Soundin' Off

Jon Gleed got off the ice early this afternoon, ready to take a shower and settle in for a day as a healthy scratch, to take in this one from up on the fourth floor.

And then Andrew MacDonald got recalled.

“The coach called me in and told me I was playing,” Gleed said. “I had to run to Subway and get something to eat.”

Forget that Jared guy: Get this kid an endorsement deal.

Gleed had a couple of assists, was credited with a third until the off-ice guys realized it belonged to Trevor Smith (who, says a trusted source, was about five feet offside on the winning goal)*, was plus-2 and continues to play his usual effective game.

“Jon’s played great,” Mark Wotton said. “He’s the kind of guy who works hard every game and practice.”

That sometimes doesn’t show up tangibly (unless he’s playing Superman, as Peter Mannino once called him), and when you’re on a team with eight defensemen and you’re the only one who has neither an NHL deal nor a ‘C’ on your sweater, you’re gonna sit sometimes. When he gets in, he does a nice job.

“I try to keep things simple,” Gleed said. “We happened to score some goals, and I benefited … when some guys made some great plays ahead of me.”

Wotton, camera-shy anyway, tried to motion us away after the game. “Talk to Jon Gleed,” he said. Yeah, we probably don’t do that enough.

It’s just, you know, Cornell.

—-

Martin had a great line about his line; it’s in the gamer. Capuano said they looked back at film of Bridgeport’s game in Portland on Halloween, and they really liked what those lines did against the Pirates, so they went back to them, at least the top three. The result: five goals in a game for the first time since April.

Meanwhile, check out what that goal today did to the Sound Tigers’ all-time overtime scoring list:

1) Jeff Hamilton       6-1-7
2) Rob Collins         2-4-6
3) Trevor Smith        0-5-5
4) Mark Wotton         3-1-4
5T) Blake Comeau       2-2-4
5T) Sean Bentivoglio   2-2-4
7T) Brandon Smith      1-3-4
7T) Bruno Gervais      1-3-4
9) Eric Manlow         0-4-4

Katie Strang reports Brendan Witt is out for personal reasons, hence the call for MacDonald.

Speak of the devil: Peter Mannino wins his first Chicago start.

Long weekend.

*-You know what? On video, it both looks as if Smith is easily onside and the assist should be Gleed’s. So strike that whole thing.

On one hand, it’s not a win for the 11th time in 15 games. (It also messes up the W-L-O-S columns, but that’s just me.) On the other hand… well….

You take that Munroe is in one of those stretches where he’s making every save he can.

“A lot were kind of from outside,” he said (as tweeted, some of those outside shots were still open, not exactly point shots, and dangerous). “I was able to cover up a lot of rebounds. Early on I was kicking out some rebounds and the guys were clearing them.”

You take that they have been good this weekend when they’ve been right.

“We’ve just got to be a little better in our own zone,” Munroe said.

It’s three out of four this weekend, and tomorrow’s all the bigger because of that, to see if they have taken a step forward, or if they’ll falter against a fresher opponent.

—-

The fourth line was mostly a non-factor in the third, playing one shift together to start, and then maybe one shift each separately. At even strength, Capuano went heavily to Bentivoglio, Smith, Mauldin, Joensuu, Marcinko in varying combinations, along with Haley and, mitigated by four power-play shifts, Moore. Martin got about as many power-play shifts as he did even-strength; DiBenedetto played a smidge more at five-on-five. “I felt some guys were going pretty good,” Capuano said. “I liked the way they played without the puck, which is more important to me than with the puck at that point in the game.” He said he thought some players seemed to be tiring as the game went on. His only option up front is Bobby Hughes, which might at least be a possibility for tomorrow.

The D-pairs went down to, more or less, MacDonald-Flood and Kohn-Wotton in the last five minutes. Gleed got in for a couple of OT shifts. Klementyev might have been banged up.

Remember how J.S. Aubin’s mask needed some repairs last year, and he went to the bench to borrow one from some guy named Munroe? Nothing new under the sun: Munroe’s needed some tweaking, so he had to wear Nathan Lawson’s for a while in the first. (Forgot to ask about that.)

It’s not really clear whether that Nodl attempt in the shootout went through the net or not. Ciamaga checked it with the goal judge and everything, so I’d imagine they were pretty confident about the “no.” But other people were not so sure. (I really thought “no,” but I thought the net moved, too.) No harm, no foul, unlike most other goal/no goal controversies in this team’s history.

Jon Gleed said he had his stick broken and was cross-checked down before the Phantoms’ first goal. Yeah, he still wasn’t very happy about it.

Bridgeport might miss Portland rookie (’08 late-first-rounder) Tyler Ennis, who made his NHL debut and scored a goal. The rest of the Bucs were off tonight.

Dean Arsene gets the call and could make his NHL debut tomorrow for Edmonton. (Hat tip: Tim Leone.)

Tell ‘em, Rat.

All right, been a fun visit here today, but hitting the highway. Enjoy Cotto-Pacquiao, if you paid for it.

Why Munroe back to back, getting a win and making bigger saves than the raw 21 saves might necessarily indicate?

“Just changing it up,” Jack Capuano said. “I don’t know where the rotation’s going to go. Maybe Scotty will go against his old team, then we’ll get Lawson a couple of games. … We’ve got to get them feeling comfortable, too.”

(Asked Munroe about some of the bigger saves, including two or three good chances for NHL star Ryan O’Marra: “You’ve got to (make them),” he said.)

And what about going without the lids in warmup?

“Sometimes you just do something to rally the troops,” Greg Mauldin said.

Well, it worked out.

“We had good pressure on them, but we were keeping the third guy high. They weren’t getting many odd-man rushes,” Munroe said.

They talked about the week of practice, the focus on keeping things simple, working on tightening up the systems. They looked much more consistent with them.

Springfield caught a break to end the second period, when Greg Moore’s stick broke, and took advantage. Bridgeport got one in overtime, when two Falcons hopped off the ice, and took advantage.

—-

Bridgeport stayed out of the box. Amazing. Three power-plays against, one for only seven seconds; that’s the fewest in nine games.

The Falcons took a couple of penalties for some nasty hits and had some other hard ones that weren’t penalized. “They were playing hard, we were playing hard,” said Bentivoglio, who took one that looked uglier than, maybe, it was in the second period. But Greg Mauldin, who took three or four vicious hits and kept going, was proud of they way they battled through that, pointing to one time when Jesse Joensuu took a hit behind the net, went down but still had the puck when he got up.

Prescout. Maybe they won’t be happy.

Len DiCostanzo had been with Mississippi in the SPHL and spent some time with Charlotte before getting a concussion. Hope Matt Broyles comes back from the flu as well as Kyle Okposo did. (Though the Big Club gave up a lead, too.)

Four overtime wins is already halfway to the team record (eight, 2003-04) and more than they had in three complete seasons.

Faith Night here, which helps account for the attendance: 5,479. I have this urge to read my Bible. Gonna try to beat the kids out of here.

Daniel Tkaczuk signed with Charlotte.

Syracuse signed a long-term lease to stick around up there.

How about Central, smoking New Canaan 42-7 to get back to the FCIAC football title game?

And best of luck to Mike Murphy in his treatment.

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.

—

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.

So Jack Capuano wasn’t ready to kill his team for their penalties Saturday night. He said he wanted to go take a look at the tape of this 4-1 loss before he did that.

But the Wolf Pack, one way or ‘tother, scored two odd-numbered power-play goals, took firm control after some early back-and-forth with help from a few power plays.

“We’ve got to stay out of the box so we can not use our energy on the penalty kill,” Greg Moore said. “We roll our lines at five-on-five. When we’re rolling four lines, I think we’re one of the better teams in the league.”

They were, indeed, dramatically better in the third, when they were the ones drawing penalties, when they were the ones getting the forecheck going, when they were the ones moving.

“It’s constant motion. The defense activated in the third period,” Capuano said. “We got to the net, made it tough for the goalie. I can’t fault their effort.”

(Capuano said that last bit Friday night, by the way, and almost laughed about how he says that every night.)

Gillies’ third game misconduct in eight games (that’s a brilliant percentage, isn’t it?) means he’s out for a game. Morency got an instigator in the last five minutes, so he’s out for a game (and Hartford wouldn’t mind it if he got some more). Justin Soryal and Jack Capuano had words on the way out the door. Capuano’s version of that is at the end of the gamer, but we up here were still laughing about what he said about Soryal: “If he’s got a problem, he knows where to find me.”

You’d think these teams were rivals or something.

—

Romano was the only healthy and available forward scratch tonight, so assuming Gillies and Morency are suspended, seven defensemen is likely for Lowell.

Mikko Koskinen was in the room on crutches, though he ducked elsewhere before I had a chance to talk to him about the surgery.

Gleed said he gloved the puck to put it down, and Jamie Koharski immediately called him for it. The rule in question is 67.4: “If a defending player, except a goalkeeper, while play is in progress, falls on the puck, holds the puck, picks up the puck, or gathers the puck into his body or hands from the ice in the goal crease area, the play shall be stopped immediately and a penalty shot shall be awarded to the non-offending team.” Also instructive is a piece of Rule 1.7: “The goal crease area shall include all the space outlined by the crease lines and extending vertically four feet (4′) to the level of the top of the goal frame.” I don’t recall ever seeing such a call made on a puck in the air. But there’s apparently cause for it, if Koharski thought Gleed sufficiently held onto it in the space over the crease. (Gleed said he was fairly sure that his skates weren’t in the crease.)

Prescout. Took 2:01 to play. The final was up when there were 12 minutes left here. Ben Walter has four points against Bridgeport in two games, and now with his goal tonight has five points in 12 games against everyone else.

Ian Clark has taken over the Union Leader’s Monarchs beat, and now he has taken over the blog, too.

Good NHLPA read from Elliotte Friedman.

As tweeted last night (’cause we’re full-service over here, with the high school football), the man who called New Canaan’s game-winning two-point-conversion play was assistant Bo Hickey, who’s also the Rams’ hockey coach and has been a fixture on the scene in both sports for a long time.

Speaking of 140-character humor: Have you seen the “Old Hoss Radbourn twitter account? Good golly.

And RIP, Qian Xuesen.

There’s a line in tonight’s walkout song — well, in the original version, not Bill Haley’s and his Comets’ — about rolling of eyes and gritting of teeth.*

This team might make you do that sometimes this year.

They gave up another quick one. Then they gave up three quick ones. The game was more or less over, dropping Bridgeport to 7-8, and for whatever it’s worth, they fell to fifth place, too. (And that eighth-place team is a-coming after them, too.)

There were all kinds. There was a pretty power-play setup. There was an intercepted clear. There was a bad break, where they blocked two shots only to have the second bounce straight to the open man. There was one funky one that deflected back through Munroe’s legs; there was one from the other side that somehow got through.** Five goals in 16 shots, and the Falcons were gone.

Bridgeport’s 36 shots probably included about 14 on the power play — maybe more, but give or take — including eight on that first chance that produced the goal. Of the 36, 12 came from either Flood or MacDonald. (Flood had four in the first period, and they might all have come on that one power play.)

At 12:22 of the first, Trevor Smith forced a turnover and got the puck to the net, where Devan Dubnyk stopped Greg Mauldin.

“It’s a whole different game, with Trevor Smith going to the net, if Greg Mauldin puts that in,” Capuano said.

The cynical response is that Springfield would then have taken its 2-1 lead at 12:37 instead of 19:01.

—

Prescout. Typically good day for the usual suspects.

Montreal plucked Jay Leach off re-entry waivers. Jersey, meanwhile, signed Dean McAmmond.

Coupla-time Sound Tiger Jean Desrochers retired, his team announced.

Ryan Kinasewich was the ECHL’s Player of the Month.

Good stuff on Faith and Fear in Flushing today. Greg is happy with a Neil Best report on SNY’s Thursday offseason programming, and I’ve got to agree. (MSG had a Harry Howell film this morning that was fun to see.) Jason imagines the afterlife.

Good story from Ken Levine.

And there’s brighter Hughes family news.

*-In a breathtakingly different context, of course.
**-I say “somehow” because I was twitterin’ on the previous one at the time and couldn’t get a handle on the replays. Stupid technology.

They weren’t bad. They just made some mistakes at bad times and lost, which, well, tends to be normal for games played before 3 p.m.

One somewhat-concerning trend: Giving up quick goals after their own goals. Got it in the story, but they’ve scored 31 goals; three were in overtime, one was the shootout point, and one was Morency’s to end Sunday’s game in Providence, so that’s five that ended games. Take those away, and of those 26 (in 14 games), four times the opponent has come back within 30 seconds. That’s the first Worcester game here, the Binghamton game here, Friday in Worcester (the winner) and the big one today here.

—

The Phantoms are 5-for-12 on the power play against Bridgeport and 3-for-46 against everybody else. “They get pucks to the net,” Capuano said.

Darryl Bootland signed a PTO with Manitoba. Via Elite Prospects: Junior Lessard is no longer with Ilves (because of a knee injury, if Google Translate didn’t let us down).

Former WBS Penguin Bill Thomas signed a PTO with Springfield.

Tim McManus has more on Lukar Kaspar’s departure from the Flyers organization.

And a classic Lio from the weekend.

Saturday, the former Little Punk in Illinois married the girl for whom he came home. ‘Twas a blast. I’m proud to have gained a sister (and a little doggie niece).

Though they went and scheduled their wedding during hockey season, I lucked out and missed only a road trip.

While we were busy, the Sound Tigers played Worcester and Portland and Providence (against a team that was coming off this skunking). They only beat Portland. Hometown-paper/blog reports: Bill Ballou (with notes in Worcester; Paul Betit and Chris Roy in Portland; and what passes for coverage of a home game for the Providence Journal.

After that, the team had Monday off. Was rather glad to have it myself. We’ll see how they’re feeling in the morning, and then we’ll see how things go Wednesday morning.

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.

—

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.

So they don’t score in 170 minutes, and Capuano’s proud. They win a game, and he’s aggravated. Mad at the backcheck on the goal (Mr. Letestu probably was lonely). Mad at the lack of willingness to pay the price to get to the net, in so many words. (To quote someone who was here tonight: casual and quiet.) Mad at some of the shift times.

They kept shooting, though. Kohn and MacDonald kept trying to get it there from the point.

And then they got that turnover. And then they blocked that shot. And then the puck popped free to the one spot where Greg Moore could backhand it home.

—

(1) 215:58, Oct. 24-Nov. 6, 2004 (92 shots)
(2) 203:38, Jan. 12-16, 2005 (unknown shots)
(3) 173:44, Oct. 18-24, 2009 (101 shots)
(4) 170:49, April 7-14, 2007 (68 shots)

Initial word was Kohn instead of Joensuu on the second assist on the winner, but that was not changed on the game sheet.

Was really hoping Jesse Boulerice would appear in a third number after the second fight, just for fun. But a nice job by Teddy and Josh to get the nameplate on No. 40.

Prescout. Micflikier, who scored the first goal, just came up from Florida today after the Whalers recalled Brandon Sutter.

The Phantoms sent a release that their Dec. 4 game against Norfolk will happen in Philadelphia, at the big building.

A winner for Ben Guite tonight.

Interesting article from our Amanda Cuda, albeit found on Stamford’s Web site, about a local doctor and his treatment of concussions in youngsters.

Great road trip story from Andrew Gross.

Sad news from San Jose, where David Pollak reports that Dan Rusanowsky recently lost his sister.

And RIP, Bill Chadwick, The Big Whistle.

No goals in 126:40 (81 shots), no even-strength goals in 187:56, but even that was an extra-attacker goal, so no goals with equal skaters in 246:40. Bridgeport’s longest scoreless streak since the lockout is 170:48. For what it’s worth.

Jonathan Bernier was good. Really good. He’s got a shutout streak of his own in the other direction.

Could they get some more traffic? Maybe. Dig out a few more rebounds? Possibly. Win a few more battles? Yeah.

You don’t expect to go scoreless over 80 shots, though.

Trevor Smith noted that they’ve got a three-in-three here; they’re right back at it in 20 hours, and if they score early against the Penguins, maybe this whole drought is in the mirror. They’ve got time to put it behind them in a hurry.

At least, they hope.

—

Capuano on Hughes: “I thought he did well. Bobby obviously had the injury there in Albany last year; during training camp, he started building momentum. I thought he played well.” He took a penalty-kill shift with Mauldin in the box and got a fairly regular shift as the game went on.

Prescout. The Bears almost came back. Some Penguins haven’t forgotten about the last meeting two weeks ago.

Hamden’s Jon Quick signed a three-year extension with the Kings.

Ryan Vesce is a force in the Show.

Became official Thursday at SHU: Yale’s C.J. Marottolo takes over.

Huge local football game: Central beat Greenwich, 14-13.

They don’t pack them in here like they used to, but attendance: 3,568. Bridgeport had played 11 regular-season games here before, never to a crowd lower than 5,435. (In fact, 10 of Bridgeport’s 11 home crowds against Manchester were lower than that 5,435.) Seven crowds here had been better than 9,000; four were sellouts.

Rant: Back-to-back trips to Lowell and then to here should not be allowed. (Portland, too, while I’m at it.) Nothing against I-495, the world’s longest right* turn, but if it only went through civilization instead of skirting it, at least there’d be something to look at besides trees. Gonna be dark on the way home. I know that’s how the Interstates were supposed to work, not disrupting cities and towns. But, come on, give me a look at a village every few miles or something. (End rant.)

From Bill Walsh’s Blogslot: The Fake AP Stylebook. (Caution: May be too inside.)

And RIP, Soupy Sales. In his honor, please go to your parents’ wallets, take all the little pictures of guys in beards, and mail them to…

*-Or left, since I’m going home now…

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.