Agitation: Hartford postgame

Been a lot of unhappy Brent Thompson lately. Comes back to consistency, a word both unlikely-in-his-unlikeliness goal-scorer Mike Halmo and he used.

“We’ve got to have better puck support,” Thompson said. “We were sloppy with the puck. Sometimes you work, but you don’t work smart. That’s where working together is very, very important.

“You can’t play 20 minutes. No one in this league can play 20 minutes,” Thompson went on. “We did against Portland. We had a really good 20 minutes. The power play got a goal, and we fed off that. We didn’t play a solid 60 minutes. Discipline’s a factor, too. We can’t be taking reaching hooking penalties. We’ve got to be moving our feet, get defensive position.”

Good shift: three the other way. Good shift: nothing memorable for a while. Good shift: turnovers galore. It was that kind of night, and yet they were somehow still in it until the last 25 seconds and an empty-netter.

…..

They want Alan Quine to be evaluated by their doctors, Thompson said, but the expectation is he’s “week-to-week.” Asked if Thompson had gotten a look at that tangle-up; he said it looks like a hockey play. He said Sebastian Collberg “potentially” available for Hershey; Kirill Petrov, not yet, more about getting the conditioning level back up. “We need them both. I’d love to have them,” Thompson said.

And one never knows, because the Islanders said Ryan Strome left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury. They’re home tomorrow for the Devils, though they’ve likely got bodies up front.

Mike Halmo’s last goal gave Bridgeport a 1-0 lead… on St. John’s in the second game of the season. So it had, you know, kinda been a while. But a couple of good games for him, it seems, since he was scratched last weekend. It doesn’t hurt that Collberg’s injury opened up a hole for him with Whitney and Kearns, which, well, they’ve combined for 50 points and all. “I really like playing with those guys,” Halmo said. “They’re really predictable to play with, I find. It makes it a little easier. I feel the chemistry’s really good. We had a few chances. We could’ve tied it, but we didn’t get the bounces.”

On playing with Halmo: “He’s a good player, good along the wall,” Whitney said. “He opens up space for both of us. I thought he had a really strong game tonight.”

Two panes of glass, four apart, break a couple of minutes apart. Pretty wild. Both changes take eight minutes. Now that’s consistency. (Fortunately right next to the Zamboni entrance. Shorter walk. At least, shorter walk on the ice.)

Prescout. When it was 4-0, I almost updated the preview capsule with a win. Then it was 4-3. Still got the victory. The Bears and Sound Tigers have been playing leapfrog in second place on the percentage points, and Hershey reclaimed it tonight.

The team out there somewhere in first had a busy day: Onetime Sound Tigers defenseman Jay Leach is the interim head coach of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins after Mike Sullivan got promoted today to run the Pittsburgh bench. I did the very-quick runthrough of the all-time roster this afternoon, but I think Leach is the first former Sound Tiger to be a head coach, if technically an interim one now, at this level. (Of course there was that goalie who showed up for one night once and became an NHL GM a few months later. But we digress.) Mark Recchi joined Leach on the bench tonight. (Also, visit the Pens’ main site, just for the cartoon ad featuring Tux. Solid work.) A beat was not missed. (Crazy stat from the league.) Albany had won seven in a row.

Philadelphia sent Andrew MacDonald back to Allentown. He scored two goals tonight. Tip of cap to Blair Riley on his 300th AHL game; fought early tonight. Robbie Schremp won it for Portland tonight with a fraction of a second left in overtime: wild.

Good luck to ex-Fordham football Joe Moorhead, off to Penn State as its offensive coordinator. Maybe my alma mater can be competitive again for the Liberty Cup. (Or maybe not.)

And RIP, John “Hot Rod” Williams.

Michael Fornabaio