Where were we?

Notes and links:

The Big Club continues to impress. Coming back off a tough one Sunday (Islanders fans, you dreaded that first TV time out, no?), they bounced back Tuesday night with a resilient 6-4 win in Game 4 to even up the series. Issue: Arthur Staple says Andrew MacDonald has a broken hand.

Tuesday’s win snapped a seven-game home playoff losing streak for the Islanders. Something organizational about home playoff games? (No. Multiple factors. Many years. Just playing.) Bridgeport lost a league-record nine of them in a row (two of them in Nassau, as we mentioned the other day) 2004-2010; they’ve lost two more since for 11 out of 12. (That after starting out 6-0, 7-1 (Louie DeBrusk), 11-2 (Bob Nardella), 13-3 (Ray Emery).)

Mark Herrmann on the Capuano/Bylsma ties, through Steve Stirling. (May be a paywall.)

A couple of locals taken in Monday’s USHL draft: right winger Chase Harwell of Southbury, a Quinnipiac recruit, to Dubuque; defenseman McKay Flanagan of Ridgefield and the Connecticut Oilers organization to Cedar Rapids. Via EliteProspects, appears Sacred Heart goalie Steven Legatto is going to play in France.

A wild Game 4 in Hershey Sunday means a Game 5 Wednesday. Tim’s gamer for more of the fun. The AHL put out the second-round schedules; they’re fascinatingly similar, with the only different dates for potential Game 6s.

Here’s Heather Galindo’s season wrap on the Aeros… which is, then, a franchise wrap. Sadness. They’re doing more at T3I.

Catching up on the Worlds after a few days… Nino Niederreiter stayed hot. He’s got a goal in all three games for Switzerland, now including Monday’s 5-2 Swiss win over the Czech Republic. That goal made it 2-0; the Czechs came back, but the Swiss scored three in the third to remain unbeaten. Niederreiter also scored Sunday, that time tying the game with 6:46 to go; Switzerland beat Canada in a too-long shootout.

The U.S. took its first loss Tuesday, a 5-3 loss to Russia with two quick Russian goals in the third. Theoretical Islander Kirill Petrov had the second assist on the tying goal in the second. The Americans are back at it Wednesday against Finland; they should be all right if they beat France and Germany on the weekend, but a win or two (or points) against Finland and Slovakia (next Tuesday) will help along the way. They fell behind Sunday against Latvia but quickly came back to win.

Other box scores in a confusing paragraph: Ilya Kovalchuk’s hat trick led Russia past Germany on Sunday; Monday, Slovakia had to come back with two goals in the third from former (briefly) Hartford forward Tomas Zaborsky to beat Germany. Finland on Monday beat France, which on Sunday had beat Austria, which came back Tuesday to keep Latvia winless. In the other pool, aside from the Swiss heroics, Sweden needed a late goal to beat Belarus (Konstantin Koltsov) on Monday, a day after Belarus beat Slovenia; Slovenia also lost to Denmark. Norway beat Denmark, but two days later Canada pounded Norway; four points for Steven Stamkos. Here are the prelim-round standings with everyone through three games of seven.

TV SPOILER ALERT: Former Beast of New Haven Bates Battaglia and his brother were on this season’s “The Amazing Race,” which ended Sunday. Click the link for their finish.

Now two big changes in SCC hockey with Scott Gainey leaving Xavier.

Speaking of high schools, we’ll be busy. Drop by and see how long it takes me to call a lacrosse ball a puck.

And RIP, Deanna Durbin and Margaret Groening.

Michael Fornabaio