Soundin' Off

With the reinsertion of Tyler Haskins to the practice crew, this team is starting to look like itself again. They just need several more defensemen and another goalie to make it complete. (Yeah, kidding.)

Haskins, though, won’t make the trip, which begins in the dead of night tonight. Reich continued to practice but also won’t travel. On Rechlicz, Jack Capuano was less commital. With Micheal Haley’s return to full duty, all else was the same as yesterday.

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While the Sound Tigers jet off for their first games in the Pacific Time Zone, we’re stuck home. The time difference might make things dicey for print, particularly Friday night, but the blog and the Web should pick us up. (If we’re not covering soccer.)

With Michael Leighton and Cam Ward out in Carolina, Albany called up Mike Morrison from the ECHL.

Bates Battaglia to Syracuse.

The Sound Tigers have never lost six games in a row in regulation time. Friday at Springfield will, in fact, be only their fifth opportunity to do it (or prevent it, I guess you’d say) after this one.

I’ve focused, perhaps, too much on what has gone wrong at the other end, the turnovers, the breakdowns, the disappearing penalty kill (Tyler Haskins: still out, no return date set, “upper body, day to day,” and the impression is it’s very-upper-body).

But this team has scored more than three goals in regulation only in that Albany game. Take out the shootout-win point early in the year, and they’ve scored 35 goals, which is only a tiny fraction more than two goals per game, which would be lowest in the league if not for a Manitoba team that has put the puck in the net during real action only 33 times in 19 games (and yet somehow has 18 points, with help from three shootout wins).

This team is about work-hard, go-to-the-net, wreak-havoc, which is well and good, but they have to get themselves (and the puck) there somehow. They talk about staying out of the box, and sure, that’d help.

There’s plenty of time. This division has the markings of a battle to the finish. They’re young. They’ve played a lot of games in a little time; only in 2002-03 and last year did they get to 17 games in only five weeks. Jonathan talked last night about a Dan Bylsma idea “that it takes 20 games for a team with a lot of new players to figure out how it’s going to win.” The Penguins have, maybe, come a little closer to that. Bridgeport has next weekend — at Springfield, at Glens Falls, Portland at home — to begin to figure it out.

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Last time losing five in a row: six games, Feb. 21-March 9, 2007, the last in a shootout. The time before that: Dec. 4-11, 2005, 10 days before everything turned around.

Mikko Koskinen said his surgery went well; he said he’s hoping to practice in about three months and perhaps be ready to play again in about four, which is a bit longer than 8-10 weeks but makes sense with the surgery. And Joel Rechlicz said he’s not even sure when he got his infection in his hand, which he assumes came from tooth-vs.-finger. It had to be drained. He’s got a little way to go.

Scott Gordon in the house.

Jack Capuano said he considered playing a defenseman up front but went with the seven defensemen instead. It wasn’t like Klementyev was everywhere in the third, but he played substantially more than he had in the first and second, when I think he got one shift apiece.

Jonathan has a neat story today looking back on the first home game in Wilkes-Barre, 10 years ago this week.

All right, Mad Men finale shortly.

No Haskins this morning, but Greg Mauldin and Jesse Joensuu were out there (on a line with Justin DiBenedetto), as was Dustin Kohn on defense. Do they play tomorrow? “Not sure yet,” Jack Capuano said. He sounded as if he’s considering giving them an extra day, at least some of them. The team split up into two groups for a little competition: The skaters went five-on-a-goalie, one set on each end, and the first side to score earned a point. The losing team had to skate a couple of laps at the end. Mauldin’s team lost, but he was exempted from the skating. (Joensuu did skate and looked OK.)

Have kept forgetting to mention that Jeremy Reich is in town. He still has the cast on his wrist for another week or so, but he has been skating on his own and working out.

Just spent a few minutes perusing News from 1930, which has broken format for a few days to go back 80 years instead of 79 and examine how the Wall Street Journal reported the great crash of 1929. Fascinating.

And with that, unless something crazy happens, I’ll leave you alone for a few days. Phil’s making the trip, if I recall correctly (Edit: Actually, he’s joining the team Saturday in Portland), so you’ll have a local perspective on the radio Webcast for two games, at least.

Edit: OK, I lied: back with Eric Boguniecki’s signing with Alaska.

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.

You know it’s a good night for a team when you have to work to pick only three stars. DiBenedetto-Lawson-Bentivoglio is a fine choice, but I can’t leave Marcinko out.

Not sure how I could leave Bentivoglio out of mine, either. “Sean Bentivoglio was outstanding,” Capuano said. “He blocked some shots. He scored the short-handed goal. We need to play with heart and desperation, the way Benti played.”

The combination of effort and achievement have to make this the best game of the first 10. Solid effort, hard work on the penalty kill, sacrifice (would love to have the blocked-shot count), and four whole goals.

And they’re on pace for another 48 wins, too.

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DiBenedetto’s postgamers have been coachspeak to the point of comedy. (Granted, I’m no Edward R. Murrow, neither.) Tried to break him out of it and asked if he was expecting the first goal to be disallowed for some inexplicable reason. He chuckled an “I dunno” and went into the great-feeling-credit-my-linemates bit. We’ll get him eventually.

Capuano said Haskins was held out with an upper-body injury. Kohn and Mauldin were held out after blocking shots. (Yes, even that is a “lower-body injury.”) None sounded too severe. No details on Koskinen, even confirmation that he’s injured, are available at present. Hopefully more in the next couple of days. (They’re off tomorrow as usual after three-in-three.)

Bridgeport scored on four of its first six penalty-shot attempts; the Sound Tigers are 0-for-6 since then.

This ice is coming out for the circus. They’re striking the set as we speak I type.

A nice appreciation of Bill Chadwick. As tweeted, I never heard him call a game (nor, obviously, saw him call a penalty), but I heard all the stories. Last night’s postgame header is in my vocabulary for good.

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.

A couple of weeks ago, maybe, this might have gone differently. Mikko Koskinen wasn’t as comfortable on the North American ice back then.

Um, the kid looked pretty comfortable tonight.

He has things to work on — he mentioned, especially, managing to cover up or get the puck to the corner when it’s in tight — but it was a solid first start, especially in that first 15 minutes, when Worcester could have run away with the evening. The Sound Tigers popped in three goals in a little over three minutes, and that was that.

(Literally. Until the bonus round.)

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Bentivoglio, Haskins and Martin had a combined one point tonight, and that was Martin’s on the five-on-three, but they were buzzing, forechecking, wreaking some havoc for the second game in a row. “They’ve been good,” Capuano said. “They’re doing the right things at the right times. They understand the system. They believe what we’re trying to teach, and they’re having success. We hope to get more guys on the same page.” Was a little surprised to see they got only four shots to the net.

Eric Boguniecki in the dressing room afterward, visiting the folks, so he visited the boys. He’s still hoping to latch on somewhere.

Thanks to Gerry Cantlon: Junior Lessard landed in Finland with Ilves. And Mark Parrish landed in Norfolk on a PTO.

Lots of systems work this morning, transitions, backcheck to breakout. Good pace. Then as they stretched at the end, Bryan Trottier implored them to shoot the puck and get to the net. He invoked “the biggest goal of my life,” Tonelli to Nystrom, a little pass across as Nystrom went to the net to tip it in. Hard not to get chills listening to that.

Mark Wotton returned to practice, but Tyler Haskins didn’t; Bobby Hughes took his spot with Bentivoglio and Martin today. Jack Capuano insisted it was just an extra day off for Haskins, who, granted, is not all that far removed from hip surgery.

Might be a little out of touch the next couple of days for personal reasons. In the meantime, enjoy Sunday’s Lio.

So the Devils trapped, and the Sound Tigers threw pucks around (did everyone put a pass behind Katic at one point tonight?), and it wasn’t always the prettiest game, but hey, you get a crowd like that (biggest announced crowd ever by five), you give them a win, a lot can be forgiven.

The Bentivoglio-Haskins reunion paid dividends. Haskins came out hitting, they drew a power play, and a pretty power play later, 1-0.

Six power plays later…

Weird first period to watch, that way. The second was a little better. The third wasn’t terrible, but… The ice, only skated on a few times and in a crowded house, couldn’t have been great, especially by the end of the night, and they were being too fancy on it. (At the same time, if Zharkov could have pulled the trigger, he’d have had two or three.)

In overtime, Haskins won a draw, got it to Bentivoglio, who got it back to MacDonald. MacDonald shot as Haskins went to the net. Goal.

Simple won out.

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A moment of silence for Roy Boe before the game, eight years since he stepped out at center ice to introduce this Sound Tigers team.

Chris Elsberry’s column today is on the Sound Tigers’ on-ice results since 2002.

I never got Nighthawks tickets for reading. Darn it.

The Lighthouse deadline is gone, “and apparently (Charles) Wang’s patience is through, too,” Chris Botta writes. Then the kid went out and scored a goal.

Oh, Louis Robitaille. How you’ve been missed.

And so Bridgeport is tied for first with Springfield (with four former Sound Tigers), Worcester (spoiling Glens Falls’ return) and Manchester (coupla points for Kevin Westgarth).

Back-to-back Bombulie tweets tonight: “Wyatt Smith tips in a Chris Lee point shot as Eric Tangradi crashes the net. 1-0 WBS.” “@fornabaioctp No, the second assist didn’t go to Masi Marjamaki.” Smith finished with two goals and an assist in his first Penguins game.

Two goals for Peter Zingoni tonight.

Jason Krog was named captain of the Wolves.

Austin to San Antonio is about 80 miles. The American Statesman didn’t staff the Stars’ first game. Well, it was Friday night.

If Safety Graphic Fun isn’t in the RSS reader by now, I mean, c’mon.

Wha? OK, second source.

And deepest condolences to Phil Giubileo, whose brother passed away today.

The first crop of Sound Tigers got together tonight to meet up, fill out some paperwork and get oriented. With a few guys banged up and not too many more here, they’ll skate in one group in the morning at 10.

Only one change to the tryout list, but the added name I got doesn’t mesh with, you know, the facts. I’ll check it again tomorrow. Tom May isn’t here. Tyler Haskins isn’t here yet, either, in large part because he’s playing in Kansas City. A few of those guys could wind up here by Wednesday night.

Elsewhere: Wade Dubielewicz was sent down. Puck Daddy has a disturbing roundup on the way Marty Kariya’s recent injury was handled in the KHL. And just a neat story about street hockey in Lowell, the hat-tip for which I’ve lost; apologies to whomever I’ve swiped that from.

And about 12 minutes into this BBC show, they deconstruct the Tornadoes’ stunning “Telstar,” masterpiece creation of disturbed producer Joe Meek. Fascinating listening.