It is, as we said before the game, that time of year. The time for the kids to show up and get some things done.
Like get placed perfectly by Brock Nelson for a first professional goal. Ryan Strome said Nelson put him right there, right where Strome reached just the slightest bit to take the faceoff win and snap it upstairs on Al Stalock to get Bridgeport — outscored 9-1 over the previous almost-six periods, giving up a couple of goals to wide-open Sharks early — on the scoreboard.
“They made a strong faceoff play,” Pellerin said. “It was well-executed, and a great shot by Stromer.”
Sean Backman to Ty Wishart ties it. Then Strome makes a beauty of a move to find, at the front of the net, Joey Diamond. First pro goal.
“It felt good,” Diamond said. “I’ve got to keep going to the net, like coach is saying.”
Brandon DeFazio makes a nice move to make it 4-2, and when the penalties finally come in a torrent, both special teams do enough to keep it that way.
It may be late, but at least the kids got it going.
….
Worcester has a game in hand on Bridgeport but is one point behind; the Sound Tigers are 12th, six out of eighth, seven out of seventh, four out of ninth, three out of 10th, two out of 11th. The simplest math remains “nine times two is 18 makes 85.”
The lines were tweaked to Diamond-Nelson-Strome, Persson-Sundstrom-Niederreiter and Backman-Watkins-Kabanov. “The way they matched up, regarding the chemistry, the positions, we made the change, and it worked,” Pellerin said. Among other things, it got Matt Watkins and Sean Backman together, helpful coming out of the penalty kill.
An interesting look for the power play (which didn’t get a turn until the third period) with four forwards on the first unit; Brock Nelson swung back to the point and worked some on the right half-wall, with Matt Donovan at the point and Strome, Watkins and Niederreiter up front. “Bogy and the staff made some adjustments,” Pellerin said. “I thought we moved the puck around pretty well. It’s something we’ll continue to look at. We’ll make some changes if needed.”
Strome’s not the only Islanders draft pick to score in his pro debut tonight: Anders Lee did it for the Big Club, and Kevin Poulin got the win.
Won’t be getting a couple of Joel Rechlicz visits with Portland the next couple of weeks: Phoenix traded him to Washington, which’ll send him back to Hershey. Deadline’s at 3 p.m.; we’ll be keeping an eye on it after practice.
Joni Pitkanen was injured in the NHL tonight on an icing battle. The hybrid version they tested down here during the lockout wasn’t perfect, took some adapting, and maybe sometimes the judgment call went the wrong way. But sometimes they go the wrong way on the touch-up, too. It’s worth a try, no?
Two-time national champion George Gwozdecky got his walking papers from Denver. Reaction from former players was all over Twitter yesterday. Prototypical “he won’t be out of work for long” coach.
And RIP, Jane Henson.