Unusual circumstances, changes: Friday notes

Rulebook geekery plus rarity equals much fun

Presumably the last word on the Leggio Adventure this week, about the Leggio Rule, from David Leggio himself after the AHL rewrote Rule 63.5 yesterday to give a goalie a game misconduct for such a play: “If that’s what they feel is best for the game, I agree with it. I was just playing by the rules as they were at the time, and I’ll continue to play by the rules.”

There’s an unusual-circumstances play I keep coming back to in thinking about this, and I comprehend the difference in that one disrupts the physical arena while the other just mugs a guy, but… Dec. 2, 2006, overtime at Lowell. The Devils’ Aaron Voros stares at a loose puck in the crease with a gaping net. Jeff Tambellini ties up Voros and gets a hooking minor but saves a goal. Bridgeport kills the penalty… by scoring short-handed to end the game*. We can argue all the differences, except that while Leggio’s went viral, Tambellini’s did more to affect the result, and I doubt there’s any kind of hue and cry about that one. Anyway.

Colin McDonald was excused early today; lower-body, day-to-day. Things otherwise looked as they did yesterday (so Mike Halmo appears good to go while Sebastian Collberg remained in red), though Brent Thompson said he’s got some decisions to make on defense.

Sunday will be the fifth meeting between Bridgeport and Albany in three and a half weeks. After Sunday, Bridgeport and Albany won’t play for 13 whole days. Then after that game it’ll be almost six whole weeks until they meet again. (And then they’ll play four times in 19 days to finish the season series. One of those years.)

Elsewhere, Ralph Calvanese works Game 3,000 tonight.

*-Of course you know who scored it.

Michael Fornabaio