Kevan Miller (who took a few punches from Riley).

Prescout. Albany’s just four points behind Bridgeport and Hartford, which lost tonight at Springfield.

Wilkes-Barre is down to Patrick Killeen in goal after Scott Munroe got hurt tonight.

And RIP, Billy Strange.

When they were surrendering odd-man rushes every few minutes early in the season, this probably would’ve been one of those games you circle dread.

And sure, Norfolk has been on the road forever, and played last night while the Sound Tigers chilled out at home (or at Ingalls) (or wherever). But the Admirals are still one of those teams with lots of weapons, at least one on each line, “they’re big, their defense is pretty mobile,” Brent Thompson said.

Bridgeport was the one generating the odd-man rushes. Bridgeport was the one playing keepaway for long stretches. Bridgeport has a three-game winning streak.

“We’ve played really good defensively the last three games,” Anders Nilsson said. “That’s why we’re winning.”

Thompson won’t let them off the hook. They’ve got things to work on. They gave the puck away a couple of times in the shifts leading up to Norfolk’s first goal. They let Carter Ashton whack away at the puck too many times on the second. (Nilsson wondered if he should’ve had it, but Ashton had a lot of time to keep smacking.) They can still be stronger defensively.

But they’ve got three wins in a row. They held Norfolk’s power play quiet and held the Admirals to two goals. They’re doing some good things.

“We never seem to give up,” Trevor Frischmon said. “We never seem to have those ups and downs, where we get scored on and shut it down. Being a young team for the most part, that’s great to see.”

…..

Frischmon was glad to get off the schneid. “I definitely felt I had a huge weight on my shoulders,” Frischmon said. “I’m not a huge offensive guy, but I want to contribute.”

Jeremy Colliton quipped that at least he was fresh for the third period. He went out for the second period and realized he had something wrong with his skate. Leni DiCostanzo took it inside to fix the holder, which kept Colliton out for 10 minutes, peeking anxiously toward the runway at every stoppage.

Had been looking forward to seeing Mark Flood on Sunday. But if things are going to go this well for him in the Show, glad I won’t: He scored his first NHL goal and had an assist. (Peter Mannino remains up as well, meaning we went from two returns to none. Well, just Brian Rogers.)

Big, much-needed win for the Big Club.

Prescout. Best record in the conference.

Computer’s freezing up, so we’ll call it here. More in a few hours (though one more than you’d expect).

So that’s two goals in four games deflecting home off defensemen. Two goals for Tomas Marcinko in four games. A goal and an assist for Brett Gallant in three games. A goal and two assists for Chris Langkow in four games.

A night when it took a while to get things going, and the fourth line gets two big ones.

“The fourth line was fantastic,” Brent Thompson said. “(They) were consistently strong the entire 60 minutes.” He laughed. “Now they’ve got to back it up tomorrow.”

They were outshot, dominated, for 27 minutes. It could’ve been 3-0; Klementyev jumped into the rush, but a turnover on the other side of the ice left him trapped, and it turned into a Hartford two-on-one that turned into a Kelsey Tessier breakaway from the hash marks. Kevin Poulin made the save on the backhander. And then a minute and a half later David Ullstrom comes up the right side and starts the comeback.

John Mitchell goes for unsportsmanlike conduct five minutes later, and then Jared Nightingale gets the stick up on Justin DiBenedetto, and then Ty Wishart gets his first assist of two when the shot hits DiBenedetto (five goals in nine periods). Tie game, somehow. And then Marcinko banks one in off Brendan Bell. And then Hartford comes back again, early goal in the third, short-handed breakaway off a turnover, and the Whale lead. And then Wishart’s shot again, with Gallant in front…

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” Gallant says with a laugh. “I just went to the net.” He says he has no idea where it hit him. “They can go off my teeth and I’ll be happy,” he said.

However they can win, I guess.

…..

Colliton’s assist on the Ullstrom goal, added at the start of the third, gives him 111 as a Sound Tiger, one more than Rob Collins. Just 22 more goals to tie Jeff Hamilton.

Klementyev took a Wade Redden shot off his leg in the third period and was limping around. Thompson called him day-to-day.

Prescout, and turns out the Phantoms are human. Four points for former Farmington standout Nick Bonino for Syracuse.

Kris Newbury has points on eight of the nine Whale non-shootout goals this year, and that’s only one short because Hagelin picked off that short-handed goal himself. That earned Newbury a call to the Rangers. Mats Zuccarello headed the other way.

An all-2008-09 Sound Tigers goaltending matchup in St. John’s tonight. The win to Peter Mannino over Nathan Lawson.

You can really ask your iPhone questions like this? And it comes back with answers like that? Jeez, all I can do is yell at my phone. “Why won’t you work, Celly?” And after that, it’s 50-50 that I can call somebody.

Speaking of, should call the office. More tomorrow.

It looks good for Jeremy Colliton to play this weekend, and today’s practice lines included him in the top nine, on the right. Colliton was with Tyler McNeely and David Ullstrom on right wing, which slid Tim Wallace to the side of Micheal Haley and Trevor Frischmon. The Cizikas line stayed intact.

“(Colliton) brings veteran experience to the line,” Brent Thompson said. “He and Ullstrom can read off each other. And with McNeely, that’s a pretty good offensive line, and a defensively responsible line. Going on the road, we want to make sure each line (is capable) offensively and defensively.”

It’s not the first time Colliton has played the right side here. He has usually wound up back in the middle quickly. We’ll see. It’s early; we’ve seen a few different combinations already.

When they get to Glens Falls, they won’t be seeing Stefan Legein.

Paul Doyle and the paper upstate have a blog going on the Whale.

Rod Pasma is going to the NHL, so the AHL has a new VP of hockey operations, former Dartmouth player Mike Murray.

Neat facts about fire. (Lost the h/t off Twitter. Sorry.)

And RIP, legendary high school coach Jerry McDougall.

Reminder: Live chat tomorrow, 1:30.

The seventh captain of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers is Jeremy Colliton. Another choice would have been quite a surprise.

“It’s a very big honor,” Colliton said, noting as well that it’s an honor to follow Mark Wotton, captain for five seasons, into that letter. “I’ve been here a while, so I’ve got a lot of pride in the organization, in the team here.

“I’m proud to wear it.”

The A’s go to four players. On the road, it’ll be Trevor Frischmon (wearing 28) and Tim Wallace. Here, it’ll be Dylan Reese and Justin DiBenedetto, the lone non-AHL veteran. “To me, you’ve got to breed some young leaders,” Brent Thompson said, crediting DiBenedetto’s character and work ethic. Thompson said he also considers Micheal Haley and Ty Wishart to be part of the team’s leadership, and that he sees enough character in the young players that they can be leaders as well. More in the paper.

It’ll be another week before Colliton actually wears the letter: He confirmed he’s out for the weekend. He said he’s feeling good, but there’s no sense pushing it at the start, especially with another week before Game 3.

So, with Frischmon and Reese in town, they ran roughly like this today (or at least they did in the drill where I took down the D pairs, what with the odd number back there):

Haley-Frischmon-Marcinko
McNeely-Cizikas-Backman
DiBenedetto-Ullstrom-Wallace
Gallant-Langkow-Romano

Donovan-Wishart
De Haan-Reese
Olson-Ness
Klementyev

And the three goalies.

From Today’s Paper: Kevin Poulin comes back, feeling strong.

Syracuse released Brett Motherwell, Lindsay Kramer reports.

Ben Guite feature from Bill Ballou in the Telegram.

And RIP, Steve Jobs, Fred Shuttlesworth and Charles Napier, who’ll always be Duke Phillips*.

*-Hat tip: Jaime Weinman via Alan Sepinwall.

Thanks to a series of unrelated craziness, I was here way early, which meant I was here when Jeremy Colliton took his first twirl in some time. He went through a couple of light skating drills with Matt Bertani (though Justin DiBenedetto, coming out for power-play practice as Colliton finished, demanded that Bertani bag-skate him). Brent Thompson isn’t expecting Colliton for the weekend.

The defense pairs may have been tweaked a bit; thought I saw Donovan with Wishart and Ness with de Haan. Status quo otherwise here, though Arthur Staple believes both Trevor Frischmon and Dylan Reese will be on their way here today, and Ryan Strome will stick around up top as a spare for the moment. He has his expected Saturday-night lineup on the blog. Edit: Indeed, the Isles’ announcement is exactly that, Reese and Frischmon sent down.

From the paper: Today’s Anton Klementyev story.

Reminder: We chat Friday at 1:30.

Edit2: West Haven’s Joe Pereira signed with South Carolina of the ECHL.

Hockey Reference’s list of No. 65s in the NHL. An elite fraternity.

And I was driving home yesterday and realized that if I changed the station, I could listen to Gary Cohen call a ballgame on the radio again. Just about every thought that came to mind is found in that Greg Prince blog piece, so there it is.

Cough mostly suppressed and pee wee projects done, sneaked down to the Island this morning, mostly to put together some kinda advance for Saturday (well, Saturday’s game, Friday’s paper); also collected stuff for a future story. A thought or two:

–As noted by several, including this Katie Strang tweet, there’s some buzz around Aaron Ness’ camp. Which isn’t said to be read as a knock on Matt Donovan or Calvin de Haan or anybody else; just that Ness has been particularly good.

–Brent Thompson, for one, is glad to have an extended stint with the big club, rather than a split camp where he’d have been up here for almost a week already. “I’ve been learning about Cappy, getting a feel for the staff,” he said. “I’m learning about the players, too,” and he means everybody, from the big names up top to all of the guys that’ll be here next week. Lots of different players have stood out for various reasons, he said; mentioning things like Frans Nielsen’s work habits, Mark Streit’s speed and ability, the young defensemen and their daily improvement, the (six) goaltenders… He could have gone on, I’m sure. I asked how he’ll watch these last two games, if he can use them at all to try to get a handle on what his lineup might look like, and he said that’s kind of tough. “There are jobs available,” he said. Too much would depend on decisions that haven’t been made yet.

–Wounded Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rakhshani were, at least, walking. Both were trying to stay positive; from those two, you’d expect nothing different. Rakhshani had an MRI on the knee in the morning and was hoping his injury wouldn’t turn out too serious. Colliton’s still not skating from the groin injury last week.

–All five players on waivers cleared, but Jack Capuano said he expected them to play this weekend. Obviously no sense in sending them to Bridgeport when there’s no Bridgeport camp.

Last week, we talked about how the Islanders had signed a guy in Trevor Frischmon whose game sounded a little like Jeremy Colliton’s, without the offensive history.

The Islanders should announce shortly that they’ve re-signed Colliton himself to a one-year, two-way contract, bringing the Sound Tigers’ all-time leading scorer back for his sixth year as a pro in the organization. He popped up on NHL.com’s Islanders roster this morning.

It’s a familiar spot for Colliton, with an organization that’s familiar with him. The Islanders’ coach has been a longtime Colliton supporter. Maybe he gets a good look for an NHL spot if one becomes available.

Figuring Colliton, David Ullstrom, Casey Cizikas and Frischmon as centermen, the depth there looks good. Tomas Marcinko, if here, adds to it. Tony Romano liked playing the wing in the spring and may fit there. Bridgeport still needs more forwards, whether signed directly or squeezed out from above. But this is a big piece coming back.

That time of year. The rhythms all break down. Get a little depressed, just because it feels as if there’s somewhere I’m supposed to be, except… Well, I joked with Pat Bingham on Sunday night and asked him what time they were skating Tuesday. Instead, Tuesday morning, I was out shopping. (Wish I were home, actually, because that’s when the Capuano news broke. As noted in the chat, my wireless router couldn’t take it at the end of the season and stopped working. Poor thing.)

Anyway. Here’s the wrap story. We await word on the coaches, and then from there, we… well, they’re talking about a press conference late this month about taking over the building, and then we’ll go from there to the draft (No. 5 — I blame Kerry Gwydir, who replied to TSN’s question like a true former PR guy with an answer to something else entirely) and free agency in a little over two months. Rookie camp sometime thereafter, TBA. And then another two months to training camp.

If you click on below, there are a slew of selected quotes from several people I could track down for a few minutes Sunday or Monday.

…..

And after that, it’s summertime blog mode. We’ll follow the playoffs and the Worlds and anything else that pops up.

Hope you’ve enjoyed six years of this stuff, and our little looks back during the 10th season, and the weekly chats and all (and if you enjoy those, thank Sean).

Many thanks as always to the bosses and the colleagues. Thanks to Jamie Palatini; to Kimber, Katrina and Jesse; to Phil Giubileo for the constant blog plugs; to Jason and A.J. up in Springy and the PR folks all over the league — particularly Jason, for taking power-play and Clear-Day questions at all hours; and to the fellow beat writers around the league, many of whom are still linked to the right. Thanks to players, staff, coaches, and Mike and Leni for putting up with me.

Most of all, thank you for being here.

…..

(more…)

Two notes to get out there at the end of Jeremy Colliton Appreciation Day, capping the fourth playoff-free year in the past seven and the third in the past five (although the first in three years):

–Mark Wotton said he plans to play next year. “I’m a player,” he said. “I’m not ready (to quit).”

–Mikko Koskinen said he’ll have surgery on his left wrist, which has hampered his glove hand since late December.

We’ll do some wrap-up stuff here this week, including one last chat Tuesday at 1:30. Not sure when we’ll get stuff in the paper, but we’ll find a way.

….

Want to try to get back downstairs and catch some people, so I’ll bail out on the Lake Erie-Rochester shootout. Suffice it to say that the point Rochester gains means the Sound Tigers will finish 29th overall and Albany will finish 30th. For what it’s worth. Hey, somebody tries to come back from Europe, they’ll be second on the waiver li… no, wait.

Phil Ginand got to play against his brother, Ryan, who had two assists. “It was awesome,” Phil said. “A lot of fun.” Both teams rolled four lines, and because there wasn’t a penalty for 19 minutes, they were out against each other every shift in the first period. He knew he had his brother lined up for a hit (from behind) in the neutral zone on their first shift, but “I didn’t think he was going to fall.”

Tyler McNeely finishes 5-6-11 and plus-9 in 10 games.

….

Status of these guys for the summer, best I have ‘em, corrections gladly accepted:

(Numbers in parentheses for signed players are years remaining on the contract; those without numbers are signed only through next season.)
NYI
SIGNED: Rick DiPietro (10), Al Montoya, Kevin Poulin (2), Mark Streit (2), Calvin de Haan (3), Mark Eaton, Travis Hamonic (2), Milan Jurcina, Mark Katic, Mike Mottau, Andrew MacDonald (3), Trent Hunter (2), Matt Martin, Matt Moulson (3), Nino Niederreiter (3), Frans Nielsen, P.A. Parenteau, John Tavares
GROUP II: Josh Bailey, Blake Comeau, Michael Grabner, Micheal Haley, Jesse Joensuu, Kyle Okposo, Bruno Gervais, Jack Hillen, Dylan Reese (V-320), Ty Wishart
GROUP III: Trevor Gillies, Zenon Konopka, Doug Weight, Radek Martinek, Evgeni Nabokov (if his contract isn’t tolled)

BST
SIGNED: Mikko Koskinen, Matt Donovan (3), Anton Klementyev (2), Aaron Ness (3), Justin DiBenedetto, Rhett Rakhshani, Tony Romano, David Ullstrom (2)
GROUP II: Dustin Kohn, Robin Figren, Tomas Marcinko, Rob Hisey
GROUP III: Andy Hilbert (V), Jeremy Yablonski (V-320), Nathan Lawson, Joel Martin
GROUP VI: Jeremy Colliton (V)
AHL (unrestricted): Mark Wotton (V), Matt Campanale, Brett Motherwell, Benn Olson, Corey Syvret, Steve Tarasuk, Chris Barton, Jean Bourbeau, Brett Gallant, Phil Ginand, Tyler McNeely, Shayne Neigum, Joe Pereira, Mike Sellitto, Mike Sgroi, Justin Taylor
UNSIGNED DRAFT PICK: Brian Day (free agent if not signed by Aug. 15)
ELIGIBLE FOR NHL DRAFT: Art Bidlevskii, Alex O’Neil, Cameron Wind

Group II players are restricted free agents. The other free agents are all unrestricted. (V) indicates he’ll be a veteran next year. (V-320) means he qualifies as that one exempt player a night with 320 or fewer pro games.

I’m not positive on Reese, and if I was thinking ahead, I’d have asked him, ’cause he and a few other guys were here. Reese is 25 with less than 80 NHL games, but I think this was only his second year on an NHL contract.

….

The Sound Tigers last won a playoff series in 2003. Since then, 21 of the 30 teams in the league have won one. If you include the old two-game preliminary round, add Norfolk and make it 22. Charlotte, Springfield, Lake Erie, Peoria, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and the new Albany are the seven others who have not won a playoff series since 2003, though obviously all but Springfield got a later start, and three won playoff series in the Sound Tigers era in earlier incarnations: Albany as the Lowell Lock Monsters, Peoria as the Worcester IceCats, and Charlotte as the Albany River Rats. Three others that are now defunct/moved on have also won one: Iowa, Cincinnati and, in a preliminary round, the Cleveland Barons.

Getting out of the East Division didn’t work, at least for two years. (Wouldn’t have worked in the East this year, either.) We’ll see next year.

….

A few Team Photo streaks have continued: Mark Wotton continues to alternate sides, for one thing, and the past eight seasons’ photos will indeed include eight different and unique sweaters.

For nostalgia, here are the rundowns for 2001-06 and 2006-07 and 2007-2010.

2010-11: Back row: Rob Hisey, Robin Figren, Brandon Svendsen, Brett Motherwell, Rhett Rakhshani, Justin DiBenedetto, Brett Gallant, Eric Castonguay, Brady Leisenring, Mark Katic, Tony Romano. Middle row: Communications manager Jamie Palatini, trainer Mike Schroeder, Anton Klementyev, Jeremy Yablonski, Jason Pitton, Wes O’Neill, Tomas Marcinko, David Ullstrom, Rob Kwiet, Jean Bourbeau, Andy Hilbert, assistant to the general manager Kerry Gwydir, equipment manager Leni DiCostanzo. Bottom row: Joel Martin, Dylan Reese (A), assistant coach Matt Bertani, president Howard Saffan, general manager Garth Snow, coach Pat Bingham, Mark Wotton (C), Dustin Kohn (A), Mikko Koskinen.

Brought to you by the Connecticut Post. Yeah.

….

The Real Standings:

EASTERN CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC
y-Manchester       43  30   7   93*
x-Portland         38  31  11   87*
x-Connecticut      35  34  11   81
Worcester          31  35  14   76
Providence         31  39  10   72
Springfield        29  42   9   67
Bridgeport         26  43  11   63

EAST
z-Wilkes-Barre     51  21   8  110
x-Hershey          43  29   8   94
x-Charlotte        39  29  12   90
x-Binghamton       41  33   6   88*
x-Norfolk          34  35  11   79*
Syracuse           33  41   6   72
Adirondack         27  43  10   64
Albany             26  43  11   63

WESTERN CONFERENCE
NORTH
y-Hamilton         38  29  13   89
x-Lake Erie        39  31  10   88
x-Manitoba         34  31  15   83
Toronto            31  33  16   78*
Grand Rapids       31  36  13   75*
Abbotsford         27  36  17   71*
Rochester          26  44  10   62

WEST
y-Milwaukee        36  28  16   88
x-Houston          36  29  15   87
x-Oklahoma City    35  31  14   84*
x-Peoria           36  33  11   83*
x-Texas            35  33  12   82*
Chicago            33  35  12   78
Rockford           34  37   9   77*
San Antonio        33  37  10   76*

*-change in order from the actual real standings
Disclaimer: Teams play differently under different rules. Don’t change the past without changing the future or whatever.

The most dramatic switches are at the top of the Atlantic (lots of shootout wins for Portland) and in the middle of the East: Norfolk’s nine overtime losses were huge.

Norfolk is a weird little case. The Ads’ goals-for/goals-against ratio gives them the league’s seventh-best Pythagorean winning percentage (albeit fourth in their division, ahead of only Charlotte among playoff teams). But filter out those overtime losses and their five shootout wins and they finish below .500. The Admirals “underachieved” their Pythagorean number by about 80 percentage points, almost twice as much as the next team (Toronto, about .042 in percentage points). So which team is this Norfolk team, the near-.500 club, or the team whose goal differential was that of a 90-point team without shootout/OTL effects? Not that Wilkes-Barre is necessarily the place in which to find out, but suppose we’ll see what they do next week.

Thank you all for 15 votes (plus one obscurely reasoned boycott). There were no runaways in either category this year, but a couple of deserving winners emerged.

Fan Favorite went to Micheal Haley, who blossomed from solid middleweight to goal scorer to NHL regular this year. It’s possible we never see him in Bridgeport again, except for exhibition games, until his bobblehead day.

Seventh Player went to Jeremy Colliton, who had his best offensive season since his rookie year on top of doing everything else for this team in five of the past six seasons. He’s an unrestricted free agent as of July 1, so you might want to enjoy him while you can today.

Several voters mentioned the job done by Bridgeport’s trainers this year, and I’ll agree they probably deserve some kind of special notice. So we’ll give out an honorary Seventh Player Award to athletic trainer Mike Schroeder and equipment manager Leni DiCostanzo, who taped more ankles, rehabbed more concussions, sharpened more skates and stitched more nameplates than any hard-working person ought to.

And the only way Colliton couldn’t win the Three Stars Award was if Rhett Rakhshani were the first star today. Despite arriving a few games late and missing a bunch on his NHL recall, Colliton earned three first-star nods, three second-stars and three third-stars. As I said early in the week, it was close. Kevin Poulin is actually second, with eight nods at various levels in his 15 games. Rakhshani was first star four times, more than anyone else, to sit third. And Justin DiBenedetto and Rob Hisey were mathematically alive to begin the week. But Colliton gets it.

VOTING
FAN FAVORITE: Micheal Haley 5, Jeremy Colliton 3, Rhett Rakhshani 3, Justin DiBenedetto 2, Brett Motherwell 1, Wes O’Neill 1.

SEVENTH PLAYER: Jeremy Colliton 5, Robin Figren 3, Training staff 2, Jean Bourbeau 2, Rhett Rakhshani 1, Justin DiBenedetto 1, Dylan Reese 1.

Fake Team Awards History
Seventh Player
2006–Matt Koalska
2007–Jason Pitton
2008–Trevor Smith
2009–Tyler Haskins
2010–Jon Gleed
2011–Jeremy Colliton
  2011 special–Trainer Mike Schroeder/Equipment manager Leni DiCostanzo

Fan Favorite
2006–Steve Regier
2007–Wade Dubielewicz
2008–Kip Brennan
2009–Pascal Morency
2010–Greg Mauldin
2011–Micheal Haley

Three Stars Award
2006–Wade Dubielewicz
2007–Wade Dubielewicz
2008–Jeff Tambellini
2009–Nathan Lawson/Mike Iggulden (shared)
2010–Greg Mauldin
2011–Jeremy Colliton