Hammer, Tucson, Mavs, carousel: Tuesday notes

The big news from the Big Club’s breakup day was that Travis Hamonic rescinded his trade request. Glad to hear things are going well back home.

The AHL Board of Governors conditionally approved Tucson and said it’ll revisit Portland-to-Springfield within two weeks.

Two fascinating games for different reasons tonight in the AHL. Albany took a quick lead in Game 4 at home; Toronto scored the next seven to win 7-2 and tie the series. The Marlies scored four power-play goals, the last on a Dan Kelly match penalty for a check to the head of Andreas Johnson. Game 5 is Thursday. Out in Grand Rapids, the Griffins trailed 4-1 late in the second and were facing being swept by Lake Erie. They got one late in the second, got three in the third including one with 1:55 left, and forced Game 5 with a 5-4 win over the Monsters. (Do read Aaron Portzline’s story on the Cleveland staple from whom the Monsters have drawn inspiration and surely will again as they head home. If that didn’t make you cry, or you want to keep the waterworks flowing, there’s this from the NHL, in which a blind man from Saskatchewan and his son get a pretty neat moment.)

Stephane Leroux of RDS reported that Benoit Groulx, ex-Rochester coach, will be taking over Syracuse. Which was particularly interesting because Tampa Bay hadn’t said anything about Rob Zettler. It became official soon after. Interesting as well because Groulx’s name had been linked yesterday to the Binghamton opening.

TEAM Old New
BIN Luke Richardson (4/18) 
MTB Keith McCambridge (4/22) 
SA Dean Chynoweth (4/26) 
CHA Mark Morris (5/3, St. Lawrence) 
SYR Rob Zettler (5/10)  Benoit Groulx (5/10) 

Missouri’s season ended in Game 6 with a 5-1 loss to Allen, goosed by two empty-netters. Ross Johnston finished with a goal in each of the last three games. Onetime Sound Tigers goalie Riley Gill set himself an ECHL playoff record.

Forgot about this epic box score yesterday: Mikko Koskinen, wearing No. 19 (?!?), beat the U.S. 3-2. (In fairness to Mikko’s teammates, they scored three goals.) The Young Americans are 1-2, in sixth place right now, but on the bright side for them, they’ve got the two biggest powers in their pool out of the way. France (Thursday), Hungary (Friday) and Germany (Sunday) come next before they finish pool play with Slovakia next Tuesday.

And late word: Congrats to the Auerbachs.

Michael Fornabaio