Soundin' Off

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.

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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.