Soundin' Off

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.

Semi-big but down the road: Dan Martin’s interview with Rick DiPietro includes that he’s likely to condition in Bridgeport.

In o… Oh my goodness, look at Flash.

Alumni stuff: Chris Armstrong gets featurized in Springfield for tonight’s advance. Jonathan has his promised Q&A with Penguins captain Wyatt Smith. Tough break for Raffi Torres.

Have only seen this Tyler Myers kid once — one of those Islanders games, actually — but man, does he have a chance to be a force, or what?

These are some fascinatin’ throwbacks.

And who’s ready for Fantasy Supreme Court?

Off to Tim Hortons, and then, maybe, Springy…

Chris Botta reports Radek Martinek is out for the year with a torn ACL. (Katie Strang also has it, if you can click through.) As Botta says, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to call anyone up right now, but the margin for error on defense is therefore gone.

–Same cast of characters as yesterday. Some if not all of the dinged-up will skate tomorrow and see how it goes, and then they’ll have a chance to make some decisions for the road trip.

–Katie Strang, meanwhile, reports that Doug Weight had swine flu. (We’ll see if you can actually read that through the pay wall.) Similar announcements have been coming from around the league.

–Former Beast standout Ryan Johnson took a hard spill into the boards but appears to be doing OK.

–And finally, well, then, maybe Andre Agassi should stay out of “upcoming biography.” (/grammar joke)
Edit: Well played, Sports Pickle.

So Anton Klementyev has his paperwork filed, is ready to go and seems excited about maybe getting in Saturday; Capuano said that’s a possibility.

Klementyev’s English is still developing, but he got his points across. I tried out my Russian on him. “Spasibo.” “Gde Ivan y Vera.” He didn’t laugh too hard. I should have tried singing “Podmoskovnye Vechera.”

Gillies-Hughes-Rechlicz together. Pat Bingham was heard to call them “Albany.” Gillies admitted his emotions ran a little high; on video, he does give Bortuzzo the business. Morency was with Marcinko and Figren; Bentivoglio was back in practice. Maybe more on Haley tomorrow.

Charles Wang denies the reported death of the Lighthouse.

Morning began great. Went to get a soda. (Stupid) machine took my quarter(s). Still no ‘net at home.

And RIP, Captain Lou Albano and Al Martino.

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.

—

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.

Jan Piskacek and Anton Klementiev are not on the initial roster the Sound Tigers submitted to the league office. Unfortunately got word too late to dig up further details, so we’ll dig in the morning. And maybe we’ll have further details when we start up this liveblog Sean Patrick Bowley and I have planned for Friday at 1 p.m. (plug).

That roster also puts Greg Mauldin in No. 20, not the 11 that has been on his helmet this week. The original list had someone in every number, 1-16. Mauldin’s change, if not Piskacek’s absence, ended that.

On the Island, Kyle Okposo picked himself up an ‘A’.

Ex files: Matt Keith made Rockford, and Darryl Bootland is with Kalamazoo, where his brother, Nick, is coach.

It’s that kind of fall (again): Greg Mauldin left practice about halfway through after tweaking something; “lower body” was the only report. Anton Klementiev departed early, too, though it wasn’t clear if that was injury-related or not.

Mark Flood (lower body) remains out, but everyone else skated, which brings us to that annual exercise: Even though this isn’t the final roster and everything will be torn asunder by Thursday morning, here are today’s line combinations:

Bentivoglio-Haskins-Joensuu
Haley-Romano-Figren
DiBenedetto-Mauldin-Martin
Hughes-Marcinko-Sixsmith
Morency

D-pairs, without Klementiev:

Kohn-MacDonald
Piskacek-Gleed
Wotton-Gannon
Katic-Westgarth

And the three goalies.

Hey, check out the first line at last year’s first-real-practice. It’s a cute little coincidence, but it points out the futility of the exercise: That line played together only a handful of times during the year. The point, Jack Capuano reminded us, is just to get guys in combinations and work on systems, skate, work on conditioning. Looked like a good skate; lots of work on breakouts.

Chris Botta has today’s Islanders lines.

Elsewhere, appears Keith Aucoin and Alex Giroux are among Washington’s cuts. Sure, claim Rob Schremp.

I’m stumped as well. Something about bocce and lightning, maybe. And, OK, I laughed. Sorry.

Edit: Two BTWs: The team plans a press event of some sort Tuesday night to officially unveil the new uniforms; you got a sneak peek during the exhibition game’s national anthem. And Mike Russo says Jaime Sifers appears to have made the Wild.

Chris Botta thinks the Islanders will be free agents on Oct. 3 after an all-day zoning hearing.

Max Gratchev appears on Binghamton’s training camp roster. (I’ll take that $64,000 now.) Onetime Sound Tiger J.F. David is also there.

If you don’t mind tape delay, the Islanders and Canucks are on MSG Plus right now; Vancouver is apparently streaming it live.

Ricky is taking shots. Katie will likely have plenty from the game. I take it back – Twitter says she’s having trouble getting the game up there.

Edit: From the first, Moore, Smith and Reich are playing together; Moulson, Mauldin and Sim, too. Bentivoglio is with Thompson and Jackman. Kohn appeared paired with Flood, and Hillen and MacDonald were together, too. It is wild to watch these guys playing on a little local rink.

Edit2: The Isles’ postgame has Moore and Mauldin playing the middle on those lines.

Elsewhere: P.A. Parenteau has a one-way contract with the Rangers. One of Rick Carpiniello’s readers produces a most handy flow chart. The Amerks are back in real colors. Robert Nilsson has “been in the thoughts and prayers of countless Oilers fans this summer.”

Down Goes Brown reviews NHL ‘10.

Where football’s “hut” came from.

And RIP, Norman Borlaug and Patrick Swayze.

Have fun storming the castle*.

A little traveling music, perhaps.

Camp From Away, our irregular feature, begins shortly** (though I’m still off for a few more days and will have some football to distract me thereafter, plus some other personal stuff that’ll distract even more. Katie, Rick and the Isles’ crew will be out on the prairie, joining the locals.) The preseason begins Monday. Bridgeport should be in town Sept. 22, though that might be a meeting day.

And RIP, Larry Gelbart.

*-Haven’t seen that in a while.
**-And keeps its name, even though there are no Newfoundland idiomatic jokes to be found.
And apropos of nothin’, was that backslash always in there in the blog name? Don’t remember seeing it before…