Wednesday notes

With only a few games left (barring an impressive set of circumstances that bring them back from five points down), Bridgeport has shut down Matt Watkins, Joey Diamond and Mike Halmo, Scott Pellerin said this morning. Lower-body injuries on all of them. Watkins (on the hit from Vladislav Namestnikov last Friday) and Diamond were more recent things; Pellerin said Halmo has been dealing with his issue for a while and recent evaluation has led them to sit him down. He wasn’t revealing more details yet; maybe after the season.

(No consolation, but that appears to leave Watkins at 254 NHL and AHL games played, so that finalizes that he won’t be an AHL veteran next year.)

Belatedly noted last night: Matt Donovan now has 25 goals as a Sound Tiger, the most for a defenseman. Bruno Gervais scored 24 in his two-plus years, including 16 in 2005-06, which is the single-season record; Donovan is two away from that.

Kooky fact: This year has featured Bridgeport’s first-ever home overtime losses to Norfolk, Portland and Hershey. But then again, Bridgeport has four overtime losses in 22 home games since the beginning of January. There’s only one full season (2005-06, six) in which the Sound Tigers lost more than four games in overtime.

Mike Foley on security at the barn, after the Marathon.

Edit: The Oilers announced they’ve signed Yale captain Andrew Miller. Miller joins Milford’s Mark Arcobello, another Yalie, in the organization.

The Pirates are staying in Portland.

And Justin Schultz wasn’t the AHL rookie of the year, but he is the first rookie to be named the AHL’s top defenseman. At the moment, he continues to lead AHL defensemen in scoring at 18-30-48. (Second after last night? Donovan, 14-32-46.)

Michael Fornabaio