Road game: Bridgeport at Utica (1/3)

By on December 6, 2019 at 1:00 PM
  • Who, when, whatever: Sound Tigers at Comets, The Aud, Utica, N.Y.
  • Watch: AHLTV pay-per-view
  • Listen: Mixlr audio
  • Twitters: Alan / the Sound Tigers / the Comets / Ben Birnell
  • Box score: Ehh why not (R: Labonte, Markovic; L: Frederickson, Loftus)
  • Game notes: Man-games have been lost. Reboots have been accomplished. Reinforcements have been added, Otto Koivula this morning, Tom Kuhnhackl on conditioning (putting his 3.0-ppg franchise record on the line, wearing 41, obviously, because 14 is unavailable at the moment), Mike Cornell from Worcester as a seventh defenseman. I’ll be interested to see special teams and how/if they evolve this weekend, partly with Kuhnhackl’s arrival (three games, which would take him through Monday’s Utica rematch; extendable to five (like Andrew Ladd’s first assignment this year), through next weekend in Utica and Hershey) and Koivula’s return, and partly with the power play’s 1-for-29 skid. And yeah, Friday in Utica, Monday vs. Utica, next Friday at Utica. At least it’s not three in a row. Utica doesn’t have Stratford’s Jaime Sifers anymore; he’s retired. It had onetime Sound Tiger Justin Taylor but released him from his PTO on Wednesday. The former Sound Tiger quota is still filled, though, by Dyson Stevenson, who played four games for Bridgeport in 2014-15 after coming from Portland for Matt Lashoff at the deadline.
  • Meh, what else is going on: Since last we met, it has been a crazy good week for Sound Tigers alternate captains who were traded at the deadline. First Greg Moore got the Marlies job that was vacated when Sheldon Keefe went up to the Marlies. Then Alain Nasreddine became New Jersey’s interim coach when the Devils fired his longtime cohort, John Hynes. Edit: Like five minutes after posting this, saw that Springfield picked up ex-Yalie D Rob O’Gara, ex-Rangers and ex-Bruins D while we’re at it, from San Antonio. There is also, of course, fooball; quarterfinals done, semifinals to come. And while we watch and hope for little Vanessa, your periodic reminder that Bianca Lebron‘s disappearance remains unsolved 18 (!) years later.
  • RIP, D.C. Fontana.
  • If this were a regular blog post, what word or phrase would most likely follow “More” at this point: There’s a game tomorrow, so

 

Michael Fornabaio