The San Antonio Rampage were flying home yesterday afternoon from their annual Rodeo road trip; they’d been in California for a week, haven’t played at home since Feb. 5.
Marc-Andre Cliche was traded for Taylor Beck while he was on that flight after sitting out, reportedly just banged up a little, the last couple of games of that roadie. He’s barely seen his family in three weeks, and now he’s jetting back to the Northeast. The Sound Tigers were working on his travel arrangements, but it doesn’t sound like they’ll rush him in for tomorrow’s game.
“The Islanders made a move they think will benefit the organization,” Brent Thompson said. “It was a great move by Snowy, a great move by the organization to acquire a great leader.”
Yesterday’s deadline deal left a hole on the top line that appears to be filled by Mike Halmo. Sebastian Collberg and Tanner Fritz were both in Argentina-blue with James Wright and Alan Quine in Halmo’s spot.
Kyle Burroughs practiced; said he was feeling good. Thompson said they’ll go day-to-day with him. He said the same thing about Loic Leduc, who didn’t practice, still with a pretty good limp. Both Patrick Cullity and Ross Johnston were on the ice. Edit, 3:10 p.m.: Stefan Matteau got a two-game suspension for Sunday’s hit on Burroughs.
Something we haven’t quite had to worry about this year: Beck was one of those 260-320-game veterans, while Cliche has over 320 AHL games, let alone his NHL time. Cliche makes five full vets (Kearns, Carkner, Wright, Holmstrom) if they all play, so to play one more veteran, he’d have to be a 260-320 guy. (Joe Whitney is, if they play long enough to maybe push up the timetable.)
Cliche has been assigned No. 26, which is kind of an interesting number. The only lower number that’s never been worn by a player on a tryout is 16 (which, if not for Kevin Colley’s first season on an AHL deal, would’ve been worn only by guys on NHL contracts). (The next-highest? 50: Evgeny Tunik and Dustin Kohn.) No. 26 has only been worn by six other players (Justin Mapletoft, Allan Rourke, Peter Ferraro until his 42 was ready, Jon Gleed, Rob Hisey and Halmo); no number lower than 34 has been given out less often.
(OK, maybe that’s just interesting to me. Held up the blog post for like 15 minutes.)
Makeup game with Hartford tomorrow. Dollar hot dogs.
Elsewhere, the Greatest Show on Ice (Hershey version) was broken up: Scott Gomez exercised his option to cut short his PTO. Lake Erie and Manny Malhotra also went their separate ways.
Zac Rinaldo, sent down to Providence yesterday, today received a five-game NHL suspension. We’ve seen situations like this a few times, including when Pascal Morency was suspended in the NHL preseason a few years ago for his fight in Calgary: Rinaldo isn’t eligible to play in the AHL until this league reviews the case. So we’ll see if Rinaldo is available to play Friday when Bridgeport goes back to Providence. (Boston recalled Noel Acciari today, too.)
And RIP, George Kennedy.