Soundin' Off

This was starting to look like last week. Point shots, eluding bodies in front, goalies screened, bingo*.

But then they took things over in the third period. They kept the puck deep. They held Springfield with only one shot through the first 16 minutes, by which time they had scored two goals.

It’s the way things have gone in these games: The team that leads early doesn’t finish it off. Tonight, Bridgeport came back three times from one-goal holes.

Each line did something to pick it up. The defense pinched smartly to keep it going.

Bridgeport’s only other winning streak spanned October and November. (It was the last game of October and the first game of November.) Maybe they build on this one, get something going. Maybe it’s just a nice blip. Either way, impressive third period; good win for them.

….

No extent given on Ullstrom, but sounds like it’s not serious. “Soft tissue,” actually, is what Pat Bingham said. “He was less than 100-percent healthy, and we had Dustin Friesen at 100 percent.” Friesen did good work at center. “He’s played it in junior, in college,” Bingham said. “He’s older, a more-mature guy. It wasn’t much of a stretch for him to go out and contribute.”

Jean Bourbeau is hopeful of getting back to full speed shortly.

Referee McNulty hasn’t worked many AHL games; among his first, from what we’ve heard. Hails from Huntington Beach, Rhett Rakhshani’s hometown.

Some pointed words about Scott Gordon from Brendan Witt with Chris Botta. Thoroughly worth the listen.

From the K-Wings, Justin Taylor is producing down there.

Zamboni Dave and his family get a profile.

Jamie Palatini noted how Hershey won tonight: two shorties on the same minor built a 3-0 lead, and the Bears held on.

Bates Battaglia to the Amerks. We were rookies in the same season.

More goalie violence from OKC. Deslauriers vs. Joey Mac for the Rumored Conference belt?

Speaking of, Edmonton called up Ryan O’Marra and Linus Omark from Oklahoma City. I am disturbed enough to picture this as a “Who’s On First” for a new generation, one with bad cell phones and confusing vowel shifts.

And fascinating Simpsons stuff at this site. Especially take a look at the “lost jokes” link.

*-No, Springy.

The Islanders announced today they’ve put Brendan Witt on waivers. One assumes a buyout, like Joel Rechlicz’s, follows if nothing happens on the wire.

Edit: Buyout’s official.

The Sound Tigers go into this one without Brendan Witt, whose father-in-law is ill. Jake Gannon gets back in, and the defense pairs get tweaked, with Mark Wotton (in his 1,000th North American game) rejoining former partner Jon Gleed.

Morency replaces Haley.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Reich (A)-Mauldin (A)-Joensuu
Smith-Radja-Rakhshani
Bentivoglio-Haskins-Martin
Morency-Marcinko-Figren
D: Friesen-Gannon
Wotton (C)-Gleed
Motherwell-Flood
G: Munroe
Lawson

MANCHESTER
F: Gauthier (A)-Azevedo-Holloway
Mikus-Elkins-Meckler
Lewis (A)-Loktionov-Moller
King-Zeiler-Westgarth
D: Martinez-Kolomatis
Bagnall (C)-Campbell
Hickey-Voynov
(Mullen-scratch)
G: Bernier
Berube

R: Pelletier. L: Colby, Galvin.

Katie Strang reports Bruno Gervais is day-to-day with a groin strain.

Good. Gravy.

If they’ll need to replace him, without signing someone, the options are Anton Klementyev or, pending a re-entry-waivers posting, Brendan Witt. The Isles don’t play until Saturday in Columbus.

Meanwhile, what do you think, give Pat Bingham a sweater finally? Skate him hard in the morning.

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Edit: Sometimes it’s good to do your stats later, I guess. Called up Wednesday’s box to discover that Brendan Witt had a secondary-altercation game misconduct tacked on at the end of the game. That surely comes from the Sestito fight. The rules say the referee can waive the game misconduct for a player if the other combatant was the instigator, and I’d assumed that was what Jean Hebert had done. Maybe the tape wasn’t as clear? Anyway, for completeness, Witt has a game misconduct on his ledger.

—-

Had a chance tonight to talk to AHL president Dave Andrews about something else entirely, but figured I’d ask him about the NHL’s head-shots implementation this week. The league has long had a memo posted that says hits to the head would be punished, so I wondered if the NHL’s new focus would change anything in the AHL. “We crossed that bridge in 2004 with Alexander Perezhogin,” Andrews said; Perezhogin swung his stick at Garrett Stafford’s face in the playoffs that year and was suspended for the next season. That summer, the league implemented tougher standards for hits that targeted the head. “Whether they were targeting with the shoulder, with the elbow, if a player targeted the head, we were going to follow that with a suspension,” Andrews said.

“I’m not saying we were ahead of the curve,” he added later. “We’re a different environment than the National Hockey League. We moved in that direction for a number of reasons.”

—-

Mike Morrison feature from Albany.

And RIP, Johnny Maestro.

Trevor Smith liked that they got a few more chances at Springfield. Otherwise, it just felt too similar to other recent games.

Take his tying goal. I started to say something about a couple of nice plays by Joensuu, referring to his swiping the puck from Hisey and beating the defense to the rebound of Mauldin’s shot, but Smith turned it around quickly: It wasn’t nice (as in pretty-passing) plays; it was putting the puck on the net and getting rebounds. “Garbage,” he said, which was fine by him. Haskins’ goal, similar thing: took a hit, went to the front, deflected in the shot.

Didn’t happen enough. That’s eight games in a row with fewer than three goals. That’s one win in 11 games (but, remarkably, eight points). In fact, in their past 17 games, they have only one win in regulation. They’re 4-7-2-4 in those 17, which is .412 hockey. Which isn’t good, but all things considered is probably better than it feels.

—-

Sorry for the blogging delay. Computer froze on deadline. Reboot left the wireless card out. Quick hibernate-and-restart: Nothing. Had blown past deadline now. Set up the dialup connection to get the story in. Threw up hands; left. Got home, started up: Wireless worked. That kind of night.

Katic was the last man out of the dressing room and at the time was still in the trainer’s room. No update on his condition. His arm was certainly hanging as he left the ice.

Lines for the third were mid-January style: Smith-Mauldin-Joensuu, DiBenedetto-Moore-Haley, Bentivoglio-Haskins-Martin and the fourth line as it began.

Appears they tacked on an extra shot for Springfield after the fact, so the paper will be incorrect. Biron makes 38 saves; Springfield outshoots Bridgeport 41-39. That board is always a step behind, and I ought to know better.

Bridgeport wanted a penalty shot in the third; Peckham was sprawled in the crease, and at least two people thought he covered the puck for a second. Jamie Koharski said no. Or, at least, he didn’t see it. He’s the guy who called the penalty shot for gloving the puck over the crease earlier this year, so he’s apparently got an OK handle on that rule.

Jason Chaimovitch came through as always. Marty Biron’s last AHL game was Feb. 16, 2001, in a 3-2 Rochester win over St. John’s. He made 24 saves that night. Witt’s last AHL game was in the 1997 playoffs, April 27, a 1-0 overtime loss for Portland. Of all places, it was in Springfield*. (The building looked quite a bit different then.) Capuano said Witt wasn’t supposed to play quite as much as he wound up playing. Looked OK, especially considering he hadn’t played in a month. (Tweeted a bit about how he played both irresistible force and immovable object in the second period.) Biron juggled a few rebounds, and I’m still not entirely sure what happened on that first goal, but he did finish with 38 saves.

By the way, Witt’s last AHL game was Game 5 of the best-of-five series, and it completed Kevin McCarthy’s Falcons’ comeback from 2-0 down. They beat Providence in the second round before losing to eventual-champion Hershey in seven games in the conference final. Aside from the 2-0 miniseries win against Hartford in 2003, those are amazingly Springfield’s last playoff series victories.

Story in the press box was that Lindsay Lohan was there for at least a while. I dunno. Does it rate with Cyndi Lauper or Glen Hansard sightings?

Prescout. Bridgeport has six games left with the Monarchs. Well, hey, they’re only a second-place team now. Kevin Westgarth and Garrett Klotz went; that was the matchup last year that left Klotz with a seizure. Interesting tilt this time.

And RIP, Brendan Burke.

Katie Strang tweets that Brendan Witt is on his way to Bridgeport, and the Islanders don’t plan to put him on re-entry waivers. Hope to know later this afternoon when he’s expected here.

Usual suspects here this morning. Perhaps more later.

Edit: Not certain if Witt will join the Sound Tigers Friday, or when he might play. Nothing final from here or there as of early this evening. But here’s something we haven’t talked about here for a while. When Witt plays, and when Reich gets healthy, the Sound Tigers will be up to four (plus exemption) of the five (plus exemption) veterans they’re allowed to dress: Gillies, Reich, Wotton, Witt and (320-exemption) Mauldin. Room for one more… though that hasn’t always been the M.O.

The Kovalchuk trade appears to even out for New Jersey in terms of current-professional players, so Lou Lamoriello gets it done without affecting Lowell. (And yes, I’m sure that was his primary focus.)