CFA, Day 2: What tomorrow's gonna really bring

The most important thing from Kimber’s Day 2 report is, of course, about Jeremy Colliton. If he starts in Bridgeport, it appears he’ll be wearing his third sweater number in three years, 21. He’ll…

No, wait, let’s come back to that. Kimber calls out the line combination that most forced a tweak of my private projections: Bentivoglio-Walter-Colliton. I only remember Jeremy playing the right side a little bit in his two seasons (of course, I don’t remember much of 2006, period), but mostly while he was first trying to come back from that shoulder injury that turned out more severe than anticipated. A permanent, even semi-permanent move to the right would be an interesting development.

I had a long bit of speculation planned here about another line, but I’m dumping it for now because of distance and uninformedness. But here’s the two bits that had me speculating: Greg Logan’s blog entry, and the tossed-out possibility I heard before camp that if — and there’s a lot of ifs that go with this — if Bryan Berard makes the team and all else is status quo once the season gets going, then the Islanders might carry eight defensemen and 13 forwards.

Oh, yeah: If Colliton does wear his “lucky number 21 from his junior days,” he would be the eighth Sound Tiger to wear as many as three numbers in a game. And he’d join an eclectic group, to say the least:

5–Marco Charpentier (17, 7, 14, 23, 12). 4–Tomi Pettinen (18, 8, 9, 25), Vince Macri (22, 11, 3, 7). 3+–Graham Belak* (33, 18, 53). 3–Jody Robinson (24, 4, 6), Scott Stirling (29, 37, 35), Doug Christiansen (28, 37, 38). 2+–Luch Aquino* (20, 19).

*-Belak was also assigned 8 and 51, and he dressed but didn’t play in those games. Aquino was assigned 13 but did not dress in that number.

And as an aside, if you plan on popping into this rookie game today between the Bruins and the Devils at The Rinks at Shelton, I’ve heard two different start times, 3 and 4. I’m betting 4, mostly because, when I called, the woman I spoke to checked the ice-time chart and said the B’s and Grand Army of the Hackensack had it from 4 to 7.

Edit: Eurohockey notes the retirement of former New Haven Nighthawk Todd Elik to become a collegiate assistant coach. There are not many left.

(And I’m as shocked as anybody that I’ve quoted “Just Like Romeo and Juliet” for an entry title twice. Have I used “I Fought the Law” even once? I don’t remember.)

Michael Fornabaio