Sound Tigers 4, Whale 3: Haley Scores, Halmo Answers

When cult fan favorite Micheal Haley was allowed to walk last summer by the New York Islanders, there was much speculation in these corners that the Isles weren't abandoning "the grits," but rather looking elsewhere in the endless pursuit of hockey's elusive toughness-with-skill package.

Sunday afternoon captured that scenario nicely. Returning to Bridgeport with the Connecticut Whale -- the AHL affiliate of the hated Rangers, no less -- Haley lined up at center and scored 28 seconds into the game. He'd add another later in the first period to make it 3-1, creating his first two goals in 12 games this season.

Much happened between that opening period deflation and the Sound Tigers' comeback win, but if Haley's two goals were poetry, the game-winner from Mike Halmo was metaphor: In this position, there are always more job candidates than job openings.

Halmo is one of several more physical-minded additions to the Sound Tigers/Isles organization over the past year -- guys who "bring the crazy" but also, like Brandon DeFazio and even Colin McDonald, have decent offensive pedigrees.

Nino Niederreiter set Travis Hamonic up for the tying goal on a 5-on-3 powerplay. Brock Nelson also scored yet again, a reminder that the Islanders will soon be filling out their forward ranks with adept two-way players, while rotating physical role players in as needed.

Game Links:

• Box score and game sheet. Ty Wishart was back in, Jordan Hill and Marc Cantin the scratches.
• The Sound Tigers official recap has thoughts from Scott Pellerin on what went wrong early.
• Michael Fornabaio has plenty in the blog, including a note on Colin McDonald receiving a match penalty (automatic suspension, pending review) for a scary hit on ex-Isles prospect Jyri Niemi. Niemi is expected to be okay.
• More on that, and how the Sound Tigers responded, in the Post.
• From the Whale's view
• Play-by-play man Phil Giubileo has audio clips, and also makes the Haley-Halmo parallel.

The Sound Tigers next play Friday in Wilkes-Barre. They are 8-3, second place in the Northeast Division and tied for second in the Eastern Conference.

Oh, also: The NHL lockout continues (good column from Bob McKenzie).

Site Note

Noticed some chatter about the site format since the redesign. By all means, do not hesitate to continue sharing your opinions and experience with the site since its relaunch -- that includes telling us authors your experience, habits and preferences for accessing stories and comment sections.

(For example, I've been turning these Sound Tigers weekends into "story streams" so that all the posts from a weekend series are easily accessed together. That's also a way for me to experiment with the new tools in anticipation of more traffic/content when the NHL resumes...assuming we all still care about the NHL then.)

That invitation includes the regular site and mobile access (you'll notice continued tweaks have been made on both sides).

But a critical way to share feedback -- particularly if you are finding technical glitches (laptop freezing, images not loading, comments hiccuping, whatever) is to email support@sbnation.com. That's where they organize trouble tickets, and that's where they can figure out what problems are site-related. Specifics (browser, operating system, etc.) always help.

Thanks again for reading, visiting, commenting and sharing your insight.

UPDATED: Weekend Highlights from Both Wins

Highlights from Friday's win in Manchester are now on the team's YouTube channel, and posted here:

Sunday's Win