Both Kevin Czuczman and Justin Vaive were on the ice today for Bridgeport in a short, hard practice before they got on the bus for Hershey. Czuczman was in a regular blue jersey; Vaive was in no-contact red but skating pretty hard. Brent Thompson said Czuczman remains day to day: “We’ll see how he progresses, see how he responds to this (practice) and make sure he’s all healed up. Vaive’s progressing well. Hopefully next week will be the same thing with him.”
Czuczman’s on the trip to Hershey and Allentown, as are Marc-Andre Cliche and Kyle Burroughs, both of whom appear good to go.
RestWatch is pretty straightforward this weekend: Lehigh Valley is in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, so it’s about the same travel for both back to Allentown, and then on to Bridgeport.
Mike Sislo cleared waivers today and can presumably be sent to Albany at any time for their playoff run. Every time a player like that goes on waivers at this time of the year, I’m always interested in seeing if there’s any gamesmanship; claim a guy, though it’ll end his season, to keep him away from an AHL affiliate. And every year I’m disappointed. (It makes sense. Don’t tick people off unnecessarily. People aren’t doing their job here to fulfill my weird little entertainment desires. But still.)
Utica did win last night, so Bridgeport and the Comets are even in points and real wins, though the Sound Tigers have a game in hand. Bridgeport won the season series. (There are two weekends left in the season, etc.)
A little Rangers-Islanders tonight for positioning. As seen on the Twitter, Jack Capuano’s (vulgar, NSFW, etc., you are cautioned) admonition to Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome is now a T-shirt.
And NCAA semis tonight. Quinnipiac, with Islanders draft pick Devon Toews on the blue line, meets Boston College at 5 p.m. on ESPN2. Denver-North Dakota to follow at 8:30.