That tweak we mentioned — swap Ben Holmstrom and Casey Bailey from Saturday’s lines — stuck, but otherwise the same lines and pairs as the last game. That includes the Young Defenseman Unclarity we’ve been rambling about since Saturday, with Parker Wotherspoon looking like he’s in the top six and Mitch Vande Sompel practicing the power play. (Seven defenseman is always possible, I guess, but the way they like to roll four lines, I wonder about it.)
Connor Jones practiced in red, as did Stephen Gionta. Jones is possible for the weekend.
Any possible moves were going to wait until after Worcester’s game this morning. Morning has passed: The Railers came from 3-1 down to tie Brampton on a Jeff Kubiak goal, but the Beast* scored with 2:38 left to win it. Four losses in a row for Worcester, but a couple of points, including his first goal of the year, for Mike Cornell.
Tomorrow’s story will be about shots, lots of them. But painstakingly skimming through 16.2 years’ of Very Tiny Numbers On a Computer Screen seems to indicate that Devon Toews tied a team record last Wednesday morning: Nine shots on goal appears to tie the team record for shots in a game by a defenseman. Chris Campoli did it in the spring of 2005. There were a few eights, most recently by Aaron Ness, and one in Game 6 of the 2006 playoffs (OT) by Bruno Gervais. (I’m missing the first two years of playoffs, which may well include other interesting numbers with some of those overtime games.)
Further fun fact dug up along the way: In 2003-04, Jeff Hamilton had five different games with nine or more shots, including the first 11-shot game in team history, two with 10 and two with nine. He had 49 shots in those five games. Only 15 teammates put that many shots on net in the entire season. (Maybe more-fun fact: That’s not that unusual. The past few years, no more than 20 have hit that number.)
Had Hamilton with four double-digit-shot games in all for Bridgeport. Caught exactly that many others. Greg Mauldin had 11 in 2010. Tim Jackman also had 11 in 2008; funny enough, he had 10 exactly one week, three games, before. Trent Hunter had 10 on New Year’s Eve 2002.
Shots are, of course, kinda subjective. Bridgeport goalies used to complain they wanted more saves at home. They made up for it elsewhere; Pat Bingham once said something like that every time they went to Worcester, the Sharks had 50 shots.
Interesting goalie transaction day: Louis Domingue to Tampa for Michael Leighton and Tye McGinn. Antti Niemi claimed off waivers, again, to Montreal.
Florida called up Curtis Valk from Springfield, Bridgeport’s opponent Sunday. Valk could make his NHL debut.
Guaranteed Win Night at Hartford tomorrow.
And RIP, Bobby Doerr.
*-Huh-wha?
