Crazy eights: Hartford postgame

Eight wins in a row. Seven goals. Four power-play goals. Even when things don’t click, they click: They quickly conceded that they got some breaks tonight. But they’ve evened out a lot of luck the last little bit, continuing to try to cut down on mistakes.

“Five-on-five, I thought we did a very good job through the neutral zone,” Brent Thompson said. “I thought for the most part we managed the puck very well.” That helped them earn some power plays, Thompson thought, because they had that possession and were moving their feet.

“It’ll be a big challenge tomorrow.”

The power play got one very-quick one, 16 seconds into the first advantage. The other three — and even Kyle Burroughs’ first AHL goal, which came six seconds after another PP — came from, well, let Thompson say it:

“Patience and execution,” Thompson said. “They were willing to shoot. The first was just a simple pass-and-shoot, and now they’ve got to respect that.”

The next two were exceedingly patient, setting up, wearing down the PK and coming very late in the advantage (though both came with the first unit with just one man changed). And the last started with a good keep-in by Ryan Pulock and ended with a Taylor Beck pass that caromed off Ryan Bourque right to Bracken Kearns; Beck couldn’t have hand-delivered it any better to Kearns, who set up Andrew Rowe in front.

First AHL hat trick for Rowe, who was in the Coast a month ago. Thompson said Rowe’s desperation has been evident this time around, more than in the past, more than even since camp.

“I’d say the word ‘desperation’ is a good way to describe how we’ve been playing in this streak,” Rowe said.

….

Two games in a row I’m gonna have to update like 74 miscellaneous files. Hat tricks. (Five of them this year, most of any season; hat tricks in three consecutive home games.) Penalty shots. (Jan. 31, 2009, vs. Portland: Portland’s Derek Whitmore, then Jeremy Colliton, both of them in the first period.) No penalty shots for two years; penalty shots in back-to-back games. It’s the third time in four games that they’ve scored six goals, and technically the second time in a row they’ve scored seven. Either way, it’s only the second time in team history that they’ve scored six or better in back-to-back games (Dec. 5-11, 2009, W 7-3 vs. Springfield, W 6-2 at Springfield; rehabbing Rick DiPietro started both). First four-point game in the AHL for both Beck and Rowe. Rowe’s first AHL hat trick; had a couple of two-goal games.

First time they’ve scored four power-play goals this year; first time since the 6-for-8 night last year. To show you how hard it is to stay under 10 percent, all you need is one crazy night like this to go from 9.8 percent to 11.5.

As that blog link to the 6-for-8 night introduces, Quine was on the way then to a 10-game scoring streak. He’s up to eight, and no one has reached nine since then. (Kael Mouillierat got to eight a few games behind him last season.)

Rank Name GP G-A-Pts
10 Matt Donovan 180 32-87-119
11 Ben Walter 133 40-76-116
12 Alan Quine 170* 41-74-115
13 Rhett Rakhshani 120 44-69-113

*-Through Feb. 13

I assume I’ll go home and find like 47 other random stats. Save ’em for tomorrow’s Albany liveblog.

Sebastian Collberg returned and got himself an assist in a net-mouth scramble, his first point since Boxing Day. “It was nice to get him back in a game,” Thompson said. “I thought he fit right in, stepped right in and did a fine job defensively. He worked hard in wall battles.” He thought Collberg was making good decisions; maybe just needed to get the game timing back.

Ross Johnston scored two, and Parker Milner got the win for Missouri tonight.

Prescout. Presume that Ken Appleby’s starting (and getting his first shutout) means ol’ buddy Yann Danis’ waiting for Bridgeport. He’s got two shutouts in a row himself.

Minnesota fired Mike Yeo and named John Torchetti its interim coach. Torchetti had been with the Iowa Wild. As Jason Chaimovitch (who was in the house tonight) pointed out, Torchetti succeeded Yeo in Houston five years ago.

Andrew MacDonald’s going up.

And RIP, Justice Antonin Scalia

Michael Fornabaio