Promising Sea Dogs

Peter Mannino returns to Harbor Yard in net for the Pirates, who’re in a dogfight (sea battle?) for a playoff spot. They’re two points behind the seventh-place Crunch. Albany’s a point behind them. This thing could take until the last day of the year.

Same thing in the Northeast Division, of course, and those teams aren’t all that far ahead of the mess. With Micheal Haley called up this afternoon, Blair Riley moves up into his spot and Steve Oleksy gets back in up front.

The Pirates have one to scratch. (See below.)

BRIDGEPORT
F: DiBenedetto (A)-Romano-Rakhshani
Persson-Frischmon (A)-Backman
Ullstrom-Mouillierat-Riley
Howes-Marcinko-Oleksy
D: de Haan-Wishart (A)
Donovan-Katic Sinkewich
Ness-Landry
G: Poulin
Clarke

PORTLAND
F: Sterling-Pouliot-MacLean
Duncan-Miele-Hextall
McArdle-Szwarz-Rome
Werek-Watkins (A)-Beaudoin
(Hirschfeld-scratch)
D: Ross-Oystrick (A)
Arsene (C)-Louis
Eckford-Rundblad
G: Mannino
Pogge

R: Mayer. L: Galvin, Briggs.

Postgame edit: Sinkewich played tonight, not Katic. My bad on the cut-n-paste from Friday. Sorry.

Nothing yet on Mike Halmo.

Alden Hirschfeld’s college career ended here with Miami (Ohio) eight days ago. He’s on the ice here tonight, but he didn’t take the rushes. Edit: Indeed, he’s the last scratch.

And I’m not positive about this — I could probably dig a little harder if I really wanted — but I think this is the first appearance in Bridgeport for Brett Sterling, who has been one of the league’s premier offensive players since 2006. He was out in the Rumored Conference four of those seasons; though he was with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton last year, he didn’t play in the Penguins’ only trip in.

Michael Fornabaio