Round 2: Late Thursday notes

Brett Gallant vs. George Parros tonight. Did a heck of a job.

I feel like I could’ve written twice what I wrote on Gallant’s NHL debut (Friday’s paper, would you?). Space allowed what it allowed, so some stuff hit the floor, but one bit I had to share.

Brett’s dad was awesome to chat with Tuesday night. He was saying that he was a big Islanders fan. Loved Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin. But he’d never been to Nassau Coliseum.

Monday, he gets the call from Brett. They pack up and get in the car Monday night and drive to the Island, getting there Tuesday morning. He’s finally at the Coliseum. In the stands are a member of the Islanders front office and a Senators broadcaster, and he gets a chance to say hello to them: Bossy and Potvin.

And that’s before he watches his son make his NHL debut.

How’s that for a day?

…..

Johan Sundstrom was injured on a hit from Douglas Murray; the Islanders said he was taken to a hospital in Montreal for observation. So it’d not be surprising to see someone else missing from the morning skate. We’ll see.

Feels like the first time we’ve heard Arizona mentioned in the “AHL True Western Division” speculation. Interesting to think about.

…..

Have been thinking about the stat that went into Thursday’s paper for a while, even mentioned the beginnings of it here once: Ryan Strome should lead Bridgeport in scoring with 49 points in just 37 games. There are lots of reasons — not a deep team in scoring; few players here for the long haul who had that kind of scoring potential; he had run away from everyone before he went up the first time, and everyone in hailing distance either had been traded or went up with him the second time — but still kinda crazy.

How crazy? I spent some time with the IHDB and some old official stats earlier this week, going through old AHL teams, looking for someone who’d led his team with fewer than 37 games. The last one even close was Kip Miller, who had 56 points in 41 games for Grand Rapids in 2001-02 before the Islanders signed him. There are a few players in the 40-50 range going back another decade or so (Andrew Brunette scored 67 points in 43 games for Portland in 1997-98), but then you get to a different, more veteran-dominated era (and one with fewer teams); between 1956 and 1989, only one player led his team in scoring while playing fewer than 50 games. (At least, among those whose team didn’t suspend operations mid-season.) And in going back that far, you’re going back to a 64-game schedule (and the one to do it is AHL Hall of Famer Willie Marshall).

Further back, records are spottier; even the great Ralph Slate can only break the numbers down so far if a player switched teams in mid-season. In 1945-46, three teams’ leading scorers played for more than one team, but the splits aren’t available. Still, it didn’t seem likely anyone was in the 40s. In 1942-43, Norm Mann scored 76 points combined for Pittsburgh and Cleveland; Cleveland’s next-highest scorer had 47 points. Again, no split available.

Strome’s 37 games only are eclipsed absolutely in 1941-42, when Norm Burns led New Haven with 59 points in 35 games. But they played 56 overall. Tommy Filmore of Springfield played 37 of 48 in the second year of the IAHL, 1937-38.

Then you get back to the IAHL’s inaugural season, 1936-37. One Tom Cook played 24 games for Cleveland. The team played 48. Dead half.

Still, Strome played fewer, proportionally. It’s a crazy year that made some history.

Michael Fornabaio