Soundin' Off

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.

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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.

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We’ll once more be otherwise occupied tonight. (And I do mean “we,” because we’ve got a big crew coming to Harbor Yard tonight.) So the box score should be here, and you’ll have Phil back at AHL Live. It is exceedingly weird to be missing a Hartford game. But here it is.

We did a livechat, like the ones we do on Tuesdays, with Albany last night to cover the two games, and it looks as if we’ll be doing that again tonight for Bulldogs-Bulldogs. I’ll see if I can get the code from Sean and post that here, if you’re interested. See below.

We’re going with Brian Day as player No. 300 in team history, by the way. Jamie reported that three guys jumped on for a faceoff at the same time, but that Day probably touched the puck second among the three. Fair enough. The next guy to step on the ice for the first time with that cat on his shirt, he becomes the 300th in the regular season.

Phil Ginand’s brother Ryan joined Albany on a PTO. He’d been with Trenton and could make his AHL debut.

And RIP, Geraldine Ferraro.

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.

Three forwards join the ATO corps today: Islanders draft pick Brian Day of Colgate; Northeastern’s Tyler McNeely, which is I guess as close as we get to a triumphant Greg Cronin return (meaning during NCAA week, in case that wasn’t clear); and West Haven’s own Joe Pereira, who played a game with Worcester this week before coming close to home.

So there could be five players making their Bridgeport debuts, a pro debut for four of them, tomorrow in Portland. Tomas Marcinko will make the trip; Brett Gallant will not. No update available on Dustin Kohn.

Pereira’s pro debut, in addition to being one heck of a game, was a morning game. Check out the penalty minutes. Now check out what some parents and administrators told the Press Herald. Make the right choices, kids.

Edit: The part that makes the header germane… I should really have this list together, but the few locals include another West Haven guy, Eric Boguniecki, and New Canaan’s Jeff Dwyer. From upstate, there’s Bob Lachance and the Johnson brothers. And of course New Haven natives (but Canadian trained) Kevin Colley and Jody Robinson. Feel like I’m forgetting someone, though.

Pressers are beginning at Harbor Yard, so I’m gonna go pop in and listen to some high school kids. (Will fix the tags later.)

Edit2: Odessa apparently makes the NAHL official.