Some nights: Albany postgame

“Some days, we come out flying, playing great,” Adam Pelech said. “Some nights are like that.”

Like that. Flat. Uncharacteristic. The inconsistency is to be expected, but sometimes the way they’re inconsistent still surprises you.

They were giving up odd-man rushes galore in the first period Wednesday. Albany scored on one of them, and Bridgeport was lucky that was it. “We lost our F3 a couple of times,” Brent Thompson said. “The D were protecting the boards; they’ve got to stay inside the dots there. We’ve got to be smarter in those situations.”

Missing Johan Sundstrom and Scooter Vaughan doesn’t help the penalty kill, obviously, which gave up three goals (2-0, 3-1, 5-3). Kevin Poulin stopped initial shots, but the Devils got to the rebounds. Soon enough it was 4-1. Bridgeport crawled back into it, but like I kept tweeting, it felt improbable.

……..

A couple of goals for John Persson, who has been getting power-play time and making the most of it, and who seems to have more of a regular role the last little bit. “I think I’ve had a couple of good nights, too, where I didn’t get on the board,” he said. “It feels good to get two in. Unfortunately it didn’t help us at all (in the end).” He has five goals and three assists in 10 games since coming back from injury. “I don’t think I’d been playing bad,” Persson said. “We have a lot of good players. It makes you really push for everything every day.”

Mike Keenan was on at the end, killing the six-on-four, for Albany, which is pretty cool. Good for him. His hit on Jesse Graham didn’t seem to be appreciated; some talk about whether it might’ve been too low. Adam Pelech went after Keenan for it. “I was just frustrated. I was just trying to stand up for (Graham),” Pelech said.

Mario Lamoureux didn’t play much, particularly after the fourth Devils goal, on which he was one of five guys caught out on a long shift. “Limited minutes,” Thompson said. “He was good on faceoffs.” Lamoureux won a couple of draws on one shift in the first period; that produced a couple of chances.

Team’s practicing in Portland tomorrow after an early trip, so we won’t see them until Saturday. Thompson said he expects Sundstrom and Vaughan to make the trip. Loic Leduc is going back to Stockton.

Loud crowd for 3,128 in a big building. Is there history with Griffin Reinhart that I missed? A group booed him every time he touched the puck. Almost tweeted before the game that I wondered if Albany assistant coach Sergei Brylin’s name would get the biggest cheers. Close, if not. (And goalie coach Johan Hedberg got the biggest “Moooooose,” obviously.)

(The spot where I was, by the way, I don’t know if doors were open somewhere or if it was just the air conditioning, but there had to be a wind-chill factor of like 20. Like a late-fall day at Wonderland. Fingers cramped up. Papers were blowing away. I’d have laughed, but it was too cold. Albany had the wind for the first period, so maybe that was the deciding factor.)

Lukas Sutter had two assists in the ECHL all-star game.

Prescout. Mike McKenna was called up today. Worcester’s Troy Grosenick took ill, so Sharks forward Jimmy Bonneau was the backup goalie. Definitely in pics-or-it-didn’t-happen territory there, so thankfully… (Jeremy Langlois goes and upstages him with a natural hat trick.)

Congrats to Teddy Richards of the Penguins organization on his 1,000th game.

And RIP, Mike Spellman.

Michael Fornabaio