Bits and pieces from the first New England trip without Tim Hortons, from a breathtakingly unusual Wednesday off and from a bloggerific Thursday:
–Edit: Updated everywhere else and forgot here; sorry. The Islanders sent Jon Sim back to Bridgeport this afternoon.
–At least McDonald’s is only a buck.
–The ongoing injury parade makes it necessary to bring in guys like Labelle and O’Neill, but it sounded as if Pat Bingham wouldn’t mind keeping a few extra bodies around when guys get healthy.
“I need to be better behind the bench. Guys need to be better, too,” Bingham said. “If we’re even just a little better (Tuesday), we win that game.”
–Disappointed in myself. I left out the “remember ties?” footnote Tuesday night. Argh. I need to be better, too.
–Always thrown in Springfield to realize it’s on the east bank of the Connecticut River. I don’t know why. A half-rational thought tells you so. (There’s this bridge to West Springfield, so…) Maybe it just never registers when you cross the Dexter Coffin Bridge. (OK, when I cross.)
–Only once was I thrown to see Bingham at the “other” end. Thought it might be more.
–No discussion yet about whether there might be another assistant here at some point.
–The Free Chris Botta movement turned this into a hockey Thursday on WFAN. Not sure which was more entertaining: that, or that Mike Francesa insisted, even after a commercial break, that one of the Leafs took out Pierre Turgeon in 2002. Peca hurt, but losing Turgeon, forget about it.
–Joked on Twitter about talking “Terriers” with Phil. I was going to talk it here, but Alan Sepinwall did so with much eloquence. Seriously, find a way to watch Season 1 at some point if you haven’t. My favorite new show, and in the conversation for favorite show, period. (Caveat: Don’t have HBO.) And you’ve gotta love that theme song.
–Was royally annoyed at myself for forgetting, in the interview with Phil, so many details of the Steve Stirling/Mike Milbury/Brad Shaw situation four and a half years ago. Then I remembered when it was, and forgetting made sense. Aha.
—Nice story on Puck Daddy about the girl who got hit in the head with a puck the other night. Tough kid. Her note to Darien’s Ryan Shannon is utterly adorable. Good for all involved.
–Finally, in answering a question last night, I got myself curious and checked back a year. On Nov. 15, 2009, the Islanders called up another No. 2. Looking over the lineup from that night (the night Jon Gleed got off the exercise bike and had three assists), I was struck by how structurally similar it was to what you’d probably consider Bridgeport’s lineup with all the injured guys in, which would probably be something like
Hilbert-Hisey-Rakhshani
DiBenedetto-Ullstrom-Joensuu
Haley-Marcinko-Figren
Bourbeau-Colliton-Yablonski
Katic-Motherwell
Wotton-Klementyev
Kohn-Hamonic
Pick two goalies, but since Koskinen was out last year, let’s use
Lawson
Poulin
Similar structure. But a change or two.