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.

…..

(more…)

The crowded house gets more crowded with Bridgeport’s addition of Ferris State centerman Jordie Johnston (IHDB) to an amateur tryout. Had a nice year with the national runners-up. He was expected in town today, so probably joins them on the ice tomorrow.

To break out some stuff from the chat: Casey Cizikas and David Ullstrom began practice with the team today, then left after about 15 minutes. Trevor Frischmon and Jon Landry didn’t practice. Anders Nilsson also didn’t skate, and Brent Thompson didn’t sound optimistic about getting him back soon.

Justin DiBenedetto’s automatic suspension became official. He’ll miss Friday’s game, but so will Bobby Robins, suspended for a check to the head, presumably the Backman hit for which he was penalized. (Also a combined 13 games of suspensions to two Worcester players and Worcester assistant David Cunniff for their parts in the post-shootout melee the other night.)

Nice piece by Jamie on Steve Oleksy. Disappointing morning-into-afternoon for them and the American Sound Tigers, though, who lost 7-2 to the Canadians in softball. They’re 0-2 this year.

Jeff Jacobs reports that Tommy Cross of Simsbury will join the P-Bruins, so maybe we see his debut Friday.

Norfolk’s Mark Barberio wins the Eddie Shore Award as top defenseman.

And Jamie asked me this morning if I’d heard about Scott Gordon and Greg Cronin. Knowing that Brian Burke was heading into a press conference as I’d walked downstairs, I got very nervous. No need for that: Jamie was just talking about the official announcement that they’re running the U.S. show at Worlds again.

Today was an optional, as the nine forwards/four D/one goalie alignment probably would’ve told you. Brent Thompson reiterated “day-to-day” on the injured David Ullstrom, Jon Landry and Trevor Frischmon, and said they’d probably get tomorrow off, too, though he said Ullstrom might give it a try. We’ll see. Anders Nilsson got back on the ice for the first time, but “it doesn’t look like he’ll be practicing anytime soon with us.” Jeremy Colliton remains out.

Justin DiBenedetto on his Saturday altercation with goalie Michael Hutchinson: “Just the heat of the moment. It is what it is … Emotions run high.” He said he hadn’t heard anything about anything further from his last-five-minutes instigator penalty, which at least by rule carries a one-game suspension.

….

So a quick playoffs reset (and hey, tickets are on sale):

–Bridgeport can’t finish fourth anymore (can’t catch Wilkes-Barre without winning the division), could mathematically but probably won’t finish second (by winning out while St. John’s loses out in regulation), has a slight chance of finishing fifth (lose the division to Hartford while gaining one more point than Hershey over the final three games). Still the most likely finishes: either third (the magic number remains three points after the Whale’s win Sunday at Hershey) or sixth (gaining fewer than three points while Hershey gains the same or better and the Whale wins the division).

The Sound Tigers’ possible opponents are down to the Whale (as either the third or sixth seed), Wilkes-Barre (as that unlikely fifth seed), Hershey (as the third if the Bears slip behind the Whale), Syracuse (as the third or that unlikely second), Manchester (ditto), and three other teams only as the second seed: Portland, Adirondack or Providence (Bridgeport would have to beat the Bruins in overtime Friday for that to have even a chance of happening).

–The Penguins need one point gained by them or lost by Hershey to clinch fourth. Otherwise, they’re fifth and Hershey’s fourth; no other team can be fourth. The Bears can slip no lower than sixth, which may be unlikely but isn’t impossible; they’re pretty injury-/call-up-ravaged, they’re on a five-game winless streak, they’re definitely without the tiebreaker against Bridgeport, and they’re down the season-series tiebreaker against the Whale if Hartford wins two more games in regulation this week than they do, making up the necessary four points.

–The Whale clinched their spot on Sunday but could still finish third or anywhere from fifth (that Hershey scenario) to eighth, but if — let’s just put it as “their magic number against Syracuse is three, and it’s two against Manchester” — they’ll be no worse than sixth.

–Norfolk’s 1. St. John’s is a point away from 2.

–Syracuse has a tiny bit of breathing room but probably doesn’t want to play with tiebreakers; it could finish anywhere from sixth to 11th. Manchester has good news and bad news: It has four games to play, and it has to play four games (though the first is Tuesday; two days to rest after a short ride).

–Only two games mid-week in the known conference: Manchester at Worcester on Tuesday (a Monarchs point would eliminate Worcester: if there’s a tie at Worcester’s max of 78/31, it could only be among Worcester, Manchester and Springfield, both of whom beat the Sharks in the season series), and the Whale at Portland on Wednesday.

And then a big weekend.

….

We’ll chat tomorrow at 1:30. Box at the bottom.

Edit: Norfolk’s Jon Cooper was voted AHL coach of the year, the Louis A.R. Pieri Award. Imagine Brent Thompson was a candidate on some ballots.

Former Lock Monsters and River Rats coach Tom Rowe is the new coach of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.

Poking through the Central Scouting draft rankings to look for locals; Deerfield’s/New Canaan’s Alexander Gonye is 103rd, and Brunswick’s/New Canaan’s Kevin Duane is 145th among North American skaters. If you know of any others, let me know. Enfield’s Robbie Baillargeon is 50th. At 111th, Kristoff Kontos is the son of former New Haven Nighthawk Chris Kontos.

Mike Vaccaro on hockey fans.

I somehow managed to miss the Ozzie Guillen firestorm this weekend; not sure how, but still. I try hard not one of those who believes that if your political views differ from mine, you must be a jerk/idiot/reprehensible human being. That said: Jeez, Ozzie.

And finally, I don’t know, which jacket fits Bubba Watson better?

(Just to disclaim, that’s not my own copy under my name there; may be AP. I had tossed up a short bulletin on his win, and someone else updated the post.)

“Give Worcester credit,” Brent Thompson said. “They threw everything at us.”

“The first period, there’s no excuse,” Justin DiBenedetto said. They didn’t get a lot of bounces, he said, but “we were sloppy.”

And then this happened.

I mean, if you turned this game off in disgust at 4-1, you’ve got to be excused. This was shaping up into their second clunker against Worcester in the past couple of weeks, a messy first period turned into, well, whatever it was going to turn into in the second and third.

Blair Riley got them one back, but then the Sharks capitalized again, with John McCarthy driving to the net and driven into Kevin Poulin. (And they did get some bounces to build that lead. The second goal, Kennedy’s power-play goal, was a de Haan attempt to clear the puck to the corner that bounced off Frischmon’s skate, right into the net. The third one, early in the second, they were denied a couple of times before McCarthy came in and got it.)

But then Steve Oleksy, diving for the puck, sets up Scott Howes. The power play comes through — “it continues to get better,” Thompson said — for DiBenedetto’s first of two. Kael Mouillierat scores a pretty one on his own rebound. They get another power-play goal in the third, with help from that awful delay-of-game, puck-over-glass rule. And they’re back in first place.

Figure this game out.

….

Nothing made itself apparent tonight as far as transactions, though the Islanders announced that Evgeni Nabokov left tonight’s win in Pittsburgh with a lower-body injury. Arthur Staple noted at one point that David Ullstrom wasn’t on the bench, and indeed Ullstrom apparently didn’t play in the third period after scoring a goal in the second, but I didn’t see anything further on that.

I wasn’t entirely clear on the whole sequence of events on that early-third disallowed goal, but the fact is that the replay system isn’t supposed to be used to review a kick. So there’s that.

Oleksy played another solid game up front, moving back on the penalty kill (“our defense penalty-killed very well,” Thompson said). Almost got that disallowed goal. “He’s a leader,” Thompson said.

The lines were all over the place. Everywhere. “I had to change the chemistry,” Thompson said. ” I was juggling like I’ve never juggled before, to generate some kind of chemistry, some kind of energy.” The defense pairs settled into de Haan-Wishart as usual, but Donovan-Landry and Ness-Sinkewich.

DiBenedetto scored his 20th goal in just his 48th game. He had 19 last year.

Romano becomes the seventh player to score four assists. (Colliton did it twice.)

Islanders prospect defenseman Brenden Kichton is out for the year after surgery on a broken jaw, the Spokesman-Review reports.

Yannick Riendeau was named ECHL Player of the Week.

ECHL transactions say Brandon Gentile was returned to Alaska, though Charlotte didn’t have its half of that transaction on the official books before tonight’s game.

And finally, have you waited patiently for three years to see Mikko Koskinen take a couple of swings at a guy and get a right hand to the chops for his troubles? Thanks to Lighthouse Hockey, wait no more.

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.

Fascinating stuff this morning… well, fascinating if you dig paperwork. The Islanders announced that Dylan Reese’s recall was under emergency conditions. You can’t call a defenseman up on emergency without having fewer than six healthy defensemen. (So I went speculating on Twitter. Ah well.) From what we understand, they listed Andrew MacDonald as the player whom Reese would be spelling. (Overcome by the Matterhorn, perhaps.) But then they said to expect the same lineup, and tonight’s warmup tweets indicate that’s the case, though Reese is taking warmup. So, apparently, as long as MacDonald (and the other five who played this week) are OK, with the emergency conditions terminated (in essence before they began), Reese will remain with the team on a regular recall this weekend as a seventh defenseman. (Edit: As gametime arrives, the Islanders announced that he is, indeed, on regular recall.)

The most pressing ramification of that is that it starts a clock toward the next time Reese would have to clear waivers. (For instance, Tim Wallace has been up long enough that he’d have to clear to come back to Bridgeport.) Though emergency-recall time apparently doesn’t count, once a player is on regular recall, if he plays 10 NHL games or spends 30 days (cumulative) on an NHL roster, he has to clear waivers again to be sent down*. Reese’s recall time has all been under emergency conditions so far, so he’s at zero on both counts. If a defenseman can’t play tonight, Reese remains up on emergency and plays tonight. If the six are OK, Reese sits and becomes a regular recall.

Edit, Jan. 9: Now got a conflicting interpretation of that last paragraph. Strike all that, for now at least. If Reese’s previous time does count, he had nine games in, and, I think, 21 days on his first recall.

So, weird as this sounds, appears we’ll have to start the clock tonight on Reese’s waivers exemption… unless he actually plays.

….

Brent Thompson said earlier today that Trevor Gillies and Justin DiBenedetto are skating and are making progress. He didn’t anticipate any transactions beyond Reese.

Prescout on Bridgeport’s next two opponents. The visitors are more pressing; first regulation loss in six games for them.

Over 10,000 in Providence, but that doesn’t look like much compared to what this’ll do for the Phantoms: Announced attendance outside was a league-record 45,653. I liked Tim Leone’s tiebreaker idea. Thankfully, it wasn’t needed; Adirondack never led until it won in overtime.

Former Sound Tigers with goals tonight include Trevor Smith (well, sure), Victor Bartley and Scott Ford (defensemen, there you go), and Eric Godard (well then). And the night is still, in theory, young.

As seen on Uni Watch: Mount Saint Charles‘ nifty sweaters for a game at Fenway Park.

The NHL says it’ll postpone its realignment plan after not getting NHLPA approval by the NHL’s deadline. The NHLPA says the league didn’t provide information it requested. The collective bargaining agreement expires in September, by the way.

And RIP, Robert “Bobby Purify” Dickey.

*-This is all in Article 13.5 of the NHL CBA, if you feel like reading.

Hadn’t been a lot of clinkers lately*, especially not for Anders Nilsson, but this one got away on two second-period goals, one 74 seconds in, one with 1.5 seconds left. Perhaps it’s to his credit that this one looks so off because he has been so good. He wasn’t exactly bad. He was just, well, pick your adjective from among the “ordinary”/”average” class.

On the other hand, you get Alex Giroux and Marty St. Pierre coming at you two-on-one, you’d better hope for something darned extraordinary to happen. Power outage. That’d be fine**.

Bridgeport had some chances, including a Casey Cizikas breakaway, and scored but once on Manny Legace. Springfield got a bounce off a defenseman, got that two-on-one after Bridgeport didn’t get it deep, got those two David Savard goals from long distance (the second through Dane Byers’ screen, though Nilsson absolved himself of nothing). It got other chances off Bridgeport mistakes.

Pretty early in the third, it was 5-1, as it stayed.

“I said we were going to have some growing pains in the first 20 games,” Brent Thompson said. “It might be the first 40 games. We’re going to try to get better each day, improve on those mistakes. That’s the direction we need to go right now.”

…

The power play went 0-for-6, but I thought it looked more like it did last night — generating chances, keeping the puck deep longer, maybe even creating a little momentum here and there — than it did in some past oh-fers. “Any time you establish your shot, you get momentum and chances,” Thompson said. “We had chances, but then we didn’t score on the power play. The guys get frustrated.” On one of the late power plays, Legace made three saves from about a combined 10 feet. Tip your cap. In two Bridgeport games at Springfield, Legace has stopped 56 of 58 shots and played to a 1.08 goals-against average (and has the misfortune of going just 1-1).

The flip side: Going 1-for-4 on the penalty kill plummeted the Sound Tigers from second to fifth, from 87.3 percent to 85.2.

Thompson said that, indeed, Justin DiBenedetto was feeling the effects of yesterday’s hit. “We’ll go day-to-day with him.”

Big Benn Olson steps up to left wing… and scores on his third shift, on the rush, a bottom-left-circle rebound of Blair Riley’s right-circle shot with Legace out challenging Riley. It’s his first AHL goal. “Been a long time since last year (with Cincinnati, his only other pro goal). I went to the net hard, and the puck just happened to be there.” He had practiced there earlier in the week. “It had been a while since I’d done it, but I’m familiar with what I’ve got to do, how the systems work. It wasn’t too hard (to jump in). It’s fun to get in on the forecheck, hitting the D instead of being hit by the forwards.” Nice little pump of the arm for the celebration, too.

Lines got torn up for the third period and I think changed even within the third; some power-play personnel changeups may have affected the even-strength combinations. Tyler Ruegsegger with old college linemate Rhett Rakhshani plus Jeremy Colliton was the most interesting. Thought it was kind of interesting, to start, to see Tyler McNeely-Cizikas-Sean Backman back together for the first time since opening night. A whole line from that first game, DiBenedetto-David Ullstrom-Tim Wallace, was missing; two up, one hurt.

The Islanders had the day off but sent Kevin Poulin back down to Bridgeport, they announced early in the evening. If this, then, is it for Joe Fallon, of the 28 29 goalies to actually play for Bridgeport, his tenure in the nets was 27th 28th-longest. Edit: Lovely: Forgot to add Nilsson to the list.

Hall of Famer Craig Patrick, recent addition to Columbus’ front office, was in the house.

Prescout. The Whale still leads the Berkshire League by three points over Adirondack.

A Wall Street Journal story on the challenges of coaching football at Columbia.

David Hinckley questions the latest Rock Hall of Fame selections.

And after hearing the Drifters’ “White Christmas” on the radio last night, I think I might actually be in the mood, finally. Will break out Spector soon and make sure.

*-Actually, the last time Bridgeport lost to anyone by more than one goal, or one goal plus an empty-netter, was at home against Springfield, Nov. 19. Before that? The two Adirondack losses in October.
**-I know, I shouldn’t even joke.

No DiBenedetto today; not sure if that’s the aftermath of last night’s dings or something else. Will find out afterward. The lines get a little juggle after that.

Bridgeport has one to scratch. From all indications, Benn Olson gets a shot on left wing, and Brett Gallant is the odd man out.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Howes-Colliton (C)-Rakhshani
Ruegsegger-Frischmon (A)-Marcinko
McNeely-Cizikas-Backman
Olson-Romano-Riley
(Gallant-scratch)
D: de Haan-Wishart (A)
Donovan-Oleksy
Ness-Klementyev
G: Nilsson
Fallon

SPRINGFIELD
F: Giroux-St. Pierre-Atkinson
Calvert-Russell-Kubalik
Byers (C)-Joudrey (A)-Bass
Spencer-Mair (A)-Thomas
D: Lebda-Prout
Campbell-Savard
Regner-Ruth
G: Legace
Dainton

R: R. Fraser, Ragusin. L: Colby, Baker.

Wishart wears the other ‘A’ for the first time with the assorted other lettermen’s absences. Springfield has its practice jerseys on for warmup, so no letters. I’ll add them if I remember to.

Shawn Thornton in the house tonight to drop the puck and sign some autographs.

Bridgeport gets Justin DiBenedetto back after four games, and he slides right back into his familiar spot with Cizikas and Wallace. That moves the other left wingers down a spot as Trevor Gillies sits out after last night’s harsh meeting with the side boards. Anton Klementyev sits for Benn Olson.

A switch in goal for both teams as well. Patrick Mullen was out at the start of warmup for the Monarchs, but he went in after five or six minutes; didn’t see what happened to him (had to wait for the rushes, actually, to pick out who it was I’d seen going down the runway). Manchester had 13 forwards out there, so Stefan Legein took his spot in the line rushes. Edit: Guess Mullen’s OK, because he’s in and Justin Johnson is scratched.

BRIDGEPORT
F: McNeely-Colliton (C)-Rakhshani
DiBenedetto-Cizikas-Wallace (A)
Howes-Marcinko-Backman
Gallant-Romano-Riley
D: de Haan-Wishart
Donovan-Reese (A)
Olson-Ness
G: Poulin
Nilsson

MANCHESTER
F: King-Azevedo-Vey
Clune-Cliche (C)-Meckler
Nolan-Kaunisto-Kozun
Czarnik-Paddock-(Johnson-scratch)
D: Deslauriers-Campbell (A)
Muzzin-Kolomatis
Hickey (A)-*Legein*
Mullen
G: Jones
Zatkoff

R: Dreger. L: Redding, Simeon.

Referee Dan Dreger makes his Bridgeport debut. He’s apparently from Denver and has worked in the Central League.

So Jamie reports that Anders Nilsson does make his North American debut today at Albany. Looks like Benn Olson in for Anton Klementyev. Two refs to work it, Francis Charron and Chris Cozzan. (Two linesmen, too. Shocker.)

We’re home, trying to wrap our heads around what the Giants are doing and waiting for playoff baseball (well, the NLCS, anyway). But we’ll be listening to Phil, whose feed is available at AHL Live‘s radio link (which right now is playing Journey; not bad). (Or you can pay for video. We’re not made of money.) As noted, today’s coverage is in the hands of the Times Union, but we’ll toss thoughts up here as they strike us. (And we’ll also work on that pronoun problem.)

If you didn’t see Haley-Hollweg last night, it was a good one between two tough you-know-whats.

Looks like a good week at BBC2′s Sounds of the Sixties. (Will listen tonight while, as is summertime-traditional, pounding in auto-racing agate.)

–Romano to start with Frischmon and Haley. Thought I saw that unit once or twice down the stretch last night. Donovan still paired with Reese.

–The box score is here. Reese wearing the extra ‘A’ in Colliton’s place. Game on.

–Phil says Marcinko and Romano swap places from last night’s lineup, and Wishart is paired with Olson. And quickly, DiBenedetto kicks it to himself and beats Kinkaid (one-handed?) for a 1-0 lead at 1:52. First pro point for Casey Cizikas on the assist.

–Bill Cain (@Bill_Cain_) says it took Albany 6:09 to put a shot on Nilsson.

–Chad Wiseman ties it off the draw on a four-on-four. Just three more to go today for him. 1-1.

–Fast period, obviously because I’m not there and not on deadline. 1-1 after one.

–And as the period ends, Matt Corrente and Ty Wishart fight. Wishart’s first as a Sound Tiger.

–Appears, from the box, that Bridgeport will be down two men (Olson and McNeely for roughing) to start the second.

–Ah, OK. The box had Bridgeport’s 14, McNeely, but it should’ve been Albany’s 14, Perkovich. Even up to start the second.

–DiBenedetto again on a rebound at 5:17. Sounds like Cizikas’ shot, so two assists for him.

–Both Phil and Jamie note that, as obvious from the plus/minus now, DiBenedetto is with Cizikas and Backman tonight. Assuming that means McNeely-Ullstrom-Wallace, but we’ll check. edit: Yes, apparently Jamie tweeted that in the pregame.

–Backman, who couldn’t find an open net earlier in the period, apparently prevents a good Albany chance at the other end. Back even, then.

–Gallant, who from several accounts had a nice camp and did a good job in limited time last night, draws a penalty with a bit over five minutes left in the second.

–Still 2-1 after two.

–Penalty shot at 4:10 of the third — Mike Sislo gets hooked from behind by Aaron Ness, then scores on the penalty shot. The 21st penalty shot against Bridgeport, and just the sixth goal. 2-2.

–And 22 seconds later, DiBenedetto scores on the rush. Hat trick. 3-2 Bridgeport. The 26th regular-season hat trick for a Sound Tiger. Assist added to Cizikas, so a three-point game for him.

–Backman takes a tripping penalty with 2:30 to go, but Bridgeport kills it off, and Backman gets the empty-netter to make it 4-2.

That does it: Bridgeport 4, Albany 2, final. First North American win for Anders Nilsson. First AHL head-coaching win for Brent Thompson; first pro coaching win for Eric Boguniecki.

More Tuesday (with the chat), unless events warrant.

Edit: Just noted on the box: Cizikas and Backman both finish plus-4. Incomplete list in my files but not many guys hit that number. Team record is plus-5. Benn Olson was plus-3, too.

(How has no one ever come back with the obvious “you”?)

It’s dangerous to try to read anything off a single game (small sample). It’s dangerous to take first impressions, on top of that (“I make a joke about ‘first-day Tarzans, 10th-day Janes’” — Greg Cronin*). It’s incredibly dangerous to try to read anything off a rookie game. And it’s beyond incredibly dangerous to try to read off a rookie scrimmage.

So let’s see…

–Went with the young defensemen for a feature. Laughed when Ness and Donovan had a misconnect on the first shift, and then de Haan had a hiccup soon after. But they settled in. Ness showed some confidence. They looked fine. (Think we’ve said this before, and I talked about it with a couple of people tonight: You worry if the guys you expect to be fine, aren’t. Nobody scared me tonight.)

–There was a moment in the first half when Tony Romano took the puck high in the offensive zone and pulled up, showed some patience and made a decent play out of it. Thought it was nice to see from him. (I’ll grant you, that’s easier to do in a scrimmage against kids than a game against vets, but still.) Talked a little to him for a possible feature; if the bosses don’t want it, I’ll spill it here at some point.

–Speaking of here, remember, Chat on Tuesday, 1:30, summertime edition.

–Rhett Rakhshani set up the first goal of the night. No shock, except: Rakhshani did it by stopping Nino Niederreiter along the boards, knocking him backward and down, and beginning the tic-tac-toe with Justin DiBenedetto between him and David Ullstrom.

–DiBenedetto, like Jon Sim last year, wasn’t playing much differently just because the guys in the wrong color were technically on his team.

–Anders Lee was visible, for sure, as was linemate Brock Nelson, going to the net to clean up a broken play early. Some good stuff.

–Anders Nilsson had some shaky moments, made some big saves, and had to be figuring Ryan Strome for a pass on his second-half goal that chipped the lead to 6-3. (Didn’t see a replay on it, though, so I’m guessing off first reaction.)

–Ness’ goal in the second half came off a couple of nice plays. I missed the man who moved the puck off the right-wing boards in the neutral zone, but Corey Trivino carried it in on the right side, then turned and centered to a driving Ness for a shoveled-in backhander. Nice one.

–Saw both Mikko Koskinen and Kevin Poulin downstairs afterward. Both profess to be feeling good. Koskinen said he’s told he should be 100 percent in about a month, so he’ll be good to go in training camp.

–When they said late in the game that Garth Snow had an announcement to make after the scrimmage portion of the scrimmage, I figured it’d just be the latest 8/1/11 ad. (Um, how do they want you to vote, again?) But when he started talking about the rebuild, and how they had committed to building through youth… I got half-worried and started taking notes. Just in case. It almost felt as if he could have veered off and said “now it’s time for a move,” or something like “we’re flooding the ice right now so we can notify three guys in there that they’ve been traded for (Big Name).” In fact… He wanted to tell you to do something Aug. 1. I can’t remember what.

–If you were wondering as I was when they announced Brett Gallant’s name on the White roster and didn’t have him on the ice: official word is he was an extra who didn’t dress.

–Got to meet Brent Thompson as coach for the first time. His first impressions of the kids are good ones. For that matter, met Eric Boguniecki as coach for the first time, too. The gang was, as you’d expect, all there: both goalie coaches, Matt Bertani, the Isles’ staff including Bernie Cassell (running summer camps in Hamden and East Haven alongside the Ducks’ director of pro scouting, one David Baseggio; e-mail ctpurehockey@aol.com for more info), Mike Schroeder, Leni DiCostanzo.

–My usual day-on-the-Island routine is morning skate, lunch, and then, barring any other ideas, take a drive down to Jones Beach, park in one of the mostly-empty lots, aim the car just right, read or work and watch the surf roll in. I suspected that latter part might be a little more difficult today, not to mention the possible expense. Instead, I took a left on Charles Lindbergh Blvd. for the first time and found myself at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Even rushing through it a bit, an enjoyable afternoon. (Put it this way: I rushed a bit and made it through every exhibit in a touch over two hours.) Much fun. Many restored aircraft, and some of the stories behind the restorations were neat. Grumman’s support meant plenty of stuff from their history, as well as some fantastic Apollo lunar module exhibits. They even had an original Curtiss Jenny**, but I was a little disappointed; it was right-side up.

Included some of the history of the land on which sat both Roosevelt Field and Mitchel Field, ramifications of which run right up to today… well, even to Aug. 1. Worth the trip by a long shot for this history geek.

–Speaking of: You take the Meadowbrook south from the Northern State. You get off at the Hempstead Turnpike/Coliseum exit. You take the Lindbergh Blvd. exit. Off to your left are two little venting stacks sticking up a few feet from the ground. Anybody know what those are venting? Something from the power plant? I keep meaning to ask someone and keep forgetting.

–And RIP, Jerry Ragovoy (just look at those song credits).

*-And yes, that is among my favorite Cronin quotes, though I’d really have to sit down and sort the list, plus determine how to split up the seven-second-delay night.
**-Which turns out to be Lindbergh’s first plane. Dude.

Matt Donovan joined the optional practice in progress, putting all 10 ATO players on the ice at the same time. A few familiar faces here for him, which he figures will help.

Only three non-ATOs on the ice: Romano, DiBenedetto and Marcinko. DiBenedetto and Marcinko both said they’re feeling better; no guarantee on them for the weekend yet, though.

Stephane Da Costa signed with Ottawa.

Nothing shocking on the AHL all-star teams.

Edit: Onetime Sound Tiger Wes Goldie is a first-team ECHL all-star.