Edit: Bridgeport released Philip-Michael Devos this afternoon. He’d been in and out the past few games.
Some neat local international news this morning: Tomas Marcinko is going to the Olympics with Slovakia. Original Beast of New Haven Herberts Vasiljevs returns with Latvia as well, his third trip (he was picked for a fourth but was injured in 2002; Elite Prospects says he’s injured at the moment, too, but is due back soon).
Pierre-Marc Bouchard was back at practice today, lining back up with Alan Quine and Joey Diamond, and Justin Johnson moved back to defense to make for even pairs.
Johnson prepares to begin serving a six-game suspension, handed down yesterday, to follow the last four-game suspension. “It’s really disappointing,” Johnson said, “just really disappointing. This year more than all my others in this league, I don’t take being in the lineup for granted. To have to give those games up, at my age, the way I feel about our team, it hurts.”
Scott Pellerin, trying to look on the bright side, said at least the league didn’t zonk Johnson the way it did Brandon DeFazio last year, when they simply said he came off the bench to start an altercation and gave him six just for that. “The referees from the league called it instigating. There are rules, and everybody has to follow the rules. It’s unfortunate because it’s all interpretation at times. … We’ll learn from our mistakes and move forward. I talked to JJ about it, and he’s not happy about it; as a team, we’re not happy about it. We’ll move forward and accept the league’s ruling.”
Johan Sundstrom (ill) skated on his own again today, joined by John Persson (lower body) and Riley Wetmore (hit in the head with a puck). Pellerin was hopeful Wetmore could be back to practice, no-contact, in the next couple of days, though he won’t make the Manchester trip, Pellerin said. Persson is more of a day-to-day thing; Sundstrom is a ways away still.
The goaltending shuffle began last night with Anders Nilsson’s call-up to the Island for the trip to Toronto. Parker Milner’s expected to be on his way here. But Leni DiCostanzo had the other net this morning. We’ll see if he gets the start Friday.