Soundin' Off

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.

For most of the year Brent Thompson has been fond of saying that they haven’t accomplished anything yet.

They stuck a letter next to their name in tomorrow’s standings. That’s a little accomplishment, anyway.

“I just look at it as Step 1,” Thompson said.

There are things, he said even then, that they need to improve on. And sure, there are.

“This is Step 1,” he said. “A little step in the direction we want to go. We look toward getting home ice. That’s Step 2.”

The magic number to do that, which would hang a banner in the process, is seven points.

….

They usually block a lot of shots, but they seemed to have themselves in lanes at the right times tonight. “Sean Backman in particular blocked a number of shots,” Thompson said. The other penalty-kill guys were all good, he said, “but I just noticed Backman.” Backman took a hard Giroux shot early, didn’t miss a shift and came back to block some more. Oleksy blocked Giroux a couple of times in the second period. (And Giroux still put 10 shots on goal.)

Ullstrom confirmed that he was looking for Kael Mouillierat in front after he took Aaron Ness’ pass and gained the zone, but he got a fortunate bounce, apparently off Brent Regner’s skate and in.

Kevin Poulin’s 23rd win ties him with Mike Morrison (2007-08) for second all-time in a single season. Rick DiPietro won 30 in 2001-02 before winning 12 in the playoffs.

Matt Donovan was among those named to the AHL’s All-Rookie team. He’s the fifth Sound Tiger so honored and the third out of Denver. (But the first from Oklahoma.) Wade Dubielewicz, Chris Campoli, Nathan Lawson and Rhett Rakhshani were the other four.

Mike Halmo, as noted in the comments, was the only player without a shot on goal. No worries. The fourth line didn’t get into the flow all that much with the special teams getting a workout (they didn’t play five even-strength shifts between penalties in the first; they didn’t get to eight in the second). He got a shift or two with Frischmon and Backman in the third. “Guys are a little faster, a little stronger,” Halmo said. “It was good to get out there with the guys.” He got a fight on his first shift, going to the net, giving David Savard a hit, taking Savard’s cross-check and then tossing them. “That’s the way I’ve got to play up here,” he said. “It was nice to get the jitters out, the nervousness out of my body.” Between that and getting his first shift out of the way off the opening faceoff, he felt pretty good after that.

Syracuse, Friday’s opponent in Bridgeport, plays Binghamton tonight.

And finally, Manny Legace on That Spot along the boards: “I’ve heard it’s happened a lot here. Fix it. They’re not going to fix it; it’s the other team’s zone. But if there’ve been some complaints, fix it. Especially when we’re battling for our lives.”

The original placeholder follows.

The Sound Tigers clinched a spot in the playoffs with a 3-2 win over Springfield today at Harbor Yard.

More later.

Edit: Also, Matt Donovan was named to the AHL’s All-Rookie team.

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.

This one may’ve had Sudsie Maharaj’s imprint on both sides.

Kevin Poulin was pretty much ridiculous most of the night. Made some nutso saves. Got himself a win.

And at the other end, Matt Donovan was talking about Maharaj’s scouting report on Talbot, some of his tendencies when there was a screen in front of him. He’d taken a similar shot a few seconds earlier, but Rhett Rakhshani fed the puck back up to Mark Katic, in a similar spot to where he’d fed Donovan a few seconds earlier. Donovan said he looked up and saw about five seconds on the clock when Katic got the pass over to him.

“There was a guy (Kelsey Tessier, I think) in my lane,” Donovan said. “I saw where the goalie was, and he was looking the other way around his guy (Pavel Valentenko, involved with Tony Romano in front). I (shot) to the left of their guy and was lucky it had eyes.”

Had eyes between the post and Talbot on the blocker side. The Whale have 77 points; Bridgeport has 75 and the probable tiebreaker, if it doesn’t go on an OT/shootout loss spree and if three of its last 10 games aren’t shootout wins.

And if they cared about the Geico Connecticut Cup, the Sound Tigers could demand delivery at any time.

….

Only once before in 11 seasons, 110 games, between these two teams had one team won all five games in a building in a season. That was 2006-07… when Hartford won all five games in Bridgeport.

First pro point for Tyler Gron, an assist on Scott Howes’ goal.

Good work by Scott Howes in overtime: takes the puck away in the defensive zone, lugs it up the ice, and draws the fateful hooking penalty on Newbury going down the slot. That’s after banging away for a goal in the first period.

The NCAA needed different equipment for their replay system, so in the changeover, replay wasn’t available tonight.

Mark Wotton’s goal with 1.7 seconds left in overtime, Nov. 15, 2009 against Portland, is the latest Bridgeport OT goal. This missed by 0.3 seconds.

Manchester wins again; still two points behind the Sound Tigers.

Incredibly briefly Sound Tigers forward Wes Goldie is now the ECHL’s all-time leading goal scorer.

And RIP, Bert Sugar.

Overall, a pretty solid game. “You can always improve,” Brent Thompson added after this 6-2 win, on his way out the door to Manchester. Defensively; handling the rush, perhaps.

There were moments when the Whale took it to Bridgeport. Early on, but as usual lately, the penalty kill helped slow that. Late, but by then, it was pretty much over, unless Wes O’Neill stepped out in a white sweater for his annual Black Friday heroics.

Bridgeport was short a few key players. Hartford was without probably its three best. “They’re a good hockey team no matter who they’ve got in there,” Thompson said. But Bridgeport got contributions up and down the lineup. The Sound Tigers were good on the forecheck, forced turnovers, pressured the Whale all over the ice. It all added up to something unusual so far this year. Bridgeport’s first nine wins included seven one-goal wins and two by one goal plus an empty-netter. The 10th was a four-goal game.

…..

Trevor Frischmon missed five games for Syracuse in 2009-10, three of them while on recall to Columbus. He hadn’t missed an AHL game since April 2, 2010, going for 102 in a row. Lower body, day-to-day, said Thompson, not going further. The coach said again that DiBenedetto will come along to Manchester and get a good test in the morning, and if all breaks right, he could play Sunday.

Good return for de Haan, with a goal and some good work defensively.

These jerseys would appear early on if this post were written today (#bst11thyear ?) I think they remind me of no one’s sweaters so much as theirs. (bonus New Haven reference!)

Tony Romano’s hockeyfights.com card before tonight.

Matt Donovan finished plus-4, which took him from minus-7 to dash-3.

Impressed that referee Jean Hebert took the time to talk to the goal judge on the Audy-Marchessault goal in the third period. Though apparently the goal judge (who’d never put the light on) didn’t change Hebert’s mind.

Looks like a crazy evening in Wilkes-Barre.

A bit of “it is what it is” from the parties involved. Haley will miss the St. John’s trip. Donovan will go and likely get back in the lineup Saturday. “The league made a decision. Obviously you don’t change their minds,” Brent Thompson said. “I encourage our guys to finish their hits. I’m not going to change that philosophy.” So there you go. (Well, more in the paper, actually.)

I’d still like to see the hits one more time. But anyway.

It’s Haley’s second suspension as a Sound Tiger for a match penalty. He got one game in 2009-10 for a punch on Portland’s Matt Generous.

Thompson said he doesn’t plan to pick up an extra player for the trip. They’ll travel with 12 forwards and seven (six available Friday, obviously) defensemen. Anton Klementyev, who missed Sunday’s game after taking that Wade Redden shot in the leg, has practiced both days and appears fine.

Tony Romano skated with Jeremy Colliton and David Ullstrom today, and Haley spotted in with them. Tyler McNeely moved into Haley’s weekend spot at the Wonderland of Ice, where it appears the team will be spending a lot of non-Harbor-Yard practice time. Trevor Frischmon was marveling at the St. Louis Blues sweater that hangs in the lobby: that of Eric Boguniecki.

Fun with oddities. Bridgeport’s two match penalties in nine minutes Sunday are the only two in 61 AHL games so far, and that’s as many as in all the AHL in 2008-09. For more leaguewide fun, and just because we haven’t had a chart on here in a while*:

Sources: Yearly AHL Guide and Record Books; LeagueStat

Anybody remember any kind of technical changes about the match-penalty rules, or their application, after the lockout? I don’t see any on a quick look. Did the post-lockout changes on obstruction, etc., take away opportunities for guys to go after each other — or maybe even the temptation? Before the lockout, Bridgeport’s match penalties are two slashes and an elbow. After, they’re guys punching another guy, and now these two.

Jason Chaimovitch dug out that the last team to pick up two match penalties in the same game was, coincidentally, the Philadelphia Phantoms, Feb. 23, 2005. Even better, Ben Eager got them both at the same time (high-sticking; hitting Aaron Rome with his helmet; he got two games). Jason also makes the point that Bridgeport is only the fourth team since the lockout to earn two match penalties in the one season.

Appears Brett Gallant, who’s a statistic in the 2010-11 row, is changing from No. 13 to No. 44.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Binghamton recalled New Canaan’s Jack Downing from Elmira for its Norfolk trip. He’s seeking his AHL debut, but Joy Lindsay says he appears to be on the outside for the moment.

Onetime Bridgeport goalie Kris Mayotte has become a volunteer assistant at Cornell.

Sean Avery practiced today with the Whale. (File photo. I assume. Would’ve been awesome if he showed up in that sweater.)

Sean Couturier with his first NHL goal. Three more to tie his dad. I considered calling up former Nighthawks P.A. announcer Hal Baird to hear him say “Couturier” again. (I settled for Twitter.)

Hockey and geology, together at last.

Hurray! Ah, you don’t care. (No, really, don’t click the link.)

Missed it over the weekend, but Paul Leka died last week. You’ve probably sung one of his (accidentally) biggest songs at countless losing teams and ejected players. His studio in downtown Bridgeport brought several big-name artists to town. Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In the Cradle” might be the best-known song recorded here. RIP.

And RIP, Kent Hull.

*-Well, actually just because I looked those numbers up. What, I should waste them?

–Jon notes in the comments to the previous post that the gamesheet now gives both Haley and Donovan match penalties for checks to the head, rather than the boarding penalties we had thought earlier. A little surprised in several ways by that. Tossed in a couple of emails to check, but considering it was midnight, imagine we’ll get more details tomorrow. When we do, we’ll put them here. Edit2: No further details, really, except confirmation that they were changed.

–Team returns to practice on Tuesday, and we’ll chat at 1:30, most likely on this file right here.

Edit: Of note in the meantime: this release today that the team will hold practices around the region. They say it’s part of an outreach program with local hockey programs.

TUESDAY EDIT: As you can probably guess, having technical difficulties. Trying for a fix… This might be it.

(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.

Looking over CapGeek figures, two-way contracts for unrestricted free agents are starting to come in with the back end at or under $105,000 for most of them. That could be a sign that the market is finally trickling down into the Islanders’ AHL price range (which we talked about a little back in April as part of the big picture). Or maybe it’s just coincidence. In that case, we’ll continue to update stuff like how Columbus brought Dane Byers back while finally making Martin St. Pierre official. There’s also Ottawa, which picked up a couple of defensemen of different types, Tim Conboy and Lee Sweatt.

Matt Donovan and Greg Mauldin are apparently on Twitter.

The Rangers promoted former Islanders scout Kevin Maxwell, who helped assemble several of the early Bridgeport teams, to director of pro scouting.

Upstate New York linesman Brian Lemon received the AHL’s Michael Condon Memorial Award for outstanding contributions by an on-ice official.

America’s near-future in space, from Chris Jones. (A related tweet from Seth MacFarlane.

And RIP, Betty Ford.

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.

Three more players have signed amateur tryouts today, although one is, with all due respect, a little more interesting.

Matt Donovan left Denver after his sophomore season and signed his entry-level deal to begin next season. Donovan, a lefty defenseman, doesn’t turn 21 until May.

Out of 13 players in that 2008 draft, the Islanders have signed eight and traded one (Jyri Niemi). Corey Trivino is still in school, David Toews is still in junior, Kirill Petrov is still in Russia, and sixth-rounder Jared Spurgeon is, well, in the NHL with Minnesota.

Donovan won’t join the team in Portland, though. Who will: another lefty defenseman, Matt Campanale, from the Philly area via the University of New Hampshire, and forward Chris Barton, who for the past three years has been the second-leading scorer at Merrimack; he was the third-leading scorer in his freshman season. (The past two years, he has only been behind Stephane Da Costa, the French native who’s the premier college free agent this spring.)

So that’s 10 players on amateur tryouts. The first one who plays tonight becomes the 300th regular-season player in team history. When they all play, they’ll make 59 players this year, not counting Petizian. What a year.

Again, radio liveblog tonight.

….

Rhett Rakhshani has been named to the AHL all-rookie team. He’s the fourth Sound Tiger so honored in 10 years, and the first forward. The others were Wade Dubielewicz (2003-04), Chris Campoli (2004-05) and Nathan Lawson (2008-09).