Live from the living room: Manchester liveblog

(Actually, from the kitchen right at this instant. Might as well cook once in a while.)

We’re home tonight, so we’ll do the typical liveblog here. We’ll be listening to Ken Cail’s Monarchs broadcast. Should get Twitter notes from warmup beginning around 6:25. We’ll probably start updating in earnest around then.

–Koskinen-Jones, tweets Jamie.

–Referee Chris Cozzan, per the box, which should appear at gametime.

–Jamie tweets the following lineup:
F: DiBenedetto-Ullstrom-Castonguay
Svendsen-Hisey-Joensuu
Pitton-Colliton-Rakhshani
Bourbeau-Marcinko-Figren
D: Motherwell-Wotton
Kohn-Landry
Frank-Olson
G: Koskinen
Martin

–Ticker: Disappointed to see an end to On Language in the New York Times.

–Indeed, healthy scratches off the box appear to be Romano and Gallant.

–Game on in just a moment.

–Holloway scores the first goal from high in the right circle at 13:29. Manch gets the lead. Edit: 13:39, excuse me

–Rakhshani answers soon after to tie it. Edit again: Actually Colliton, from Rakhshani. So, yeah, not bad for them to have him back, huh?

–Clune finds Zeiler right in front with 3:12 left in the first. So they felt each other out for 13 minutes and now are scoring goals in a bunch. Manchester leads 2-1.

–And that’s it for one. No penalties, sounded like decent flow to it.

–Shots were 7-7 at one point and I think were 8-8 at Bridgeport’s goal. They’re 16-9 Manchester now.

–Right off the hop in the second, DiBenedetto to Rakhshani, and it’s tied up at 47 seconds. Rakhshani had played 18 AHL games without a goal, back to Dec. 11. He’s got one now. 2-2.

–The Islanders tweet that, while Radek Martinek remains day-to-day, Milan Jurcina is out 1-2 weeks. The Isles are two heartbeats away from being able to call up Calvin de Haan. Meanwhile, Marcinko’s slow to get up, and then on the next shift, both Olson and Frank get into it.

–A week and a half ago, you had Ullstrom, Figren, Svendsen, Rakhshani all with at least 10-game goal droughts. All have ended them since Springfield. (Romano’s remains active, at 22 now.)

–After a Bourbeau elbow on Hickey, the Monarchs win the draw, and Azevedo scores right off the faceoff to give the Monarchs the lead.

–Appears Elkins beat Colliton on that faceoff for the PPG. Meanwhile, Jamie tweets that Marcinko has not returned.

–End of two, it’s 3-2 Manchester.

–The third period has begun.

–Azevedo scores on a breakaway to make it 4-2. Three points (2-1-3) for Azevedo; two primary assists for Kozun.

–Sounds like a nice job by Landry, rushing it through the neutral zone and getting to the net for a goal, his second. It’s back to 4-3.

–Dustin Kohn is plus-3.

–Time limits Bridgeport. Kohn in the box for tripping with about six and a half to go. Jamie notes that Marcinko is back.

–Manchester hangs on for a win: Manchester 4, Bridgeport 3.

–Bad news for the Monarchs (maybe more for the Kings): on the radio broadcast, relayed news that Mark Morris said Andrei Loktionov could be out long-term with an upper-body injury. Edit: Ian Clark had it as a wrist earlier; didn’t catch that until now. And Edit2: Clark says he may be done for the year, and it may be a shoulder instead of the wrist.

–The work ethic’s not in question, Pat Bingham said on the phone. They were in it to the buzzer. But, and we may have heard this before, it’s turnovers and mistakes that wind up in the back of the net. “I just find a lot that some players continue to think it’s OK to try to make a skill play” — stickhandling through guys, making an extra pass. “It doesn’t mean they don’t try hard. It’s not just one or two guys, either, it’s several, despite playing hard.” Rakhshani’s name came up on my end because he got those two points. “He was just OK,” Bingham said. “He did some good things. He did some bad things. … It’s not like he hasn’t been told. It’s not OK to play a high-risk (game) or make crucial errors. He’s not the only one, but he was a culprit tonight.”

On Olson and Frank: “They played great. The other team knew they were out there every shift,” Bingham said. “There wasn’t nearly as much traffic, second whacks. That’s the reason they’re here. They showed well for themselves. They’re welcome additions.”

Team won’t be skating in the morning, so we’ll be checking for updates around the Sacred Heart game tomorrow. We’ll leave it off with this, transcribed off Justin Azevedo’s postgame interview on the Monarchs’ broadcast in case I needed it: “They may be in last, that team, but we didn’t give them enough respect. … We almost lost that game because of that. We’re going to have to come in (Saturday) and play a different game.”

Michael Fornabaio