Manchester 2, Bridgeport 0: Sound Tigers preseason schedule ends with loss

The Bridgeport Sound Tigers, who I'm sure I will increasingly and mistakenly call the Islanders the longer their parent club remains inactive, dropped their second and final preseason game, 2-0 to the Manchester Monarchs Friday night at Saint Anselm College.

With no goals to rave about and an occasionally jerky stream to follow, the most notable moment was when Travis Hamonic left the game and did not return. In his live blog, Michael Fornabaio quotes coach Scott Pellerin describing that as a "slight little" injury.

The game featured what feels like an AHL or at least preseason level of fights, and zero goals until two of the Monarchs' NHLers put goals past Kevin Poulin. Jordan Nolan (26 games down the stretch last year for the Kings plus the Cup run) and Andrei Loktionov (39 regular season games last season) got the goals.

There were a lot of penalties -- Nino Niederreiter picked up two minors, one mysteriously in the offensive zone -- and a whole lot of interference and chippy play. Fornabaio had the shots at 41-17 in favor of the Monarchs, a total that could easily result from encounters by the parent teams.

Very Vague Small-Sample Observations:

• Kirill Kabanov moves and excites. And battles. Assuming his linemates keep up, he'll probably have no problem collecting points at the AHL level.
• A few more head-scratching open-play decisions from young Niederreiter, though when he's isolated on the powerplay you can see his talent. This development will be a saga.
• With all the alternating penalties, the game didn't have a very enjoyable flow, and powerplays didn't seem to last long enough to get a good look at set attacks nor kills. Officially the two teams were a combined 0-for-13.
  
• I miss hockey.

Official rendition of lines (though apparently Ullstrom moved back to wing some):

Persson – Ullstrom - McDonald
Niederreiter – Nelson – Kabanov
Halmo – Sundstrom – Backman
Gallant – Clark – MacKay

Ness – Landry
Donovan - Hamonic
McIver – Cantin

Again, Fornabaio's live blog is here and look to the Soundin' Off home for more. Official site has some notes here.

And here was our site's game thread with random observations both pertinent and obscure. Good to see people talking hockey again. Even with the NHL taking a long walk on a short pier, we'll do more of those for various leagues and teams with Islanders prospects involved.