Well, the news of the day shifted a bit after the morning skate when Arthur Staple reported that Rick DiPietro has been placed on waivers. Should he clear tomorrow, he’ll come down and Kevin Poulin will go up. There was no outward sign at the skate that this was coming; Poulin took as much of the skate as usual and was first off the ice. There’s no indication right now that he won’t play tonight, but it’s not clear if the DiPietro news changes that.
The first man ever to take the ice for Bridgeport, the only Sound Tigers goalie ever to win a best-of-7 playoff series, his career has taken all sorts of well-publicized turns since, the rise to all-star status, the perpetual injuries that have knocked him around ever since.
After the skate, Scott Pellerin said that he’s named Matt Watkins the ninth captain in Sound Tigers history. “With Colin McDonald being up wth the Islanders, I thought this team needed another leadership push,” Scott Pellerin said. “I’m really excited to have Matt be the captain of our team and head our leadership group.”
Blair Riley and Ty Wishart (road) will join Jon Landry and Nathan McIver (home) as alternates. Brett Gallant won’t wear a letter at the moment but is definitely part of that leadership group, Pellerin said.
Watkins wears a ‘C’ for the first time. “It’s an honor for sure,” Watkins said. “There are 30 of them in the league, and it’s an honor to be one of them.”
More on this later either here or in the paper.
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Appeared, by the way, that both Mike Halmo (banged up yesterday) and Riley (banged up last weekend) are good to go for tonight.