It begins again: Springfield nonliveblog

  • Who, when, whatever: Bridgeport at Springfield, Springfield (Mass.MutualCenter) Civic Center, 7:05 p.m.
  • Watch: AHLTV pay-per-view (free preview this weekend with signup)
  • Listen: Mixlr audio
  • Twitters: Alan / the Sound Tigers / the ThunderCougarFalconBirds / Ryan Smith / Christopher Berry / Matthew Wiernasz
  • Box score: Oh, my, yes (R: Dunning, T.Koharski; L: F.Murphy, Harper)
  • Game notes: Year 19. Today is the 18th anniversary of Game 1, in fact, Rick DiPietro’s shutout at Rochester. A kid born that day can vote. (Regardless of your political affiliation, that kid is voting wrong, don’t worry.) Speaking of 18-year-olds, Simon Holmstrom sounds likely to debut. He will become the youngest Sound Tiger. The Sound Tigers named Kyle Burroughs their full-time captain. Tanner Fritz and Seth Helgeson are supposed to start with the A’s, but Brent Thompson said they’ll rotate. Bridgeport did sign Ben Thomson to an AHL deal off his camp tryout. He gives them six full veterans: Thomson, Thomas Hickey, Steve Bernier, Colin McDonald, Seth Helgeson, Ryan Bourque. At least one will have to sit every night. They are carrying a lot of forwards, 17 healthy, two injured and one Josh Ho-Sang. They also have nine defensemen. And three goalies. Managing bodies, Thompson said, a lot like last year, when they often had a lot of bodies; you may recall those three-in-threes where everybody played and nearly everybody sat at least once. (And, don’t forget, the defense was nearly preternaturally healthy last year. Didn’t lose 30 AHL man-games to injury.) I wonder if, if everyone’s healthy, they might shuffle the rookie goalies, to get them playing time without hurting Worcester (which has both the salary cap and roster limit that Bridgeport does not). We’ll see. The Railers start for real next weekend.
  • Have you been saving up a Brent Thompson quote on Ben Thomson for several days now: “I didn’t know Ben well. I obviously (coached) against him. I saw he was a tough guy. But his hockey IQ is something that jumps out at me right now. He’s a smart hockey player. He’s big and tough and does his job the right way, but the hockey IQ really jumps out as a huge asset.”
  • Will it be confusing to have a Thomson and a Thompson: Not really. Just like the ’51 Giants, and they won a playoff round. It was probably more confusing here when Ryan Pulock arrived before Kevin Poulin departed and we had to decipher from context whether people were talking about “Pouls” or “Puls.”
  • Remember how some years it seemed like they were dressing a lineup entirely of PTOs, and now they haven’t signed an in-season PTO since March 23, 2017? Yes.
  • Did you know Bobby Thomson was fifth in the National League, and sixth in the Majors, in 1951 with a .947 OPS? Not till I just went down the rabbit hole. Kiner, Musial, (Williams), Campanella, Robinson, Thomson. (Doby and Minoso go ahead of him in OPS+, but still, eighth in the Bigs.)
  • Was all of that too analytical for the blog n Subscribe! (BTW, if you have a print subscription, you are supposed to have access to ctinsider.) (Also pretty much everything from “preternaturally” to the Tim Wallace reference probably should be behind the paywall; please ignore)
  • Meh, what else is going on: Another team playing Game 1 tonight: Sacred Heart, at home against UConn. The Connecticut Whale open this afternoon in Danbury. Probably underway by the time this goes up.
  • Great read: Jason Guarente on the legendary Nick Niedert, free of the bottle. Nick had shared a bit of that over social media over the summer, and Jason did a beautiful job with the story. Awesome news.
  • RIP, Diahann Carroll and, among others, Gary Mazzone.
  • Aren’t you supposed to be doing something else: Sure am. Maybe scouting a future Sound Tiger. (Problem: I am not a scout) (nor am I supposed to be scouting)
  • Will all of these be this long: Cripes, I hope not. Pent-up hockey energy and notebook fodder without an outlet.
  • If this were a regular blog post, what word or phrase would most likely follow “More” at this point: Tomorrowish.
  • Is that a word: It’s wordish.

–Apparent lineup:
F: Lorito-Koivula-Wahlstrom
S.Holmstrom-Fritz (A)-Bernier
Bellows-Jobst-Schilkey
R.Bourque-Bardreau-McDonald
D: Hickey-Burroughs (C)
Aho-Hutton
Wotherspoon-Helgeson (A)
G: Coreau
Gibson

Michael Fornabaio