Soundin' Off

It can’t hurt to change the calendar, right? After this game at Wilkes-Barre, Bridgeport finally gets out of 2011. You may remember that, a year ago at this time, after a New Year’s Eve win, they were 18-14-1-2. And since then, not a lot has gone right.

They’re not scoring, so they’ve got to shut the other team down, Thompson said; then again, giving up well over three a game shows that hasn’t been easy.

“We’re continuing to work to try to improve our group,” Brent Thompson said. “I know the Islanders are working diligently. We’ve got great prospects. We want to make sure they keep pulling on the rope.” A positive environment is important, he said.

That’s hard when the numbers keep racking up like this:

The calendar year: 24-42-6-6, .385.

They should be pulling into Bridgeport right around now. If they burn the calendar, don’t think anyone would blame them.

….

Jamie Palatini, who was with Tomas Marcinko last night in Norfolk and flew back with him today, texted in the first period to say that Marcinko was home. Sounds as if all is going and has gone well.

It’s the first time in nine games, since the Hershey home game, that Bridgeport didn’t allow a power-play goal.

Opposition goals six seconds apart is a Bridgeport franchise record. The previous fastest involved a couple of Norfolk Admirals, each with a tie to tonight’s teams.

Weird to think that I hadn’t been in that building in over two years, as much time as I’d spent there the previous eight. There’s a clip from that game on Jonathan’s blog, which was clutch in- and postgame. (Therein: These were the fastest two goals for the Penguins in the regular season, though there was a pair five seconds apart once in the playoffs.)

Sean Avery to Hartford, at least for now.

Prescout. Same score there.

….

Edit: Forgot the dumb lists. Favorite blog headers this year. And five favorite posts this year (and a horse racing bonus).

….

And such ends an improbable year. We said hello to… well, the list goes on and on and on. The turnover this year was incredible, both in and out at times. I actually didn’t realize how dramatic it was. This season so far, Bridgeport has used 36 players and dressed two other goalies as backups. (This doesn’t yet count Mathieu Aubin, who does indeed appear to be on his way on a PTO.) Last season after Jan. 1, Bridgeport used 37 other players — that is, players who aren’t back and have played this season — and a backup-only goalie. Seriously: 73 players and three backup goalies in 78 games.

Certainly worth tipping the cap to Mark Wotton; you’d expect him to depart the stage quietly and humbly, and he even exceeded those expectations. And to departed longtimers like Dustin Kohn, Jesse Joensuu, Nathan Lawson.

It was an awful year for the hockey world. We woke up on Sept. 7 to the horrible news from Yaroslavl, that Alexander Karpovtsev, Brad McCrimmon, Igor Korolev, Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek, Jan Marek and Sergei Ostapchuk were among those gone. That followed a summer that saw us lose Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak. The hockey world also lost people like Tom Cavanagh, Sam Pompei, Dan Sernoffsky, Rick Martin, Mandi Schwartz, E.J. McGuire, Donnie MacMillian, Ian Jenkins, Barry Potomski, Harley Hotchkiss, Barry Wilkins, Red Coughlin, Aaron Alto, Joey Ciancola, and Johnny Wilson. (And as my computer blew up a time or two, I’m going to bet I missed a few people, and I apologize in advance.)

A tip of the cap also to the Boston Bruins, to the Alaska Aces (easy because a few of them are or have been in Bridgeport), and at last, Steve Stirling and the Binghamton Senators.

If you feel like looking back some more, there’s still a list of trivia questions a few posts back. Otherwise, here’s to 2012.

Boy, I love coming here. But boy, I’ve got to avoid I-84. Hurray for AAA. Now I just need a tire.

Hey, made it in one piece, anyway, albeit too late to try to catch up downstairs. Right now, my worst problem is that the Penguins’ warmup (I hope) sweaters have very-light-gold numbers, and when they lean forward, trying to read them through the net from up here, I’ve got really no shot. I’ll try to pick those lines up later.

Hey, you’re here for Bridgeport, anyway, right? Then the biggest Penguins thing you’ll want to know is that Scott Munroe starts for Wilkes-Barre against his old team. Bridgeport, meanwhile, has dressed the 19 healthy (relatively) bodies who were on the bus last night, so has one to scratch. Edit: It’s Klementyev. The ECHL transactions have Cincinnati loaning forward Mathieu Aubin to the Sound Tigers, but he doesn’t appear to be here, and nothing official that I’ve seen from Bridgeport.

A left-wing rotation from the last time we saw these guys.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Haddad-Frischmon (A)-Riley
McNeely-Cizikas-Rakhshani
Howes-Mouillierat-Backman
Olson-Romano-Gallant
D: Ness-Wishart (A)
de Haan-Reese (A)
Donovan-Oleksy
Klementyev-scratch)
G: Poulin
Riopel

R: C.Brown. L: McDevitt, Ritter.

Released just now by the Sound Tigers:

Sound Tigers forward Tomas Marcinko was struck in the neck by a Norfolk player’s skate during the second period of last night’s game against the Admirals. Marcinko was awake, alert and coherent following his injury. He was taken by paramedics to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital where he underwent successful surgery to treat his injury. No major blood vessels or arteries were struck. Marcinko was held overnight for observation, is expected to be released from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital today and is expected to make a full recovery.

Including Aprils and Octobers, Bridgeport had played regular-season games in 66 calendar months through the end of December 2010. Only somewhere between eight and 11 of them wound up with a lower points percentage than Bridgeport will post this calendar year. Up to five of those months will be short ones, too, either Aprils or Octobers. It has been a rough year. In contrast, there are 21 months with a better points percentage than Bridgeport’s best calendar year, 2003; that includes two Aprils (including April 2011 (4-2)) and an October.

At any rate, they’ll try to cap it happily with road games tonight at Norfolk and tomorrow at Wilkes-Barre. We’re again live from the living room and will have Pete Michaud and Pat Shetler up on Norfolk’s broadcast. Following the same group on Twitter, Pete, Jamie and the Ads’ official feed, adding the Admirals’ play-by-play account.

Nic Riopel returns to the Sound Tigers from Greenville after making 33 saves in a 3-1 loss last night. Jamie tweets to expect the same lineup as Wednesday for Bridgeport.

Alumni note: Robin Short reports from St. John’s that Peter Mannino is being reassigned from the IceCaps, destination not reported. Interesting; Mannino has the best save percentage (.907) among David Aebischer, Eddie Pasquale and him; his GAA (2.86) is behind Aebischer’s (2.60). His W-L record suffers, but that’s it.

At the World Juniors, it’s pretty much over for the United States. Petr Mrazek was fantastic in goal for the Czech Republic, which won 5-2. The U.S. needs Denmark — outscored 28-5 in three games — to win, or at least force overtime, tonight against Finland to have a chance to reach the medal round.

More later — a 7:30 scheduled start, so warmup begins around 6:55, radio pregame I think 7:15.

Same referees, by the way, Jon McIsaac and Mark Lemelin. Two different linesmen, Luke Murray and Tom George. Not that it necessarily means anything — it includes two Hershey games, for one thing — but Bridgeport is 0-4 with McIsaac working.

–Tokarski again for Norfolk. Oleksy on for warmup, Jamie tweets, so we’ll see if it’s him or another to be scratched.

–Norfolk lines tweeted as follows:
F: Angelidis-Smith-Conacher
Ashton-Devos-Ouellet
Palat-Johnson-Panik
Fornataro-Neilson
D: Cote-Kostka
Barberio-Dimmen
Jackson-Gudas
Landry

–Klementyev is scratched, Jamie tweets, so Oleksy is in, paired with Donovan. Other pairs Ness-Wishart, de Haan-Reese as lately typical.

–Box should be here in moments.

–I’m sitting there thinking “wow, that sounds like Amanda Kaletsky singing the anthem.” There’s a reason for that. Game on.

–Cory Conacher gives the Admirals a lead at four-on-four, 2:30. Bridgeport will have a 14-second power play after the exchange of minors. Opponents have outscored Bridgeport 5-2 at four-on-four in regulation time (though neither the Sound Tigers nor opponents had one since Nov. 6), plus 3-2 in overtime.

–Matt Fornataro tips in Kostka’s shot, just his third of the year, to make it 2-0 shortly after a Frischmon holding-the-stick penalty.

–Admirals lead 2-0 after one, though the Sound Tigers outshot them 10-6. Bridgeport carries over 1:33 of its fourth power play into the second period, a too-many-men penalty against the Admirals in the last half-minute.

–RIP, former New York Giant Don Mueller.

–Norfolk begins the second by killing off the penalty. Bridgeport is on a season-long 0-for-23 drought on the power play.

–Bridgeport kills off a Marcinko holding penalty; five seconds later, Frischmon goes in for tripping. It’s tough enough killing penalties, but they’re ratcheting up the degree of difficulty when their top two PK forwards are taking three of the four penalties.

–Riley vs. Gudas. Riley all over him. This is a recording.

–Marcinko injured, and they’re saying Matt Bain is waving quickly for assistance. Might be a skate up high, they say. Marcinko taken off on a stretcher. Towel to the left side of the neck, says Pete.

–Back at it… By the box online, shots are only 1-1 in the period at 12:14, when a Panik roughing penalty gives Bridgeport its fifth power play.

–The referee they’re talking about on the broadcast, who took a skate to the neck at Scope, was Chris Cozzan.

–With Cizikas in the box for roughing, Tyler Johnson makes it 3-0 on a shot from the slot.

–Admirals tweet says Marcinko “is awake and alert as he’s being tended to.” Both teams say they’ll have more as available.

–Period ends with a 3-0 Admirals lead. Scott Howes will begin the third in the box with a minute to go on a high-sticking penalty. Shots online are 13-11 for Bridgeport. That’s for two periods. They were 5-3 Norfolk in the second alone.

–Neat: Been listening off-and-on to Pat’s interview with Dan McCourt, but interesting bit. Talking about Marcus Vinnerborg, the Swedish referee who came over last year. McCourt asks if Vinnerborg is playing hockey in Ontario; yes, Vinnerborg is. “Play defense,” McCourt tells him. “Learn to skate backward.” Neat.

–Big crowd in Rochester tonight. Nice to see.

–Poulin makes one of his nightly diving saves as the third begins.

–Sound Tigers say they’ll update Marcinko’s status after the game. Meanwhile, Norfolk kills off a Devos hooking penalty. Bridgeport is 0-for-25 since the Scott Howes PPG at Hartford before the break. That’s Bridgeport’s longest drought in about two years.

–Rakhshani goes in as the teams play four-on-four. Norfolk’s seventh power play will begin with a long four-on-three.

–Ah, these are fun. Aaron Ness hooks Conacher. They’ll continue four-on-three, but if Norfolk doesn’t score, Reese won’t come out, and the Ness penalty will begin — so this could either be a very long penalty kill or some quick Norfolk offense.

–On the bright side for Bridgeport, the power play seemed to go pretty quickly.

–Ah, that’s why. They let Ness out of the penalty box early. That’s a good way to boost your PK percentage: get time off for good behavior, perhaps.

–Bridgeport makes its way back to full strength, eventually, somehow (though Reese ended up back in the penalty box somehow). The Sound Tigers will go to their seventh power play.

–Like Pete, I’m reading the sheet myself. I think the sheet is wrong, power-play-wise, at the moment. But I could be wrong as well. It becomes a five-on-three with a Gudas penalty on top of the previous Angelidis penalty.

–And there it is. Cizikas centering pass banks off Jackson’s skate for a five-on-three goal at 11:11. The streak ends at 25.

–And now Romano scores on the back end, and suddenly it’s 3-2 with 7:12 left.

–Wow: Howes gets called for roughing with 2:35 left, and then something happens on the way to the box; Pete says Howes punched the glass and “startled the linesman,” getting an extra two and a misconduct. Norfolk could be on a power play the rest of the night.

–While there’s a whistle, for what it’s worth, I’ve got this giving Norfolk 10 power plays, and Bridgeport has eight. If anyone wants to check my math — the box has one more for each team — I’d appreciate it.

–Admirals hold on: Norfolk 3, Bridgeport 2, though a late Cote hooking penalty evened it out (five-on-four with Poulin out) for the last 27 seconds. Tokarski made a big late save on Mouillierat. Bridgeport is winless in nine on the road.

–Brent Thompson on Marcinko: “The latest is he’s coherent. They said everything’s going well. He’s in surgery as you and I speak. Our hearts, our thoughts and prayers are definitely with Marcy. He’s definitely a big part of the team. All the guys care a lot about him.” He had no other details on the injury. “We’re thankful to God he’s doing well. We’ll know more later tonight.” Will pass along what I hear.

Hard to shift to the game after that, but Thompson was proud of the effort. “We created a lot of chances. We just couldn’t bury them. … “We stuck with it for 60 minutes. If we don’t hit a post, a shinpad, it might be 5-3.”

–You may remember that Trevor Frischmon dodged a bullet along these lines in November, taking a skate blade to the left ear. He was, relatively, lucky.

–Tweets from Matt Donovan and Steve Oleksy wishing Marcinko well. No other updates at the moment.

Edit: The answers are now here.

This was a long year around here, by any measure (well, by any that don’t include actual measurements, anyway; by those, it was the same 365-with-a-quarter-deferred days as usual). But if nothing else, it gave us a trivia question or two. (Yep, it’s that time of year again.)

For good or ill, a lot of those trivia questions are kind of esoteric. I sent along one for the paper’s year-end trivia quiz that wasn’t, at least I didn’t think, so hard to guess.

Which Bridgeport Sound Tiger became the team’s all-time leading scorer in March, then was named captain in October?
A. Mark Wotton
B. Jeremy Colliton
C. Rhett Rakhshani
D. Dylan Reese

Hey, his picture’s even on page A4 today.

You guys get the fun ones.

(1) NAME! THAT! ATO!

Name the amateur tryout player who…

(a) …was on an AHL contract while he played in the NHL under a different contract.
(b) …was the first to wear No. 48.
(c) …played his first two pro games in Portland, for two different teams. (Hat tip: Dan Hickling)
(d) …left Mercyhurst before his junior season was over.
(e) …attended 2010 New York Islanders rookie camp as an unsigned, undrafted tryout.
(f) …attended 2011 New York Islanders rookie camp as an unsigned, undrafted tryout.
(g) …was Stephane Da Costa’s linemate at Merrimack.
(h) …was drafted in between Andrew MacDonald and Tony Romano.
(i) …played more games than any other ATO last season.
(j) …scored his first pro goal on a breakaway out of the penalty box.
(k) …had a fight in each of Bridgeport’s last three games of 2010-11.
(l) …was Bridgeport’s 16th-leading scorer. For the season.

(No tricks: Each answer is a different player. Or should be, anyway.)

(2) There were those 62 players who actually played in a game last season. Four more came close.
(a) Name the player who skated in warmup Dec. 30, 2010, at Worcester in case Jean Bourbeau (ill) couldn’t play.
(b) Name the one goalie who only backed up on a road trip.
(c) Name the player who was here most of the season but never dressed because of injury.
(d) Name the player who was assigned to Bridgeport but never had to report.

(3) Which of the following did not wear an ‘A’ in 2011 for Bridgeport:
(a) Justin DiBenedetto
(b) Jesse Joensuu
(c) Dustin Kohn
(d) Brett Motherwell
(e) Wes O’Neill

(4) (a) Of uniform numbers under 30, which were the only two that weren’t worn by a Sound Tiger in 2011?
(b) Coincidentally, all five wore it in 2011: Which number was worn by more Sound Tigers last season than any other number?

(5) As we noted last year at this time, Jeff Smith was the only referee to work a Sound Tigers game in each of the first 10 seasons. The streak is on the line, though: Smith hasn’t worked a Bridgeport game yet this year and isn’t scheduled to work either Friday’s or Saturday’s. (We weep.) In the meantime, who are the only other two referees to work a Sound Tigers game in 10 different seasons? (Wouldn’t call this a hint, but they did, in fact, miss 2001-02.)

(6) Which player scored a league-record four goals in the third period March 9 against Bridgeport to lead his team back from a 4-1 deficit?

(7) This was, indeed, the worst calendar year of Bridgeport’s 11. Yes, it’s the annual calendar-year-records question.
(a) Before this, which calendar year was the worst, points-percentage-wise, the only year before this one that finished under .500?
(b) Before this, not counting 2001, in which year did Bridgeport win the fewest games?
(c) Take out shootout effects: Before this, again not counting 2001, in which year did Bridgeport win the fewest games decided in regulation or overtime?

(8) Joe Fallon came in for the third period earlier this month in Springfield. As we noted at the time, those 20 minutes are the second-fewest for a Sound Tiger who got into a game. (And then we forgot to add Anders Nilsson to the list, which knocks Fallon down one ordinal, but the point stands.) You smelled this question coming, then, right?
(a) Who is the only Bridgeport goalie to play, but play under 20 minutes?
(b) Sadly, he is relegated to last place not only in minutes, but also in goals-against average and save percentage. How many goals did he allow, on how many shots?
(c) Which starting goalie did he replace?

(9) As you might expect, Bridgeport didn’t sweep any teams in calendar-year 2011. There were, though, two teams against whom Bridgeport didn’t lose in regulation, earning at least a point in each game in 2011. Which teams?

(10) (a) From Jan. 1 to the end of the 2010-11 season, who led Bridgeport in scoring?
(b) There’s a very outside chance this could change, but who leads Bridgeport in scoring for the calendar year overall?
(c) Who scored the most goals and was (or at least is right now, Thursday night, pending what the guy in third does this weekend) second in scoring for the calendar year?

I’ll hold comments for a few days to let you think (and since it’s now a few days later, here you go). Have fun.

The Sound Tigers released Nic Riopel from his PTO this morning. Before you start looking for a chain reaction of goaltending transactions, instead read the Greenville News and wonder if this isn’t just picking up his ECHL team for the night.

Word from down there is that Scott Howes didn’t practice this morning after taking the spear last night, but he could be ready for tomorrow’s game.

Meanwhile, the Islanders made room for Brian Rolston to come off injured reserve by placing David Ullstrom on, retroactive to Dec. 20, so he could come off IR at any time.

Not in Norfolk, as is usual, so we’ll be listening to Pete Michaud and following Pete, Jamie and the Ads’ official feed, which I’m guessing is Keith Phillips’.

Jamie tweeted earlier that Kevin Poulin gets the start; no great surprise. Two refs, Mark Lemelin and Jon McIsaac. They’re scheduled to work Friday’s game, too, albeit with two different linesmen then.

A tip of cap today to Angela Ruggiero, former Choate and Connecticut Polar Bears defenseman and American hockey hero, on her retirement.

We’re suffering through the final minutes of Finland-USA at the World Juniors in the meantime. The U.S. has never led and is down 3-1 at this writing with about five minutes left. Edit: Finland 4, USA 1, final. The crowd in Edmonton was happy.

Awesome detailing, both in uniform and in research.

Back with more in a bit.

–Dustin Tokarski for the Admirals.

–Jamie hasn’t tweeted a lineup, but from the starters, Howes-Cizikas-Rakhshani and Ness-Wishart, looks as if some things remain the same. Pete tweets that Olson and likely Oleksy are scratches, which implies Gallant and Klementyev are in.

–Ah, just as I say that.
Howes-Cizikas-Rakhshani
McNeely-Frischmon-Riley
Haddad-Mouillierat-Backman
Gallant-Marcinko-Romano

–Sounds as if Poulin makes some quick, big saves off a scramble in front, picking up where he left off. Bridgeport to the penalty kill.

–Bridgeport had a power play soon after killing Norfolk’s (four penalties killed in a row), but didn’t score.

–Bridgeport gets one that sounds like the Nathan Oystrick-Blair Riley goal from a few weeks ago in Bridgeport: A puck goes off Mike Angelidis’ stick and in for a 1-0 Sound Tigers lead. It’s Gallant’s goal, putting the puck to the slot.

–As Jamie’s tweet reminds me, that’s a fine birthday gift for Gallant.

–Poulin stops Tyler Johnson’s short-handed breakaway to keep it 1-0 in the last five minutes of the first. Bridgeport has a 12-5 lead in shots after that power play ends.

–Bridgeport leads 1-0 after one with a 13-5 edge in shots.

–Ty Wishart gets an early hooking penalty as the second begins. Make it a 1:15 five-on-three with a Donovan hold.

–Mike Kostka scores on the five-on-three to tie it. Right circle through a screen on a one-timer, gathered from the assorted tweets and broadcast, at 2:41 of the second, not quite 30 seconds into the Donovan minor.

–At 6:23, Marcinko gets a tripping penalty, Bridgeport’s fourth in the first 26:23. Pat Shetler says Marcinko didn’t mean it.

–It continues: a bench minor for too many men at 8:56.

–Had that time wrong; Bridgeport kiils the penalty, but Devos puts it in not a minute later off Carter Ashton’s pass. Norfolk leads 2-1.

–Uh-oh. Howes “staggers” to the bench. Later, off the replay, sounds as if Trevor Smith gave him a jab with his stick (Pete and Pat stop short of saying it was a spear, per se). Howes goes to the room after he was apparently prone at the bench.

–Smith gets a belated penalty, which is odd, because I’m pretty sure there had been at least one whistle in between the event and this break, when the penalty is called. Huh. Anyway, a major power play for the Sound Tigers; Smith gets a spearing major and a game misconduct.

–Ads kill off the major, allowing only one shot.

–That’s the first major power play Bridgeport has had this season. The Sound Tigers didn’t have one until Game 62 last season, then had three that day and seven in the next 11 games. Weird stuff happens. Norfolk leads 2-1 after two. Shots just 6-5 Admirals in the period, which should be 18-11 in all in Bridgeport’s favor.

–Hey, by the way, here’s the box as the third period begins.

–Jamie says no Howes to start the third. Rakhshani-Mouillierat-Backman, Haddad-Cizikas-Romano

–Attendance: 5,695, largest midweek crowd in Admirals history.

–J.P. Cote takes a run at Donovan, to use Pat Shetler’s phrase. They’re surprised it’s not a major at real speed, but it apparently looks better on replay. Bridgeport gets a two-minute power play, anyway. Elbowing.

–That expires, but Oberg gets called for interfering with Haddad midway through the third. Power plays 6-5 Norfolk. Score still 2-1 Norfolk.

–And now just five seconds into the minor, Cote gets called for taking down Rakhshani. Long five-on-three. (6-6.)

–Tokarski makes big saves on de Haan and Reese, the latter of whom also hit a post on the first shift. Norfolk back to full strength.

–Time out, Bridgeport, with 7.9 left after a big save on Reese.

–Norfolk 2, Bridgeport 1, final. Sounds as if — and Pat comes right in with just this — the goalies were both outstanding.

–Brent Thompson agreed, said Poulin was great; “disappointing we didn’t get the win for him.” The difference? “They scored on their five-on-three. We didn’t score on ours.” He said there were one or two scrambly moments in the defensive zone, that Poulin was screened on the game-winner, but all in all, “we had great chances. I’m glad with how hard the guys worked. They competed. They went to the net hard.” He had no update on Scott Howes’ condition but said Howes was being examined.

We’ll do this again Friday. More in between from afar as warranted.

Some awful stuff from Croatia: Pascal Morency is out for the season with what his team called (through Google Translate) severe and life-threatening head injuries suffered last week in a fall, and wouldn’t be able to get back on the ice until the season was over. Doug in the comments noted that release, wherein the team says Morency violated its code of conduct in the process. Another report here. Edit: Should also credit Elite Prospects, which set me looking on this one.

Otherwise: Bridgeport is in Norfolk for two games in three nights. We’ll do a liveblog off the radio Wednesday and Friday.

From this Twitter conversation, appears Shayne Neigum has left the Ontario Reign to go to college.

And RIP, Johnny Wilson.

A kind of interesting note from Monday. Well, two of them, actually. Edit: Make it three. For one, it’s funny. I went on and on in the postgameblog about how the penalty kill stepped up toward the end, had the big kill on the Romano slash that they questioned, killed the last three. What’s funny: Going 3-for-4 dropped the percentage again, and though the PK helped save the game, it still dropped a rank. It goes into Tuesday ranked 21st, 18 days after it went into the day tied for first.

An add: Bridgeport oddly was credited with 32 shots on goal in each of its previous three games, all road losses. Tonight, in a road loss, guess how many shots the Whale put on Poulin? The solution was simply for the Sound Tigers to let the other team take 32, not them.

Now the other: The attendance as announced was 7,408. The crowd seemed to keep growing, which usually means a good walk-up. The interesting part, at least to me? Ignore the “Cool Fun 101″ school games, the past three of which (at least, the November ones) had higher attendances than 7,408. Ignore games on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. And ignore the lockout-year Wednesday game at Nassau Coliseum.

I know I should asterisk this, because it’s essentially a holiday, but still: Of all of Bridgeport’s other “midweek” games in 10.4 years, not one had a higher attendance than Monday’s game. In fact: again, take out all those games mentioned in the lead paragraph, the morning games, the weekends. (And in this case take out the March 28 make-up game last year against Syracuse, the one postponed from Sunday to Monday because of the ice conditions, where the crowd was announced as Sunday’s 6,901 rather than the few hundred who made it.) Once you take out those games, know what the highest midweek crowd at Harbor Yard was?

It was 6,170. It was Oct. 10, 2001. It was the home opener for the franchise.

Select company.

(The now-third-biggest midweek non-morning crowd is 5,293, which, like this one, was a Christmastime game against Hartford, Dec. 23, 2002. The next-highest was Feb. 23, 2005, against Hershey, 5,092. I don’t remember what if anything was special about that Wednesday night.)

All of which is a wildly long-winded way to get you to this chat box. Jeez. Last week, I talk about algebra word problems. This week, it’s attendance trivia. These are great ways to spark hockey conversation.

Tuesday, 1:30.

Even after they score (168:19, which doesn’t make the top four, although I’m not sure it’s actually fifth), they have to kill a penalty, and Andre Deveaux deflects one in. They kill a couple of more, they tie the game, and then comes what might be a turning-point kind of moment.

Tony Romano gets called for a slash with 7:22 remaining as Tomas Marcinko ends up laid out without a stick. Marcinko thought that, if Romano knocked out anybody’s stick, it was Marcinko’s. No matter what Marcinko thinks: Bridgeport’s off to the penalty kill.

And if you’ve been watching Bridgeport the past few weeks, you’re probably thinking something like “here we go again.”

But that’s where Bridgeport makes its stand. A few blocked shots. A few Kevin Poulin saves. A few good clears. Romano comes out of the penalty box.

And not a minute later, Bridgeport has a lead.

“It definitely helps having Dylan Reese back,” Trevor Frischmon said. “If we keep doing what we did tonight on the penalty kill, I think we can keep going in the right direction.

“I don’t think guys have been in the wrong spot” on the PK, Frischmon added; clearing the puck has been a problem at times. But after Hartford scored on its first try tonight, Bridgeport killed the next two. The third was crucial. And for the first time in this disastrous stretch on the PK, Bridgeport killed three penalties in a row. And for the first time since it began, Bridgeport has a win.

“I’m proud of the way the guys buckled down,” Brent Thompson said.

They’ll be back on the road in the morning.

….

There was no indication immediately that they’d be leaving anybody behind, despite that Micheal Haley left tonight’s game with a reported hand injury. We’ve seen those before. On the bright side, at least it’s not a concussion.

I didn’t realize until seeing it again how good a play Ty Wishart made with about 30 seconds to go, a sliding block on Tessier at the left side after the puck bounced on Tessier. That block sent the puck to the front to Andre Deveaux, whom Poulin just flat-out robbed diving back to his right.

Rakhshani put one into that same net in the third period to end that 168:19 after Chad Johnson flat-out robbed him the first time. He said the coaches have had him practice just what he did to score, taking the puck quickly from behind the net and going top-shelf. Worked.

By midway through the first, the defense pairs had resolved into two somewhat familiar sets, Donovan-Oleksy and de Haan-Reese, to go with Ness-Wishart.

The line combinations had been a little raggedy in the third period, partly because of double-shifting a guy or two, partly because Casey Cizikas had an equipment issue, partly because of the four-on-four. But they seemed to have gone back to the way they started, and then Marcinko took a shift in Tyler McNeely’s place. On that shift? Game-winning goal.

Garry Brown on Springfield’s Ralph Slate, the legend behind the Internet Hockey Database. Slate is among the unsung heroes of the hockey world, no doubt. (Hat tip: Jason Chaimovitch, who was on all night. This linked tweet had me absolutely cracking up in the press box. Inappropriate, as Bridgeport was killing a penalty at the time.)

Cam Ward: goal-scorer.

Pat Bingham, Nick Niedert, Jean Bourbeau and Elmira are on a pretty good run.

Parts of Dave Scatchard’s concussion experiences sound way too familiar. (h/t: Eric Hornick)

The World Junior Championship is on. The United States started slowly on the penalty kill before burying Denmark. Canada beat up Finland.

We’ll do a chat Tuesday at 1:30 as usual. Will set up the file either later tonight or Tuesday morning.

Another day, another set of Bridgeport debuts, with Joey Haddad stepping into the lineup and Nicola Riopel backing up. Dylan Reese, back from the Show, reclaims his ‘A’ from Micheal Haley, who’s back up in the Show. The lines and pairs are all different from the last time we saw these guys.

Bridgeport is wearing the blacks, so the Whale are (according to our style) in white.

Hartford (you know) has one to scratch. Edit: It’s Tanski.

BRIDGEPORT
F: McNeely-Frischmon (A)-Riley
Howes-Cizikas-Rakhshani
Haddad-Mouillierat-Backman
Olson-Marcinko-Romano
D: Ness-Wishart (A)
de Haan-Oleksy
Donovan-Reese (A)
G: Poulin
Riopel

CONNECTICUT
F: Audy-Marchessault – Newbury (A) – Deveaux (A)
Bouchard-Tessier-Thuresson
Voros-Owens-Bourque
Grant-McKelvie-(Tanski-scratch)/Prough
D: Bell (A)-Klassen
Baldwin-Nightingale
Valentenko-Parlett
G: Johnson
Talbot

R: Dreger, Cozzan. L: Galvin, Wahl.

Since it’s been a while since we mentioned it: In-game updates on Twitter.

Twitter didn’t lead us astray. Kael Mouillierat is back. Joey Haddad is in (though WBS on the brain had us putting him with the wrong ECHL team). But the Islanders recalled Anders Nilsson again. The Sound Tigers are planning to bring in Nic Riopel, who was in summer camp with the Islanders and who beat Bridgeport back in 2009 for his first professional victory.

The bad news for Bridgeport is that none of the injured players returned to practice. Brent Thompson was thus expecting none of Jeremy Colliton, Justin DiBenedetto, Trevor Gillies or Chris Langkow to be available this week.

Back in a few hours.