Status quo until the release comes: Monday notes

Same cast of characters on the ice today, including Sebastian Collberg on his 21st birthday*. It may not be the same for long, because they may need a replacement: Official word should come down today on Scott Mayfield’s suspension for leaving the penalty box. Will be writing more about it for the paper.

They will take tomorrow off. Figure they’ll at least pick up a defenseman by the weekend to have an extra.

Carson McMillan fit right in with Johan Sundstrom and his old teammate Colton Gillies. “I think he made some good puck decisions, finished his hits. He’s reliable defensively, which is a big piece for us,” Brent Thompson said. McMillan flew in to Hershey from Orlando; his fiancee, Erin, drove up from Florida. He loved Orlando, but it’s nice, he said, to get another opportunity to show what he can do up here. “I’m looking to kind of make a statement about who I am as a person and as a player,” he said, “what I can bring to a team. … I’ve been a penalty killer my whole career, a third-or-fourth-line guy who hits, brings energy.”

Elsewhere, Sidney Crosby is old.

The Coyotes called up Dylan Reese.

Syracuse has good taste in dressing-room victory songs.

Igor Larionov on, in so many ways, being a Russian hockey player. And Bob McKenzie with some classic Herb Brooks memories.

It was 21 years ago tonight, a Rangers-Bruins game at the Garden, that Mike Keenan kept waving Alexei Kovalev back onto the ice, six or seven minutes at a time, ticked off at him for overextending shifts (“Alex probably thinks I was rewarding him”). I was sitting in the greens that night and had reason to remember the date. Then I noticed Sebastian Collberg’s birthdate a couple of weeks ago and felt incredibly, incredibly old.

Michael Fornabaio