Soundin' Off

All the dings left the Sound Tigers almost short-handed today. (Not quite. Still had more guys than they usually did in 2002.) Missing were Tyler Haskins, Jesse Joensuu (with a pretty pronounced limp, still), Dustin Kohn and Greg Mauldin, though all were in the building. Too early to know for sure about the weekend. One who was back to full strength: Micheal Haley. Matt Bertani told him he looked really good during the lap-skating that ended practice, staying strong while others started to fade. “Had a lot of practice,” Haley said.

From the comments: Heard nothing about Guenin throwing a stick, let alone hitting someone, but I’ll ask. And when you consider Lawson was in the ECHL a year ago, it’s quite an ongoing rise for him. He has certainly played well, and without the shoulder injury, he probably would have received an NHL look last year. Starter? Who knows. Lots of luck involved there. But a chance to make it? Why not?

Jason Krog got the call.

Botta presents a nice first-person piece from Pat Dapuzzo about the aftermath of his awful on-ice accident.

Two guys appeared this morning in the little-used white practice jerseys: Mark Flood, and Micheal Haley. Uh-oh. “Haley had a setback,” Jack Capuano said. That didn’t sound good for the weekend, though Capuano wouldn’t go that far.

Going the other way, Flood got through the practice and was one of the last ones off the ice, spending time working on skills with Martin and Westgarth and Matt Bertani. “It felt great, actually,” Flood said as he came off.

Top three lines were as they began Tuesday night; Morency was with Marcinko and Figren this morning.

Manchester leads the division to begin the first three-in-three. “They’re a puck-possession team, a quick team,” Capuano said. “They’re a team whose guys have been there for a while together, so they’ve got some chemistry. The power play is pretty dynamic.” It went 4-for-6 Sunday.

Tomorrow’s story references this.

Elsewhere, Hartford has shipped Patrick Rissmiller to Grand Rapids. (Only two more years at $1 million-per on that one.) Peter Zingoni is making an impression in Houston. Washington called up Aucoin and Giroux. Sergei Kostitsyn left Hamilton.

*-Bobby Fuller, 10/22/42-7/18/66

Look, I laughed when Stirling and Mapletoft said that 7-1 loss seven and a half years ago would be good for them, and exactly four months later I was chilling out in downtown Chicago awaiting Game 5.

So when people start talking about how this 4-0 loss marked an improvement from the one-goal losses of the weekend, I pause a little.

I mean, we spent Saturday night yelling “shoot,” and look at all those SOG numbers, including 11 from the pointmen, 10 from the Single-Digits Line, 12 from the top line.

And none past McKenna.

Romano wondered when his line was going to finish. He and DiBenedetto seem to be around the net at least every other shift, and they have only an assist apiece. Joensuu has those three points but hasn’t looked like Joensuu.

The Haskins line cooled down. The defense has been just OK after a good start.

We knew we were going to be talking about consistency with a young team. Here we go.

“It’s a different team every year. You don’t coach any differently,” Capuano said. “I want them to have success. I can’t fault their effort tonight. If we get an effort like that every night, that’s all I can ask for.”

Perhaps. Manchester looks like a solid team. That’ll be a good test Friday.

—

Mark Flood’s going on waivers would indicate he’s healthy enough to actually be sent to Bridgeport. (Because he was injured during training camp, he technically stayed on the NHL roster and NHL injured reserve.) He would clear Wednesday at noon.

Micheal Haley should be available for the weekend, Capuano expected.

The defense pairs were all over the place in the second half of the game, including a long stretch where Kohn and MacDonald, unusually, didn’t play together. Part of that was penalties, but not all of it.

Attendance was 1,103. Distributed.

Rob Davison wore the other ‘A’, then scored the first goal by going to the net on a three-on-three and getting lost after the play almost broke down. Then he tied up Trevor Smith and prevented him from scoring on a rebound. Then he fought Matt Martin. That’s a pretty good little hat trick right there.

Dean McAmmond is under contract here, by the way, but he did not play.

Heh. The idea of a few diehards sitting in New Shea Bob Murphy Stadium Citi Field waiting for a playoff game makes me smile.

Joe Posnanski makes a good point.

Several important messages from Safety Graphic Fun.

And a nice read about the day Chicago almost flooded from below.

Andrew MacDonald and Tyler Haskins are on the ice in the blue sweaters right now, about to tape some sort of video, apparently about penalties. As MacDonald came on, Nathan Lawson, in sweats, hopped on his back and rode him to the red line.

So late in…

Wait. Haskins has now been given a white No. 11 sweater, no name on back. Odd.

So late in practice, Scott Munroe apparently took a shot in a bad place. Went off in pain, but sounds like he’s OK. Micheal Haley did OK at the doctor’s, too; Capuano said he probably could have played this weekend, but no sense in pushing him. He’ll be out about another week.

Joel Rechlicz got called up. Units were otherwise the same as they’ve been, with Morency alongside Marcinko and Figren.

And now they’re quoting “Anchorman” out there. Dangerous. So dangerous.

Apologies for the lack of communication. Spent an hour and a half on the phone with the phone company yesterday. Tech support says my line is bad. Maintenance says my line is good. Dollars to donuts says I’ll try something different if changing the jack fails.

Anyway.

Trevor Gillies has been hit with a two-game suspension for his part in the brawl Saturday in Wilkes-Barre. He’ll miss the weekend. Drew Fata received a four-game suspension in the same press release. Haven’t heard what he did.

Joel Rechlicz was in town and skating with Gillies on a shortened fifth line; Pascal Morency was with Haskins and Martin, because Sean Bentivoglio was given a day off, Capuano said. A good day to get a breather. Capuano said the other day he was upset at the conditioning level? At the end of a 45-minute practice, he had them sprinting. Three times, goal line to blue line, goal line to red line, goal line to far blue, goal to goal. That’s about a half a mile of stops and starts in full gear. “I didn’t like our third period,” Capuano said.

Micheal Haley remains out, and since he has a doctor’s appointment on the Island on Thursday, it doesn’t sound all that promising. “Upper body” is the only report.

Meanwhile, Allentown may be a little closer. (HT: Dartmouth writer Tris Wykes.)

And forget Houston. The official unofficial nonlocal local team is Olimpija Ljubljana. I count five Tigers and a Beast.

A quick 15 minutes today at Shelton, upstairs — you’d think it was a rather impromptu gathering, except that the lines looked right… except for one thing. We’ll get to that. Why the short tour? Just to get the legs moving, work the lactic acid out, Capuano said, especially with the early start Monday.

Capuano was less forthcoming with other stuff. Goaltender? “Dunno yet.” Lineup? “Dunno yet.” (He doesn’t want that information floating around out there. Stupid blog. Don Nachbaur, Mike Busniuk, you’re not reading this stuff, are you?) The lineup became a question because, in addition to Micheal Haley’s absence from practice today (”maybe,” Capuano said, for Monday; undisclosed), Tyler Haskins was with Marcinko and Figren, and Bobby Hughes was between Bentivoglio and Martin. What does that mean for tomorrow? “Dunno yet,” Capuano said.

In seriousness, caught up with Haskins about the hip-surgery rehab for Monday’s paper. Short answer: going great. And Capuano said his Monday goalie would probably be either Munroe or Lawson; with close to a 50-50 chance, then, I’ll guess they stay on rotation.

Binghamton arrives with a question mark on Jeremy Yablonski, who sat out the jaw-dropping game Bingo played Saturday against Hershey.

So Rechlicz goes up — the pizza he took last night was for the trip, perhaps? — but the lineup gets tougher. Gillies makes his Sound Tigers debut, with Morency at center (season debut) and Haley on the right. Marcinko sits out.

Lawson gets his first start.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Smith-Moore (A)-Mauldin
DiBenedetto-Romano-Joensuu
Bentivoglio-Haskins-Martin
Gillies-Morency-Haley
D: Wotton (C)-Gleed
Kohn-MacDonald
Katic-Westgarth
G: Lawson
Koskinen

WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON
F: Conner (A)-Smith (A)-Pushkarev
Tangradi-Jeffrey-Bayda
Caputi-Vitale-Johnson
Brookbank-Veilleux-(Sill-scratch)
Boogaard
D: Engelland (A)-Guenin
Lee-Bortuzzo
Strait-D’Aversa
G: Curry
Thiessen

Referee: R. Fraser. Linesmen: Boylan, McDevitt.