No milestone: Albany postgame

Bleh.

I said it wasn’t crisp. Scott Pellerin said it was an embarrassment.

That was easy.

…..

Donovan, Sundstrom, Pistilli, three new arrivals, “I thought we’d have that energy,” Pellerin said. Not team-wise. On Sundstrom: “I thought he made some good plays. His conditioning was better than I thought it’d be. It was a good step.” Sundstrom also said he felt better than he thought he would. “I was pretty nervous before the game,” Sundstrom said. “After the first period, I was back to normal again, emotionally. Obviously I’m not really happy about (the loss), but it’s the right direction. I haven’t felt this good since November or December.” He liked the zone time he, Pistilli and Persson had, but they couldn’t get enough through Albany’s big defensemen to the net. It was a common problem.

(Pellerin on Sundstrom’s return: “That could be the only positive thing tonight.”)

Donovan took a puck near the left eye and missed a good chunk of the first period getting it stitched up. He said he was given no guarantees of what’ll happen after the break. It is a couple of weeks away, anyway.

Scooter Vaughan and Brett Gallant switched places in the third period.

Prescout. Bruno Gervais’ second return.

Stockton had a brawl in warmup. (Andrey Pedan is in, his first game since Nov. 11.) Meanwhile, it’s the kind of Islanders season where they’re giving up goals after the game is over.

Rockford scored eight tonight; Pierre-Marc Bouchard was in on three of them.

Olympics underway: The U.S. women open up with a 3-1 win over Finland. (We’ll keep tabs on the locals, as we did four years ago, once we get a little deeper into it.) Max Pacioretty scared the heck out of his country and the people who write stuff about it (and probably some Canadiens fans, too, come to think of it), leaving tonight’s game injured, but he says he’s going to Sochi.

…..

So after 1,000 games the team is 484 (49)-394-31-45-46. That’s wins (shootout wins)-regulation losses-ties-OT losses-shootout losses.

Or you can say they’re 435-439-126. ‘Cause that’s how we roll around here. (Most recent “Real .500”: The Dec. 26 loss to Hartford made them 430-430-123.)

Took a quick look around at the guys who were dressed that night, Oct. 5, 2001. Had five of the 19 still playing: Ray Giroux in the KHL for Magnitogorsk, Juraj Kolnik for Langnau in Switzerland’s second league, Branislav Mezei for Podolsk in the KHL, Evgeny Korolev (transliterated more transliterally at EliteProspects now) for Lada Togliatti in Russia’s VHL, and Raffi Torres the lone NHLer, due to return shortly from an ACL injury for San Jose. Didn’t go too hard down the list of guys who didn’t play that night in Rochester. Jason Krog is still playing in Sweden, for one. I was interested to note the goalies. Rick DiPietro? Not playing right now. Steve Valiquette? Retired for a couple of years. Dusan Salficky? Back with Pardubice.

Caught 1,000th-game videos from Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas, Frans Nielsen, Jack Capuano, Matt Martin and Kyle Okposo; missed videos from Steve Stirling and Andrew MacDonald while chatting with Phil about those early days. Fun times.

While we’re reminiscing, a year ago right about this time, the snow started coming in what felt like feet per hour, not inches. Yeah, that was a fun week.

And Tim McCarver, or MacArthur, on Ralph Kiner.

Michael Fornabaio