Sittin’ home all alone: Binghamton Liveblog

I’ve told you I miss Binghamton. (I don’t think I mention in there that one reason is that it reminds me of “home,” the one I talked about earlier this week, at George and Orange.) Anyway, tonight I’m even more ticked off. For crying out loud, a legend, in from Wisconsin or wherever he was supposed to be living, back from the d… oh. Impersonator. OK. Well, still.

We’ll be listening to Phil on AHL Live at about 6:45; if you’re looking for the home side, we’ll miss the great Grady Whittenburg, who appears to be available here. (Think Grady’s pregame starts closer to 6:30, so we may start there.)

We’ll also Twitter-follow a whole bunch of people up there, most notably Jamie, Phil, the P&SB contingent, Grady and the B-Sens official account. Scheduled referee is Geno Binda.

Despite the consecutive losses with which they arrive, Bridgeport has a power-play goal in eight games in a row, back to the Norfolk game. The team record is nine in another November, Nov. 9-29, 2003, part of the 20-game unbeaten streak (they won all nine, then went 0-for-7 in a 1-1 game in Albany in which the teams traded goals in the first 10:32 (Craig Darby (pp), Timander) and didn’t score again; holy trappery, Batman). They also reached eight games in a row with a PPG in early-mid 2010-11.

Elsewhere, neat stuff is going on for hurricane relief. And RIP, Larry Hagman and Hector Camacho.

More around 6:30.

–Jamie’s first-goal tweet leaves all eight defensemen as candidates, but he has Halmo and MacKay scratched again. (His preview also includes the other what-I-thought-obvious nickname candidate for what has become “UPS”: Swedish Meatballs.)

–Poulin leads them out. Will face Lehner, per @PSBSens.

–Either I’ve got the wrong link for Grady’s ‘cast or he’s starting later than he used to. The music mix has not been bad, though. “Sundown” is always welcome. Phil should be up in a few minutes.

–Jamie tweets that Ty Wishart and Marc Cantin are the scratches on defense. Would guess the lines are the same, given the DeFazio-Watkins-Backman starting unit.

–Eric Gryba scores 2:39 in off a draw, with Binghamton’s fourth line on.

–Bridgeport’s fourth line was on as well, and given the plus/minus, feel safe saying:

BRIDGEPORT
F: Niederreiter-Nelson-McDonald (A)
Persson-Sundstrom-Ullstrom
DeFazio-Watkins (A)-Backman
Gallant-Clark-Riley
D: Donovan-Hill
Ness-Landry
McIver-Hamonic (A)
G: Poulin
Nilsson

From Matt (@PSBSens):
BINGHAMTON
F: Hoffman (A)-Cannone-Silfverberg
Dziurzynski-Grant-Stone
Prince-Petersson-Zibanejad
Schneider-Pageau-Jessiman
D: Benoit (C)-Wiercioch
Claesson-Eckford
Borowiecki-Gryba (A)
G: Lehner
Bishop

R: Binda. L: Fyrer, Ritter.

The box is here. While we’re at it, preliminary Prescout, though the Bears play twice more before Bridgeport shows up there Friday.

–Another fourth-line goal for the Senators late in the first period, Cole Schneider, on a rebound/scramble. Has Bridgeport had the puck in the offensive zone this period? Haven’t heard a lot of that. 2-0 Sens after one.

–Barry Brust is apparently starting for the Heat tonight in moments at San Antonio. Bridgeport’s second period should begin slightly sooner.

–Derek Grant makes it 3-0 not three minutes into the second period.

–Bridgeport gets its first power play off a scrum that leaves Darien’s Hugh Jessiman on the board with an unsportsmanlike minor.

–The box actually has it as a bench minor that Jessiman served. We’ll see how that winds up. Soon after that ends, DeFazio goes for a slash.

–Benoit scores on a rebound to make it 4-0. Bridgeport had put six shots on goal in a row after Grant’s goal; Binghamton still has two goals in the period.

–Nilsson comes on for Poulin.

–Bridgeport kills off a Donovan minor. Meanwhile Brust is about seven minutes away from Johnny Bower.

–McIver tries Jessiman, doesn’t get him; Mark Borowiecki tries to get in on the deal but is held off. McIver gets 14 minutes to Borowiecki’s two; Binghamton’s fourth PP. Brust is under four minutes away.

–Schneider scores his second of the game on an odd-man rush with 2:13 left in the second to make it 5-0.

–Brust is something like 13 seconds from the record, and the Heat are going on the PK. Bridgeport’s on the power play, but the other thing seems more interesting right now.

–Brust has the record, getting into the last 1:50 of the first period in San Antonio. He’s surpassed Johnny Bower’s record scoreless streak, the one Kevin Poulin was chasing in January. End of two in Binghamton, 5-0.

–Team records for goals against in back-to-back games and goals against in three consecutive games are kind of in play. Beginning with the 9-2 loss at Hershey on Feb. 27, 2010, the Mathieu Perreault four-goal game, they gave up 15 goals in two games (6-3 loss at home to Hershey). Including those two and a subsequent 5-4 win over Portland (which began the late-season winning streak on the way to the playoffs), plus two other times, they gave up 19 goals in three games. They’re sitting at 12 in two games and 17 in three.

–Ullstrom takes a walk down lonely street to the penalty box at 2:10 for a hook. I will try not to make Elvis references the rest of this period, but I’m promising nothing.

–Eric Gryba makes it 6-0 at 4:01.

–The AHL notes — and let’s interrupt to note that Brandon DeFazio breaks up the shutout with six minutes even remaining; Jason Clark has two points in four pro games after scoring two points in 35 college games — that Johnny Bower’s shutout streak was ended by Lou Jankowski, grandfather of Flames draft pick Mark Jankowski. To bring it back home, Lou’s son and Mark’s uncle is former Islanders assistant GM Ryan Jankowski.

Binghamton 6, Bridgeport 1, final. Shots 44-36. Binghamton, several people noted the past few days, has taken the most shots in the league and allowed the most shots. Now I wanna sit down and see where they’ve come. Anyway.

–That bum Barry Brust gave up a goal. (Two, in fact, at this writing, which triples his season total.) So 268:17 is the new number to beat. And apparently when you beat him you’ve got to throw teddy bears.

–Scott Pellerin: unacceptable start, not playing their game. Does coverage follow that, I wondered? Does one affect the other? “Tonight, for example, going into our defensive-zone coverage, maybe we’d be off by a couple of feet, and they’re making that pass,” he said. “Through our sticks, through our feet, they’re making that play. At other times, maybe they don’t (work).” Breakouts were disjointed; they turned pucks over. “We were not establishing a forecheck,” he said. “They beat us to pucks all night. Pucks were getting to them, wide open.” About the change in goal: “It was one of those scenarios where I needed to do something to change the momentum of the game,” he said. “It didn’t work.” Ty Wishart: “not 100 percent, a little banged up.”

They’ll take tomorrow off. They’ll have four days to work it out.

Michael Fornabaio