It’s Parker Milner’s AHL debut today, a day shy of 22 months since the St. John’s IceCaps played here last. And not one of the 20 Bridgeport players that night will play today for the Sound Tigers.
But one will be on the other side. (Could be two, but Scott Howes drew back in that night for Blair Riley.)
You can argue that those five PTOs were the catalysts for that fourth banner that’s now hanging over the Harborside goal. (I kinda did something like that here, sorta.) Jon Landry and Riley stuck around for a year; you’d have liked to have seen the others, too, though different forces sent them elsewhere. Howes and Steve Oleksy had their returns last year; Kael Mouillierat and Riley get theirs today.
I’m not gonna argue it’s like Bruno Gervais coming home (which, um, didn’t exactly prompt a roar from that Sunday-afternoon crowd a couple of weeks ago; come on, folks). But still.
(Meanwhile, Bridgeport’s lone remaining PTO from that season isn’t exactly “remaining,” but Chris Langkow was on the roster for over half the season, after all. His last two games were at St. John’s, Oct. 21-22, 2011; he had an assist in both.)
Jordan Hill returns as well, a guy who did what they needed him to do last year. And Brenden Kichton makes his Harbor Yard debut today, too. Sure, we spent a couple of years figuring that’d happen in the other colors, but still.
Jon Sim gets a maintenance day, and it looks like Justin Johnson’s out with Alan Quine and Nick Larson getting back in. One to scratch each way.
BRIDGEPORT
F: Lee-Strome-Halmo
Diamond-Sundstrom (A)-Kabanov
Larson-Quine-Wetmore
Gallant-Langkow-Bruton (C)
(Johnson-scratch)
D: de Haan (A)-Cantin
Keenan-Mayfield
Jackson-Cornell
G: Milner
Reiter
ST. JOHN’S
F: Mouillierat-O’Dell-Cormier
Jaffray (C)-Albert (A)-Gordon (A)
Klingberg-Lowry-Samson
Schnell-MacKinnon-Riley
D: Chiarot-Kichton
Erhardt-Fredheim
Hill-Lampl
(O’Neill-scratch)
G: Olkinuora
Pasquale