Soundin' Off

Can’t say I’m all that much clearer on why Labelle was let go. Pat Bingham had nothing but praise for the guy’s play. “It’s nothing Olivier Labelle failed to do. He was terrific for us. He brought a lot to the table.”

As of yesterday afternoon, letting Labelle go left them with 13 forwards (albeit including Rhett Rakhshani, who hasn’t practiced since the break) and seven defensemen (including Brett Motherwell, who has played forward in a pinch, not that they think of that as a long-term solution). But Jeremy Colliton’s injury and Jesse Joensuu’s subsequent call up leaves Bridgeport in a spot. David Ullstrom and Brandon Svendsen didn’t skate Wednesday, so they had nine forwards on the ice. Assuming everyone out there plus Svendsen and Ullstrom can go, they’d have the bodies, just barely. Would they bring somebody in? To be determined.

And in goal… Ah, in goal. Kevin Poulin managed to dislocate his left kneecap last night and needs surgery. (Good gravy.) So that leaves Mikko Koskinen and Joel Martin there. Up here, Leni DiCostanzo practiced opposite Riley Gill in the morning. Despite all politicking attempts to get him a start, the organization is looking outside. Katie Strang and TSN’s Darren Dreger report that Garth Snow would make a minor deal for a goalie. If that doesn’t happen, Bingham and others in the organization are checking for other options. We may hear something today, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see DiCostanzo in the visitors’ net again tomorrow.

When they counted down in Times Square, the New York Islanders had five goalies.

Tomorrow, 40 days later, it looks like only one of them will remain standing in Uniondale.

Roloson to Tampa Bay. Lawson to a sprained knee. DiPietro to a left hand. And now Kevin Poulin to a knee injury in warmup that’ll be evaluated tomorrow.

Mikko Koskinen made his NHL debut and lost to the Leafs. Joel Martin raced off to the Island to back up. And we’ll see where things go from here. Lawson reportedly skated Tuesday morning, but we’re at the short end of that two-to-four weeks.

(The answer to the obvious question is Italy.)

Meanwhile, Bridgeport announced it has released Olivier Labelle.

Edit: The Islanders tweeted after the game that Jeremy Colliton suffered a rib injury that will be evaluated tomorrow.

Wes O’Neill and Olivier Labelle signed new PTOs, so they’re sticking around for at least another 1-25 games.

The pink ice is reportedly in and ready. And not red. So that’s a start.

There’s a long bit of stuff from Pat Bingham in tomorrow’s paper, stuff about holding feet to the fire and stuff like that. He said two periods of this stuff tonight taught him something: He’s gotta get on them.

“When I first took over, it was pretty easy to inspire those guys. They were pretty self-motivating,” Bingham said. “If you remember, we had a lot of good starts, early leads.”

They’ve had their troubles at four-on-four lately, now — different troubles each night, but still — and they’ll take a look at that. They fell behind, but they managed to turn it around.

DiBenedetto-Romano-Labelle had a bit to do with that: Working along the boards, banging, bringing energy. “That’s our role,” Labelle said. “That’s what I try to do every night. If that’s going to be my role, that’s what I’ve got to do to be successful.”

They got it even. Then they gave up two goals in overtime. Got a point, at least, but still haven’t won in five games.

They’ll have a week to work on it.

….

Rakhshani played probably his most creative game since Christmas on top of having a few scoring chances. “Way better,” Bingham said. “He showed a lot of energy. He had two very suitable linemates, Jean Bourbeau and Brady Leisenring. … We were able to give those guys a lot of ice time.”

I haven’t dug too deeply on this — and, yeah, I probably won’t, ’cause that’ll involve going into the storage room and digging up dusty boxes, and I’m off tomorrow, as is the team — but at least in the blog era, Haley-Marcinko-Figren has been together consecutively as long as any line. The only time they’ve been broken up for any substantial length of time were the two games Marcinko missed early in the season. That’s 38 games together, which, when you take out call-ups, are as many consecutive games as Smith-McLean-Iggulden played together to start 2008-09. It’s some kind of run. (Marjamaki-Koalska-Masse played 35 consecutive games together in ’05-06.)

Alex Frolov is out for the year for the Rangers, so that’ll cost the Whale a forward: Kris Newbury for now.

Mike Commodore is assigned to Springfield, though it sounds as if that might not be a final destination.

The Throgs Neck Bridge, a Throggs Neck landmark, turns 50 this week. Build the highway one block west, and my Mom would have had to move.

Saw a link to this during the first intermission. Apologies for the laughing. (Haven’t read it yet — just the title got me.) (H/T: A Word A Day.)

And RIP, Dick Winters

Nathan Lawson insists that he never felt bad. He was giving up those goals, sure.

“I felt I was still playing well, like usual,” Lawson said. “I wasn’t getting bounces. It was hitting the post and going in. It was hitting me and somehow going through.”

Not much of that in this one. Two deflections. The first one was one of the few times, by Pat Bingham’s reckoning, that there was too much traffic in front of Lawson. The second one, there wasn’t much Lawson could have done.

Otherwise, the man made 43 saves.

“Yeah, but don’t be misled by the shots, even if they were accurate,” Bingham said. “I thought he saw just about everything.

“I noticed he was on top of his crease. He was really confident. … He not only made the save, but he ate it. He got us a whistle.”

On that five-on-three in the second, Jeremy Williams’ shot hit the crossbar, and Lawson started expecting the one-timers. He stopped five shots there.

Now, he has stopped 69 of 72 shots in two games.

“I felt really good. I had a really good warmup. I had a really good soccer game to start,” Lawson said. “It just carried over into the game.”

And the team came back twice. The trouble, as Rakhshani said, was they didn’t beat Chad Johnson once in the shootout, so they gave themselves absolutely no chance to get Lawson a win once he got them through 65 minutes.

“We’ve got a good group here, guys who care about winning every single night,” Rakhshani said. “They don’t care what the scoreboard says.”

…..

Bailey took a hit in the first period, then felt a pull on a slap shot later in the first period. They’ll take a look at it Sunday, but it’s not supposed to be serious.

I’ve lost track of how many great scoring chances Olivier Labelle has in the past three games. No luck.

Lines got very mix-and-match after Bailey left. Lots of different combinations. We’ll see what they look like tomorrow, if Bailey can’t go. Doesn’t sound like any of the injured were ready to be back, either.

Bingham, who wanted his guys to shoot last night in the shootout, saw several more dekes tonight (though you hadda love the Robin Figren wind-up slapper). Bridgeport was 1-for-11 in two nights and were lucky to get a win out of that. “It’s definitely an area we need to practice,” Bingham said, “to really come to a conclusion about who’s got the best shootout moves.”

Second-biggest regular-season crowd in Hartford. Second-biggest regular-season crowd to watch a Sound Tigers game (first Nassau Coliseum game, 16,297, during the lockout; last game of the ’02 Final was also bigger, 15,132, at Rosemont, Ill.)

Klementyev declined an interview request: “No English.” He declined with better English than I speak**. We’ll get him.

Haley got a stick up in Zuccarello’s face in the third; no call. They showed the replay almost as often as the Isles showed the Minard goal in the playoffs two years ago.

Speaking of Chris Minard… Good gravy. Tomas Tatar: 2-5-7, plus-7. Two minus-5s the other way. It’s the highest-scoring game in the AHL since the Connecticut Whale weren’t even the Hartford Wolf Pack yet: They were the Binghamton Rangers, and their opponent was from Baltimore.

Edit: On another good-gravy note, how about Greg Mauldin?

*-Because sometimes the whale wins
**-And sometimes write

Mark Wotton and Jeremy Yablonski are reported as doubtful for the weekend with undisclosed injuries. Fascinating are the names coming in to replace them on pro tryouts.

At forward will be Olivier Labelle. You may remember Labelle from 2007-08: gritty, physical, contributes offensively. He was producing in Reading.

On defense: Wes O’Neill, one of the prototypical Former Future Sound Tigers. Well, guess we can drop the “former” part. O’Neill’s the captain in Kalamazoo after three years in the Colorado organization. The Islanders drafted him in 2004 but didn’t sign him in 2007.

Neither was here this morning, but they were on their way.

Dustin Kohn (day off, should be good for tomorrow) and Rhett Rakhshani (ill) didn’t skate. The lines were a bit jumbled for practice, but given that they had 10-4-3 out there, we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings.