Formatting schedules: Friday notes

The Sound Tigers put out their schedule format this morning, and it’s nothing unexpected; the biggest thing about it probably is that all 14 Eastern Conference teams are on the schedule again after they skipped St. John’s this past year. They’ll pay a visit to every North Division team, including Laval and Belleville (and Toronto again), with two games in Rochester again (making up for lost time, are they?), with those teams returning the favor. They’ll again face Providence 12 times, Hartford and Springfield 10, Charlotte and Lehigh Valley eight, the Bears and Penguins six.

From what Dave Andrews said at the all-star game, we’re in the ballpark of two months away from an actual day planner. ‘Course we’re in the ballpark of five months away from an actual game.

That’s partly because games go on elsewhere, like in Providence, where the teams have split the first two of three games there. The Bruins outplayed Hershey pretty decisively Thursday, yet…

Yeah, that, the second 7:14 into overtime. But Friday, the B’s came back to win 2-1 in regulation, and worse for Hershey, Pheonix Copley departed injured on the play that turned into the winning goal, and from all accounts it Did Not Look Good. Again the Bruins dominated shots; Hershey’s 3-5-3–11 isn’t quite 1-4-2–7, but a night after 2-8-4-1–15, it’s sure interesting. Game 5 is Sunday afternoon in Providence.

San Jose and San Diego play Game 4 tonight out in Southern California; just underway at this writing.

IIHF story on Chris Lee, who had an assist in his World Championship debut. Canada’s the only team left at the tournament that has won all of its games in regulation. The United States has three games left in the round robin, Saturday against Latvia, then Slovakia and Russia to round it out. They’re in decent enough shape to move on, but Germany’s having the tiebreaker against them could throw a monkey wrench in if something else strange happens. Two American wins (regulation, OT or SO) in those three games is enough to get to the quarterfinals, at least as long as the other game isn’t a regulation loss to Slovakia.

Brock Nelson and Anders Lee have three goals and an assist apiece in four games for the U.S. team. For Canada, Calvin de Haan has an assist in four games. Frederic Cloutier has played for Italy against Russia and Sweden, and those, well, didn’t go really well for Italy.

Michael Fornabaio