Road game: Bridgeport at Lehigh Valley

By on February 14, 2020 at 12:03 PM
  • Who, when, whatever: Sound Tigers at Phantoms, I Don’t Have A Joke About The PPL Center, Allentown, Pa., Wednesday, 7 p.m.
  • Is it getting very hard to stay: That’s where the jokes were.
  • Watch: AHLTV pay-per-view
  • Listen: Mixlr audio
  • Twitters: Alan / the Sound Tigers / Ianniello (OK, the Phantoms) / Tony Androckitis
  • Box score: Yep (R: Kea, Deckard; L: Flemington, Dapuzzo)
  • Justin Kea? First Sound Tigers game for him. Third-round draft pick. Junior teammate of Jesse Graham’s.
  • Are the Dapuzzos from Flemington: No, other side of Jersey. But Alex Westlund was.
  • Game notes: Every time a Sound Tiger hits 20 goals, I feel like, I mention how it’s not that high a bar. Still, Bridgeport had at least one in each of its first 18 seasons, while over the past four AHL seasons, 12 teams have not had a 20-goal scorer. The lowest point total to lead a team in those four seasons is Belleville’s Filip Chlapik in 2017-18, 11-21-32. (The Sens are the only team to repeat on that 12-team no-20-goals list, in Binghamton in 2015-16 and in Belleville in 2017-18.) I mention it because (a) I looked it up over the weekend when it started to feel like we’d never see Kieffer Bellows again, and (2) both these teams tonight just might threaten all that. Bellows leads Bridgeport at 16-8-24, future unknown. Sebastian Aho is next at 2-21-23, future unknown. Then it’s Lorito at 20, St. Denis and Wotherspoon at 19, and we’ll see. Andrew Ladd is the only other Sound Tiger in double-digit goals at 11 with 26 games to go. Greg Carey, meanwhile, leads the Phantoms at 13-11-24. As mentioned in the Weekly, guess which two teams are Nos. 30-31 in the 31-team AHL in scoring? Also wrote on the season’s worth of injuries Bridgeport has had in the first two-thirds of the season. Yeah. But Thomas Hickey and Linus Soderstrom both practiced this week. Hickey was said to be possible for the weekend on Tuesday. Ladd, Nick Schilkey and Matt Lorito were also close. The chemistry had to change one way or another after Cole Bardreau went up on Wednesday. We’ll see how they look. The Islanders also sent Bode Wilde to junior. Suspect Arthur Staple has the pulse when he mentions it clears a contract. It’ll also give Wilde a chance to play for something, as Brent Thompson mentioned in the Weekly.
  • Meh, what else is going on: While these two teams scrap to get someone to 20, Patrick Williams points out Iowa’s Gerald Mayhew, who’s within four of being the first AHL 40-goal-scorer since Colin McDonald. Unless they call him up. Mayhew’s teammate Sam Anas, former Quinnipiac Bobcat, has 58 points to lead the league. A very neat story about Milwaukee teammates Matt Olivier and Matt Donovan, which also has a New Haven connection. Major League Lacrosse is coming back to the area, which naturally reminded me of the day before the 2004 trade deadline, when I grabbed the phone expecting trade chatter and got “welp, we been moved to Philadelphia” (then got trade chatter later in the day). Interesting times, 2004, and as noted, not exactly a banner day for the Park City. Also, baseball’s getting weirder and weirder. But at least we have aerial pix of the Bronx from 97 years ago to make us smile. And to make us pull up Google Maps to pick out reference points. Also, I asked about getting one back and got some interesting responses.
  • RIP, Christie Blatchford.
  • If this were a regular blog post, what word or phrase would most likely follow “More” at this point: Tomorrow.

 

Michael Fornabaio