“Did he just say…”

Coupla things from the day that didn’t make the paper…

–Marshall told of standing next to Al Arbour back in the 1990s — a guess here puts it the lockout year Mark I, ’94-95 — watching Lorne Henning run an Islanders practice as Pierre Turgeon, Derek King and Steve Thomas were “kind of futzing around.” Arbour turned to Marshall and said, “Son, see, he doesn’t have their eye contact.” Making that connection is important to Marshall.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s a fragile, fragile thing, confidence,” Marshall said later. “They all come here with some talent. To develop that, you need their full attention.”

–What did he take out of his time spent in Bridgeport over the past few years? He immediately went to the coaches. Steve Stirling was a mentor type. Greg Cronin was hard-nosed. Dave Baseggio: “a tremendous person and personality, the way he handled players, how he cared about them.”

Michael Fornabaio