Optional today, though there was more interesting stuff happening in the runway than on the ice. Parker Milner appeared midway through to greet Boston College pal Joe Whitney, who doesn’t have a cast on anymore (though is still, reportedly and one assumes, a ways away from a possible playoff return).
Milner gives them AHL experience to tandem with Stephon Williams this weekend, “with the uncertainty of how long (Christopher Gibson) is away,” Brent Thompson said. “He’s got us some huge wins. He’s part of our group.”
They’ll practice here tomorrow before they head off for Hershey (where, coincidentally, Milner got one of those wins, his last AHL appearance to date) and Lehigh Valley. (The heck is with these snow predictions for Saturday? Get right, calendar.) (And yes, I know it snows in April. Still.)
Speaking of goalies and Pennsylvania, Yale’s Alex Lyon signed with the Flyers last night. Haven’t seen nor heard anything definitive about where he may be going.
A piece of the “crossover” playoffs rule that I’d pretty much forgotten about: Should the fifth-place team in the East Atlantic have a better record than the third-place team in the North, the crossover team will become the third seed in the North playoffs. That is, if whoever winds up A5 has a better record than, most likely, Utica, it’ll draw Albany instead of Toronto. With that in mind, scoreboard watching tonight: Utica hosts Binghamton, two points behind both Portland and Bridgeport.
If Bridgeport gets those magic seven points to get to the playoffs, there’s a good chance it’ll wind up with at least one of the Islanders’ No. 1 draft picks: Joshua Ho-Sang and Michael Dal Colle meet in the second round of the OHL playoffs. Kingston and Niagara will play Game 4 a week from today. Game 5 would be next Friday, Game 6 on April 18 (the day after Bridgeport’s regular season ends) and Game 7 the next night. Anthony Beauvillier and Mathew Barzal also play on, at least into next week for both.
All-rookie team out today at 3. Likely that it includes former future Sound Tiger Robbie Russo, whose impressive season includes being like plus a billion (well, he leads the league, anyway, for what plus/minus really tells you). That’d be five Islanders draft picks named all-rookie defensemen in the past five years… though only two did it with the Sound Tigers. (Matt Donovan, Ryan Pulock; Ville Pokka, Brenden Kichton.) Edit, 3 p.m.: Russo was indeed picked.
John Scott got a twirl with the Habs last night. Nice story. A hopefully happy ending. Seems like too good a dude for it not to be.
Your routine doping scandal that wipes out pretty much an entire roster at the Under-18 Worlds. NBD. (Still think Meldonium should be the name of the next element we discover. Come on.) The United States team includes Ridgefield’s Chad Krys.
Condolences to the Vazzano family, including Sound Tigers video coach John Vazzano, who lost his grandmother Sunday.
And RIP, Janet Szymansky.
Edit, 2:15: And RIP, Merle Haggard.