Niiiiiiiine*! Albany liveblog

If things go right for them today, this team hits some rarified air.

Even with the bonus round, you’ve got to look the other way to find a nine-game Bridgeport Sound Tigers winning streak in the past 12 years. Take the last five games of 2008-09, add in the first four games of 2009-10: There’s nine wins in a row. (A shootout was involved.) And that’s it since the Lockout. (You know, the Big One.)

A nine-game winning streak is the franchise record.

They did it once in 2001-02, after the chaotic gong-show fight-fest loss in Springfield on Feb. 1. They went to Wilkes-Barre the next day for the first time, won, then didn’t lose again until a Saturday home game against Providence three weeks later.

They did it again in 2003-04; those were Games 5-13 of the 20-game unbeaten streak, beginning with a 6-2 win at the Spectrum (the first Bridgeport game for referee Justin St. Pierre), snapped by a 1-1 tie at Albany (the first Bridgeport game for referee Francois St. Laurent).

And within a season, that’s it.

*-“What’s next? They’re just gonna open the mikes and yellNINE‘!?!”

Anyway. Not figuring much changes today, though maybe Brent Thompson surprises us. We’ll be listening to Paul (audio/pay-per-view). Follow Paul, Pete and the Devils among others.

The box should be here. (R: Lemelin, Moser. L: Emanatian, F.Murphy.) Third straight Bridgeport game with Mark Lemelin, which is wild. First Bridgeport game for Ben Moser. Another golfer.

Prescout; the Falcons and Providence (11-0-3-1 in the past 15) don’t start until 5.

David Cunniff, who’d been John Torchetti’s assistant in Iowa, is the AHL Wild’s interim coach after Torchetti got the call to the NHL yesterday.

OK, that got long. More around warmup. Listen to “Nine” over and over again in the meantime. Trust me.

–I had a thing here about having referees three times in a row, and it doesn’t look like it updated. Yeah. Short version, they had Jon McIsaac three times in a row early last season, including two games at St. John’s; before that, I don’t see any back until the first season, when they had Harry Dumas for three in-state games just before Christmas, then had Bob Langdon for two games on St. John’s and then one in Hamilton.

–Gibson vs. Danis, says Pete.

BRIDGEPORT as it sounds, same as last night
F: Rowe-Kearns (A)-Beck
Wright (A)-Quine-Halmo
Vaive-Holmstrom (C)-Florek
Collberg-Gomes-Markison
D: Czuczman-Mayfield
Lafranchise-Pulock
Burroughs-Leduc
G: Gibson
Williams

ALBANY from the Devils’ Twitter
F: Sislo-Lorito-Thompson
O’Neill-O’Brien-Kujawinski
Novak-Black-Thomson
McKelvie-Pietila-Leblond
D: Kelly-Mozik
Hrabarenka-Scarlett
Burlon-McPherson
G: Danis
Appleby

R: Lemelin, Moser. L: Emanatian, F.Murphy.

–Pete with a neat story on the Albany Choppers of the IHL.

–Some back-and-forth for about 10 minutes before Novak is called for a hook. Here comes the power play.

–Last night’s power play did a good job keeping it in; this first PP was cleared right away, and Bridgeport never got set up.

–“Not much happening,” Paul tweets. Low-event, etc. Rolling lines aside from that penalty. It’s Albany’s third in three, but Bridgeport doesn’t seem to have that much more hop. (Albany has two hours’ more rest and no travel, too.) Though as I try to type that, Danis stops Halmo on the rush.

–Mayfield takes a little whack at Kujawinski coming out of the corner, called for slashing at 15:02.

–After a relatively uneventful penalty kill, Halmo takes turns turning it over and taking it back from a Devil. Halmo wins in the end, pushes it to the right to Quine, and Quine fakes the slapper, finding Wright alone in front at 17:59 for a nifty little backhander over Danis. Quine has a nine-game scoring streak for the second time in his Bridgeport career.

–Bridgeport leads 1-0 after one, though things got a little raggedy on the last shift.

–Collberg takes a Pietila high stick 3:02 into the second; Bridgeport’s second PP.

–Kearns called for a hook 46 seconds in.

–After Kearns returns, Scarlett puts one into the stands. Paul agrees with me that the delay rule is a bad one. But then he says it’s “always been that way” for the goalies. Whippersnappers. And now another PP cut short early by a Bridgeport penalty, Beck for a trip.

–Great production on AHL Live as the feed cuts away from Florek knocking a puck away at the Albany blue line. We get jump cuts all over the ice before Beck, coming up the right wing out of the box, feeds Holmstrom on a two-on-one to make it 2-0.

–Halmo called for a couple of penalties in 3:16, this latter one for holding Black’s stick at 13:15.

–McKelvie drives to the net at the very end of the penalty, but Gibson holds it out, and as the teams come together, Burroughs and Pietila wind up going. Not a bad little tilt for the kids.

–Remains 2-0 after two. Shots 22-17 Albany.

–And it looks like I just had a pipe burst, so you may be on your own. Sorry.

–So, yeah, this weather (is objectionable or inadequate). Sorry about that. Albany 3, Bridgeport 2 (OT), final. To be all formal.

Kevin Czuczman got called for closing his hand on the puck early in a penalty kill. Mike Sislo scored on the two-man advantage, and then after Bridgeport didn’t score on three power plays, Brian O’Neill scored with an extra attacker in the last minute. Reece Scarlett won it on a two-on-one with Sislo in overtime.

Apologies for having been mopping for the past while. We’ll try to wrap this thing a little tighter tomorrow.

Michael Fornabaio