Pulock out: Providence postgame

On video, Ryan Pulock takes a couple of innocuous-looking bumps on the first shift tonight. One comes from Tyler Randell as he’s moving the puck, with his arms extended; maybe it’s to the arm, maybe even to the stick. If I’m guessing, based on how he looked from a distance, arms steady to his side, that’s the likely one. He takes another hit later from Matt Lindblad, one that looks harder but doesn’t seem to do much. Not long after that, he turns toward the bench for a change, maybe looking a little uncomfortable but not too out of the ordinary.

That’s the last Pulock played Friday. Brent Thompson said he’d be evaluated when the team gets back to Bridgeport and didn’t have a guess at the severity of the upper-body injury.

There was, after that, a hockey game for the next 59:30, with usually five defensemen, a few too many turnovers and some ridiculous saves by Kevin Poulin and Malcolm Subban when guys got open down low.

The Bruins scored on one of their two power plays, Ben Youds’ shot with Randell in front. The Sound Tigers didn’t score on their two in the third.

They had chances, but still…

“I thought we did all right,” Griffin Reinhart said. “It was obviously tough to see one of our best defensemen go down, especially trailing. He’s somebody who can get you right in it with his shot.”

……..

Apologies for the lack of tweets, particularly on a night like this. Played IT Guy 45 minutes after the game to get this signal.

Scooter Vaughan picked up some shifts on defense in the second and third, though not until they were down to four defensemen with Scott Mayfield off for fighting. That sequence began with a big head-on Colton Gillies hit on Alexander Khokhlachev, who’d dodged one hit behind the Bridgeport net but got the brunt of Gillies as he turned to Poulin’s left. On the next shift at the other end, Spencer Asuchak put a big hit on Sebastian Collberg. Mayfield tracked Asuchak down a few seconds later.

On Pulock: I blame myself for looking back the other night to see who’d scored the most power-play goals by an AHL defenseman in recent seasons.

No, I blame Jason Chaimovitch, who went a few years further back than I did: Jeff Serowik of Providence scored 15 power-play goals in 1994-95. That’s the most for an AHL defenseman since 1992-93, at least. (Serowik had 28 in all that year on the way to the Eddie Shore Award.)

No, wait: I blame Kinsey Janke.

From yesterday, former Sound Tigers goalie Yann Danis signed a PTO with Hartford.

Prescout. A 10-round shootout with one goal. For sheer hilarity, that’s OK, particularly considering no one had scored for about 57 minutes before that, either. The Devils got a few players (or were in the process) back from New Jersey today, though Stefan Matteau seems to be the only one who played tonight.

Ex-Yalie Brian O’Neill, who has sneaked into the league scoring lead, was named AHL Player of the Month.

Michael Grabner is close, Arthur Staple writes from Calgary.

Sacred Heart beat Niagara tonight at home, getting back to Atlantic Hockey play.

The United States flames out of the World Junior Championship in the quarterfinals. Can’t win them all, I guess. Russia will play Sweden, so conceivably a matchup of Islanders draft picks in net in Sunday’s semifinals. Canada-Slovakia in the other half. We’re No. 5, I guess.

And RIP, Mario Cuomo.

Michael Fornabaio