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.

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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.

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(more…)

The Sound Tigers got their wrap-up meetings over in a hurry; well, they got them over in a hurry, as in they got them done today, within 24 hours of the start of the game that eliminated them. They didn’t get them over in a hurry, as in the scheduled 11 a.m. appointments finished up a little after 3 p.m. (That’s far from unusual. They get backed up easily.)

They hung out in the room one last time (the logjam waiting for the three various interviews helped gather them in the hallway), swapped war stories, checked out the old team photos, shared a few laughs, complained about lack of sleep last night. I have boatloads of notes to transcribe and didn’t even get to everyone I’d hoped to get. Word of the day after the first losing sweep in Sound Tigers history? Probably “shock.” The team had high hopes and high expectations. To go out in three drove them nuts.

Garth Snow wasn’t committing to any moves, be it signing draft picks like John Persson, qualifying those restricted free agents, or re-signing those who need re-signing. He and Brent Thompson also weren’t talking about the reported possibility of Thompson being up for one of the vacant assistant coaches’ jobs on the Island. “Too early,” was the gist.

Rhett Rakhshani still didn’t know the full extent of the damage of taking that puck to the mouth in Game 2; he was off to the doctor’s in the afternoon.

Scott Howes could return to Alaska for its run at a Kelly Cup repeat. The ECHL is in the conference finals, Kalamazoo against Florida, and Las Vegas against Alaska. Kael Mouillierat could’ve rejoined Idaho, but Las Vegas eliminated the Steelheads yesterday.

The list, as best I have it; corrections welcome: (Numbers in parentheses for signed players are years remaining on the contract; those without numbers are signed only through next season. Lots of help, as you can surely expect, from CapGeek and other sources.)

Bridgeport
SIGNED: Anders Nilsson (2), Kevin Poulin, Marc Cantin (2), Calvin de Haan (2), Matt Donovan (2), Aaron Ness (2), Casey Cizikas (2), Mike Halmo (3), Brock Nelson (3), David Ullstrom
GROUP II: Mikko Koskinen, Mark Katic, Ty Wishart (V-320), Sean Backman, Justin DiBenedetto, Tomas Marcinko, Tyler McNeely, Rhett Rakhshani, Yannick Riendeau, Tony Romano
GROUP III: Jeremy Colliton (V), Trevor Frischmon (V), Trevor Gillies (V)
GROUP VI: Micheal Haley (V-320)
AHL: Kenny Reiter, Jon Landry, Steve Oleksy, Russ Sinkewich, Brett Gallant, Scott Howes, Jordie Johnston, Kael Mouillierat, Blair Riley
UNSIGNED DRAFT PICK: John Persson

Islanders
SIGNED: Rick DiPietro (9), Evgeni Nabokov, Travis Hamonic, Andrew MacDonald (2), Mark Streit, Josh Bailey, Michael Grabner (4), Kirill Kabanov (3), Matt Moulson (2), Nino Niederreiter (2), Frans Nielsen (4), Kyle Okposo (4), Marty Reasoner, Ryan Strome (3/slide possibility next year), John Tavares (6)
GROUP II: Yuri Alexandrov, Matt Martin
GROUP III: John Grahame, Al Montoya, Mark Eaton, Milan Jurcina, Dylan Reese, Jay Pandolfo, P.A. Parenteau, Steve Staios

Group II players are restricted free agents if tendered a qualifying offer by June 25. The other free agents are all unrestricted. (V) indicates he’ll qualify as an AHL veteran next year. (V-320) means he qualifies as that one exempt player a night with 320 or fewer pro games. And because he spent significant time here, I’ll note that Dylan Reese would be a full-fledged veteran next year in the AHL.

That’s 25 NHL contracts on the books next year (4 G, 7 D, 14 F), including Strome (who wouldn’t count against the limit of 50 if sent to junior).

The view from upstate: Paul Doyle’s gamer and Jeff Jacobs’ column on Marek Hrivik; Bruce Berlet and Mitch Beck at Howlings.

And as it appears things are pretty well broken down in the room, we’ll do a chat at 1:30 on Tuesday as usual.

Micheal Haley returns against Worcester; Mike Moore isn’t back. We’ll see what (if anything) follows from that. Rhett Rakhshani out with “lower-body soreness,” but Kael Mouillierat returns. Tyler McNeely is scratched to make room for Haley. Worcester has one to scratch, and Frazer McLaren seemed to be the one hanging out in the neutral zone.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Persson-Romano-Riley
DiBenedetto (A)-Frischmon (A)-Backman
Haley-Mouillierat-Gron
Howes-Marcinko-Oleksy
D: de Haan-Wishart (A)
Donovan-Sinkewich
Ness-Landry
G: Poulin
Clarke

WORCESTER
F: Mashinter-Kennedy-McCarthy (A)
Murray-Guite (A)-Stalberg
Gogol-Lucia-Livingston
Combs-Moon-Reid
(McLaren-scratch)
D: Irwin-Pelech (A)
O’Hanley-Doherty
Bonneau-Acolatse
G: Sexsmith
Sateri

R: T.Koharski. L: Briggs, Redding.

By the way, word is that the black sweaters have been seen for the last time this year.

And it appears the replay system is back up and running today.

It’s a big part of their identity, laying out to block a shot, anywhere, anytime. From start to finish, even when they weren’t getting clears, even when they were playing in their own end, they blocked enough. And what they didn’t, their goalie was just about perfect.

“We talked a lot about it this week, willingness to get in front of a shot. It’s as important as scoring a goal,” Brent Thompson said. And then he started rattling off the names of guys who did it, Haley, Mouillierat, Frischmon, Marcinko, on and on.

Their special teams came through. They got penned in at times by the Sharks, a big and strong group, but they did what they had to do to emerge with yet another win.

“Our guys rose to their level,” Thompson said. “They’re big. They’re physical. They work hard. The bottom line is we have to match their physicality.”

They did well to battle, to draw penalties (“umm, wait,” say the Sharks). They did most of it without their captain, injured in the first period. Marcinko took a lot of his shifts between McNeely and Rakhshani, and he got some power-play time as well, getting credit for the go-ahead goal.

Rakhshani added a needed extra, a third power-play goal in a big special-teams night. Happy birthday.

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Thompson said he wanted to see the play that knocked Colliton out of the game, apparently a high hit in the first period, on video. The coach said Colliton was feeling better already by the end of the night, so we’ll see where that goes.

A mixed set of reviews for the ice. One player said he’s played on lots worse. Thompson praised his team’s focus in dealing with the delay and starting strong. Rakhshani’s description should be at the end of the gamer in the morning. Good one. Give it a look.

(After putting it into my head with the pregame blog header, if I didn’t use “IceCats” anywhere tonight, I will be proud of myself.)

Kevin Poulin admitted on Twitter that he was going for the empty net on that clear up the middle. The Sharks were called for a deliberate offside when trying to carry that puck back into the zone. That’s far from the only call they weren’t happy about. Not sure there wasn’t a case or two where they had a case. (Also, given the geolocation feature on Poulin’s tweet, the bus appeared to have been making good time.) I did like that Tim Mayer went with the misconduct on Irwin instead of an unsportsmanlike minor when Irwin went nuts over that power-play tripping penalty with 4:06 left. No sense doubling the punishment to the team.

Good day to be a Bridgeport goalie. Tough day to be a former Bridgeport goalie. Joe Fallon, up with a depleted Houston team, gave up three goals on four shots this morning in Abbotsford. Tonight, Scott Munroe didn’t make a save on three shots.

Combination of things that made it possible to hear, but Matt Pelech took a Ness slapper off the right leg in the second period, and I venture you could hear him yell pretty well throughout the arena. Sympathy pain, for sure. Later on in the period, Pelech is the guy whose backhand clearing attempt Ness intercepted and put to Marcinko at the left post for his goal… which went off Pelech’s skate. Tough night.

No more Sean Avery in Hartford, which, after the past few months, doesn’t seem to be much of a shock.

And RIP, Robert B. Sherman.

Newbies Yannick Riendeau and Marc Cantin hadn’t yet arrived when the Sound Tigers practiced Tuesday at the Wonderland of Ice. They should be in later today and practice Wednesday, Brent Thompson said. They’ll join a pretty full house; there were 14 forwards and eight defensemen out there. Thompson said he plans to keep everyone around until Clear Day on Monday and then see how things shake out. “I believe in the group we have,” Thompson said. “I don’t want to change anything.” Hey, 18-1-0-2 in the past 21, hard to blame him.

All hands on deck, otherwise. Mark Katic is ready to go, practicing on a defense pair with Brandon Gentile. Rhett Rakhshani, skating with Justin DiBenedetto and Jeremy Colliton, appears ready as well. Brett Gallant is cleared, so it’s just a matter of getting in game shape. (The coaches put the returning trio through some hard work after practice.) That leaves an injured list of… nobody. Boy, is that weird to say. The organization’s list is Rick DiPietro and Dylan Reese, and that’s it. Been a while. Friday would be the first game without losing a man-game to injury since Oct. 10, 2009.

All the best to Jean Beliveau and family.

The Whale and Worcester are playing a game this morning, headed to the third period at this writing. Mike Vernace has an assist in his Hartford debut.

Mike Busniuk and the Ferraro brothers are going into the Binghamton Hockey Hall of Fame.

And RIP, Jan Berenstain.

Reminder: We’ll chat Wednesday at 1:30. Probably on this post.

The Islanders announced the swap Monday morning.

Afternoon edit:

The ECHL transactions suggest that Wes Cunningham is coming back up from Greenville. He’s 2-20-22 for the Road Warriors, around which he went 0-0-0, minus-2 for Bridgeport during the rough stretch in mid-December (at Hartford, at Hershey).

(Exciting/scary fact: A PTO signed next Tuesday expires with the end of the regular season.)

Chris Botta on the Islanders’ arena saga.

Darien’s Hugh Jessiman signs with Abbotsford.

Tip of cap to Mike Comrie.

And we’ll chat Tuesday at 1:30.

The league announced Casey Cizikas as its Player of the Week this morning. A mere nine points in three games (2-1-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, in order) for the rookie; a mere 18 points in 11 games this month.

Probably the funniest thing about this week is that Cizikas went on this nine-point tear after they named him to the all-star team. Not that things weren’t going well before that, but still.

The third time Bridgeport has had two POTW honors in one season. First time two in a month (Kevin Poulin, Jan. 9 — he’s got the nod in the Show tonight, and Rakhshani’s in for the first time this year, too).

Mr. Colley, meet Mr. Stirling.

A few things before the game tonight (another post coming), after lunchtime entertainment listening to a guy tell the sandwich guy he ordered turkey, “and what are you trying to pull,” and the guy starting to yell and scream and go on and on and on… and then watching security come a-running (he didn’t order turkey):

–The Islanders called up Kevin Poulin and Rhett Rakhshani this afternoon. They put Marty Reasoner on IR to make room; Reasoner has been out most of the month. Bridgeport doesn’t practice until Wednesday, travel until Thursday, play until Friday.

–By the way, trying to figure out when to chat this week. Thursday at 1:30 is most likely at this point.

–From the Dave Andrews presser this morning, the league will keep in place the video-replay system in Bridgeport. That’s in no small part because they never got to use it in January; They’ll have up to eight chances in February.

It’ll remain up to the on-ice officials to take a look if they want, but he said they’ll consider having an off-ice official give a look in the press box as well.

They want to see how it works, basically, and there wasn’t a play in any of the four games in January that let them try it, for lack of a better term, for real.

“Not that we don’t think the system will work. We know it works,” Andrews said. “We want to use it and get the kinks out of it.”

Teams are looking at the costs, which have been a stumbling block in the past.

“I think we will have it,” Andrews said. “It’s an economic issue, and it’s very expensive to put in a system that does all the things we would like it to do. … It’s a cost/benefit thing. How many times a year are you going to need it?”

Andrews said they expect only to use replay to see if a puck crossed the goal line, including whether it crossed the line before the end of a period. (So, for instance, Mathieu Perreault’s goal in Game 1 in Hershey wouldn’t be reviewable.)

Some other highlights from the 45-minute-or-so chat:

–The schedule should remain at 76 games next season. Having Christmas on Sunday this year made for some tougher scheduling, taking out a whole weekend, but it’s a Tuesday next season.

–He said attendance is up around the league, and revenues are up even more.

–Andrews gave an unprompted shoutout to Bridgeport for Wednesday night’s crowd. “Weeknights in Bridgeport in the past were not very well-attended,” Andrews said. “It was really a good crowd, a good game. I was very impressed. I think they’re making good progress.” (Fortunately, there aren’t many weeknights in Bridgeport this year.)

–The league will have two referees in something like 35 percent of games this year, plus all playoff games. He expects to have two refs for all games within five years. That’s limited by the pool of qualified referees: “We’re moving them through as the NHL believes they’re ready,” Andrews said.

–His cell beeped a couple of times, which led to one of a couple of Twitter references. He gave a shoutout to Down Goes Brown.

–The league has more than doubled its number of suspensions, and more than tripled the number of games. “We’re really looking at a predatory type of hits, whether it’s a head check, or whether it’s boarding, charging, where we see intent to injure on the part of the player as opposed to a hockey play.”

He said they worked closely with Brendan Shanahan, and they’ll even talk Shanahan if they have a call they’re not sure of.

–He said they’ve seen more concussions happen in practice than on illegal hits.

–He expects no realignment; this remains the best geographic fit for the AHL. A big issue with the conference-based playoff format is playoff travel; with more permutations going down to the wire, travel is pretty much last-minute and expensive.

One change on the ice was the addition of defenseman Jamie Fritsch, who’s wearing No. 5 and skating as the seventh defenseman. Rhett Rakhshani skated as an extra forward with Brett Gallant and got quite the bag skate from Bernie Cassell. (One of those where you get winded just watching.) Brent Thompson wasn’t ruling him out for the weekend, but it didn’t appear as if he was planning on him, either. They’ll see how he rebounds from this.

A Uni Watch commenter notes the funny timing: The Mets finally ditch the black, and hours later, the Islander officially unveil this. (Don’t think the music selection on the Sound Tigers’ Facebook page is a coincidence.)

Big words from Mike Santos on the San Antonio Rampage’s struggles.

Too. Much. Cuteness. In. One. Place.

And finally, so where’s the band?

Rhett Rakhshani will miss six to eight weeks, Arthur Staple first reported, with what the team is calling a left-knee sprain. That takes him to mid-November at the short end.

Trent Hunter earned a contract with the Kings.

The ECHL’s training-camp rosters release apparently doesn’t include guys who’re in AHL camps, or the list of former Sound Tigers on that list would probably be longer. Nevertheless, for now (with Utah TBA): Alaska — Wes Goldie. Chicago — Matt Campanale, Pierre-Luc Faubert. Colorado — Jon Landry. Elmira — Mario Larocque, Jean Bourbeau. Gwinnet — Paul Flache. Kalamazoo — Riley Gill, Darryl Bootland, Justin Taylor. Las Vegas — Peter MacArthur. Reading: Rob Kwiet, Louis Liotti, Vladimir Nikiforov. South Carolina: Trent Campbell. Edit: And no sooner… first-day ECHL transactions have Shayne Neigum signing with Ontario (Calif.), and Matt Schepke and Corey Syvret added to Trenton’s camp roster.

Another year, another Rangers beat writer at the Daily News. Jesse Spector is off to the Sporting News.

And RIP, Sylvia Robinson.

Cough mostly suppressed and pee wee projects done, sneaked down to the Island this morning, mostly to put together some kinda advance for Saturday (well, Saturday’s game, Friday’s paper); also collected stuff for a future story. A thought or two:

–As noted by several, including this Katie Strang tweet, there’s some buzz around Aaron Ness’ camp. Which isn’t said to be read as a knock on Matt Donovan or Calvin de Haan or anybody else; just that Ness has been particularly good.

–Brent Thompson, for one, is glad to have an extended stint with the big club, rather than a split camp where he’d have been up here for almost a week already. “I’ve been learning about Cappy, getting a feel for the staff,” he said. “I’m learning about the players, too,” and he means everybody, from the big names up top to all of the guys that’ll be here next week. Lots of different players have stood out for various reasons, he said; mentioning things like Frans Nielsen’s work habits, Mark Streit’s speed and ability, the young defensemen and their daily improvement, the (six) goaltenders… He could have gone on, I’m sure. I asked how he’ll watch these last two games, if he can use them at all to try to get a handle on what his lineup might look like, and he said that’s kind of tough. “There are jobs available,” he said. Too much would depend on decisions that haven’t been made yet.

–Wounded Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rakhshani were, at least, walking. Both were trying to stay positive; from those two, you’d expect nothing different. Rakhshani had an MRI on the knee in the morning and was hoping his injury wouldn’t turn out too serious. Colliton’s still not skating from the groin injury last week.

–All five players on waivers cleared, but Jack Capuano said he expected them to play this weekend. Obviously no sense in sending them to Bridgeport when there’s no Bridgeport camp.

The Islanders report injuries in tonight’s game to Rhett Rakhshani (left knee) and Milan Jurcina (groin).

Meanwhile out in Columbus, Greenwich’s Cam Atkinson is making an impression.

Edit: BTW, Wes O’Neill is in Houston’s camp, since I keep posting tryouts. Edit2: “Former future” Tony DeHart in Hamilton, too.