Pre-game Puckbag: P-Bruins @ Bridgeport Sound Tigers

Opening draw
The Providence Bruins will place their 2-0-0 road record and Saturday record with a visit to Webster Bank Arena for their season-series opener with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

Providence and Bridgeport alike have already had three of their respective games spill beyond regulation. The Baby Bs are 0-1 in overtime and 2-0 in shootouts while the Tigers are 1-0 in lightning rounds and 1-1 in the bite-sized bonus stanza, their latest overtime affair being a 3-2 home loss to Worcester on Friday.

Notable names
Captain Jeremy Colliton, in his sixth nonconsecutive year with the team, hit two milestones on Friday. With his first shift, he officially surpassed Steven Regier for No. 2 on Bridgeport’s all-time appearance leaderboard by playing his 291st game for the Sound Tigers. And with an assist on Ty Wishart’s second-period goal, he became the franchise’s all-time leading playmaker with 111 career helpers.

Colliton had already entered the season as Bridgeport’s most prolific point-getter and currently has 177 and counting.

Third-year team member Justin DiBenedetto leads Bridgeport with seven points, all of them goals, including half of the team’s six power-play conversions. That puts him a four-way tie for fourth place among AHL goal-getters. Although, as of Friday’s falter to Worcester, he has been held off the scoresheet in consecutive games for the first time on the year and his rating has steadily dipped to a minus-4 in the last three outings.

Defenseman Benn Olson could potentially face P-Bruins forward Stefan Chaput for the first time since they were teammates with the Albany River Rats for two brief periods in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

Dan Kissel, who made his debut on Friday after signing a professional tryout agreement on Wednesday, spent three years at Notre Dame with Providence rookie Calle Ridderwall. Kissel split all of last season, his first in the professional ranks, between three different ECHL clubs.

Miscellany
The P-Bruins and Sound Tigers will cross paths eight times this season, though only twice before this calendar year is up. After Saturday, they will not lock twigs again until they converge on the Dunkin Donuts Center on Dec. 18.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 29

1993: The P-Bruins are shut out for the first time in franchise history, conceding a 5-0 decision to the Adirondack Red Wings at the Providence Civic Center.

1999: Aaron Downey, the two-time defending penalty minute leader in the AHL, takes his enforcer instincts a little over the line when he hits linesman Tim Kotyra during a game-ending melee against the visiting Hartford Wolf Pack. Meanwhile, Andre Savage’s two-goal night is wasted in a 5-3 home loss.

2000: Eric Manlow beats the host Philadelphia Phantoms with an overtime goal, giving the P-Bruins five points in a span of three days.

2010: The P-Bruins engage the new Albany Devils for the first time, ultimately losing a 3-2 decision at The Dunk. Jordan Knackstedt scores both Providence goals, each of them assisted by Joe Colborne.

Post-game Puckbag: Admirals 4, P-Bruins 2

Swift summation
However voluntarily or forcibly it might have been, the Providence Bruins found themselves in a losing battle as they played the Norfolk Admirals’ game en route to granting their guests a 4-2 triumph at the Dunkin Donuts Center Friday night.

Norfolk heaved a grand total of 41 shots at the Providence cage, the most the Baby Bs have dealt with through nine games in the 2011-12 campaign. Nearly half of those came within the opening frame as the tone was set for the Bruins to resort to a purpose-slaying game of catch-up.

The offensively superior Admirals were happily quick to make an OK Corral out of The Dunk from the opening draw, running up a 17-7 edge in the first-period shooting gallery. The game’s first stoppage fell in the form of Carter Ashton’s icebreaker as the Norfolk buried blueliner Radko Gudas’ rebound at the 4:30 mark.

Ashton later launched his linemates on a 2-on-1 that beat both backchecker Colby Cohen and backstop Anton Khudobin. Center Trevor Smith one-timed winger Pierre-Cedric Labrie’s magnetic pass home at 19:26, augmenting the visitors’ edge to 2-0 at intermission.

The P-Bruins failed to land a single shot on goal through the first half of the middle frame while Dana Tyrell granted Norfolk a 3-0 edge at the 2:49 mark. Providence perked back up in the stanza’s waning moments and hit the board with 2:39 to spare as Craig Cunningham smuggled a wraparound within the near post for his first professional goal.

Stefan Chaput closed the gap to within one on a shorthanded break at 4:05 of the third. But less than three minutes later, the Admirals converted on their fourth unanswered power play to restore the two-goal edge via Jeff Dimmen.

P-Bruins pluses
Kirk MacDonald and Matt Bartkowski were the lone two Providence to finish in the black under the plus/minus heading.

MacDonald was fresh out the penalty box and had a good read on his team’s breakout, which led to him thrusting the puck into the attacking zone to set up the grind that amounted to Cunningham’s goal. In addition, he led the team with three shots on goal.

With the primary assist on that same play, Bartkowski now has two points within four AHL appearances since last weekend’s reassignment from Boston.

Bruins blights
Entering Friday’s game, the P-Bruins had not been held scoreless through the first 40 minutes of a single game this season. Not only did that change in Game No. 9, but they also failed to draw a single opposing penalty through the entire venture.

With only seven shots apiece in the first two periods and eight in the third, the P-Bruins have now been confined to a single-digit SOG bushel in 17 out of 27 full-length frames this season. In each of those 17 cases, it has been eight registered stabs or fewer.

The Providence shot total was brittle, yet balanced. With that being said, Zach Hamill and David Warsofsky were the only two skaters not to test Norfolk stopper Dustin Tokarski. Warsofsky’s desperation to clear the zone also effectively amounted to the Admirals’ last dose of insurance as he lobbed the puck over the glass, then watched Dimmen convert as he served a two-minute sentence for delay of game.

Admirals notes
Ashton, who scored the first goal for the fourth time in nine games, completed his Gordie Howe Hat Trick when he dropped the gloves with P-Bruins’ defenseman Zach McKelvie at 3:51 of the third period.

Winger Alexandre Picard collected two assists, getting the secondary helper on Ashton’s icebreaker and setting up Dimmen’s 5-on-4 conversion.

Smith led all participants with six shots on the night.

Miscellany
The P-Bruins’ McKelvie and Norfolk’s Dimmen and Mark Barberio all finished with a minus-2 rating. Barberio’s four shots moved him ahead of the inactive Matt Fornataro for a team-leading 29 SOG on the year.

Pre-game Puckbag: P-Bruins vs. Norfolk Admirals

Opening draw
The Providence Bruins will host the league’s most prolific offense Friday night when the Norfolk Admirals, visit the Dunkin Donuts Center for the first of two times in the 2011-12 season.

The Admirals, who bear a league-leading average of 4.5 goals and 42.6 shots on net per game, are in a virtual three-way tie for second place in the AHL’s Eastern Conference behind the divisional rival Hershey Bears. Norfolk’s 5-2-1 record and .688 winning percentage match those of the Atlantic Division-leading St. John’s IceCaps and Northeast-leading Adirondack Phantoms.

Providence has not faced the Tampa Bay Lightning’s farm club since 2008-09, when the Bruins took a 4-3 decision at The Dunk on Nov. 16 and later reaped a 3-2 victory at the Norfolk Scope on Feb. 27.

Notable names
Delving into his first full AHL season, Norfolk winger Carter Ashton leads all league rookies with a 7-4-11 scoring log. Teammate Cory Conacher is currently the second-most productive freshman with 4-6-10 totals.

Four of Ashton’s goals have come on the power play. In a similar vein, defenseman Mark Barberio has six assists with the man advantage and leads the Admirals with nine helpers overall. His 10 points on the year are the most among AHL blueliners.

Winger Trevor Smith is third among all AHLers with a plus-8 rating, trailing only a pair of Toronto Marlies in Joe Colborne and Joey Crabb.

Miscellany
The Admirals boast an average of 22.6 penalty minutes per game. Defenseman Jeff Dimmen and Ashton lead the league with seven and six minor infractions, respectively. On the other hand, the Admirals’ adversaries have taken an identical 181 PIM through the first eight games.

Norfolk and Syracuse lead the league with four overtime games so far. The Admirals have ended two victories in the bite-sized bonus round along with one shootout win and a shootout loss.

Both the Admirals and P-Bruins have been outscored by their opposition in both the first and second period, but have fared better over a cumulative eight third periods. Providence has run up a 7-7 scoring differential in the closing stanza while Norfolk has tallied a 13-7 difference in its favor.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 28

1992: Grigori Panteleev scores his first North American professional goal to give the P-Bruins a 5-4 walkoff win at New Haven. It is the franchise’s first-ever regular-season road victory after losing on its first six tries.

1994: Grigori Panteleev scores twice and the power play inserts three conversions, including two on a five-minute major, as part of a 7-2 romp over the visiting Albany River Rats.

1995: Tod Hartje scores his second shorthanded goal of the season while Clayton Beddoes, Ted Crowley and Marc Potvin all convert on the power play before Tim Sweeney busts a 4-4 tie en route to a 5-4 win at Hershey.

2006: Martins Karsums, Tyler Redenbach and Petr Tenkrat all have three-point nights as part of a 7-4 victory at Portland. Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau nails a hat trick in the losing cause for the Pirates.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 27

2000: Veteran Cameron Mann inserts two goals before rookie Ivan Huml scores the clincher in a come-from-behind, 4-3 win over the Lowell Lock Monsters at the Civic Center.

2001: A 4-3 win over Portland gives the P-Bruins a 3-0-1 home record for the first month of the season.

2006: Pascal Pelletier pilots the Providence offense in regulation with a hand in two out of four goals. In the subsequent shootout, Petr Tenkrat and David Krejci both convert while Brian Finley stops all four of the Portland Pirates attempts for a 5-4 win at The Dunk.

2007: The P-Bruins, at the very least, double up the Lowell Devils in the shooting gallery in each period. In the closing frame, they control that category, 19-1 and score three insurance goals to cement a 5-1 victory at Tsongas Arena.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 26

1997: The P-Bruins halt a three-game losing streak by drawing a 4-4 tie with the Rochester Americans.

2001: Trailing the expansion Bridgeport Sound Tigers, 2-0, the P-Bruins perk up at the halfway mark of the third period. Ivan Huml cuts the difference to 2-1 and Bobby Allen inserts the equalizer with an empty Providence net and a power play for a 2-2 tie at the Civic Center.

2002: Andy Hilbert scores a hat trick entirely on the power play and the P-Bruins sculpt a 5-0 lead before subsisting through the remainder of a 5-2 home win over the Lowell Lock Monsters.

P-Bruins Log: Hamill Looking More On Target

In the opening phases of the Providence Bruins season, nobody is taking the subtle, implied Zach Hamill ultimatum to heart more than Hamill himself.

Entering the final year of his entry-level contract with the Boston Bruins and slated to become a restricted free agent next summer, the former No. 7 overall draft choice is easily off to his best start in four seasons on the farm.

As the databases show, Hamill still has that prominent playmaking penchant from the full Rob Murray era. Ditto his average output under the shots-on-goal heading.

But along with that, in his first month under new head coach Bruce Cassidy, the shots-in-goal aspect is setting a promisingly unprecedented tone. While he has only tuned the opposing mesh in two individual games, with one being an empty netter, this is the first time he has scored more than once in the month of October.

Through eight games-played, Hamill has already charged up a team-best four goals and seven points on 18 registered shots. Contrast that with his 1-1-2 log with 15 SOG at the same point in his rookie year, his five assists and no goals on 20 shots in 2009-10 and his one solitary point with 15 shots and no strikes through last Halloween.

Most critically, Hamill is shooting at the right times and, in turn, finding more seams to exploit. His accuracy currently stands at 22.2 percent (4-for-18).

Moreover, Hamill’s first-time scoring celerity trumps his starts to any preceding professional campaign. Before this season, the earliest he had scored four goals was in 2008-09, when he sat out the first 15 games with an injury, then required 21 appearances to reach four strikes.

The following year, he hit the same plateau at the 27-game mark. The game in question was a Dec. 18 date with Bridgeport, although Hamill did have a somewhat respectable 11 assists by then.

Last season was, to say the least, the nadir of it all. Hamill’s first goal in 2010-11 fell in Game No. 15 (Nov. 19), his second on New Year’s Eve after 29 games.

His fourth strike? He cultivated that against Portland on Feb. 18, in his 46th appearance with Providence shortly after a brief call-up to Boston.

Granted, he had enjoyed his share of playmaking binges for a total of 25 helpers up to that point and 34 by season’s end. But that was accompanied by a career-low nine goals in 68 AHL games.

And while he improved his pace enough to tally six goals in the last 23 games of the season, his output was still sporadic, at best. After a three-game scoring streak in early March, he only activated one more red light in the last 13 ventures.

That excruciating inconsistency carried over into this year’s season-opening, three-game homestand. As the P-Bruins were blown out by a cumulative 15-3 tally in a troika of terrifying performances, Hamill was nowhere to be found on the scoresheet.

Since then, Providence has gone on a five-game point-getting streak with four consecutive victories and Sunday’s overtime falter versus Albany. In that span, the Bruins have outscored the adversaries, 15-9, with Hamill having a hand in barely less than half of those goals.

With the one cold spell and still-active hot streak, Hamill is on pace to finish with at least 66 points, assuming he does not miss a substantial portion of the AHL regular season.

Rigid mathematical calculations hold that he should insert up to 38 goals, but all things considered, anything between the upper 20s and lower 30s ought to suffice.

After all, in each of the last two seasons, the P-Bruins’ top scorer has turned in a 23-27-50 log (Mikko Lehtonen in 2009-10, Jamie Arniel last year). Their last 30-goal scorer was Pascal Pelletier in 2007-08.

And Hamill has never tuned the mesh any more than 14 times in a professional season. But this year ought to be different for the simple reason of the psychological springboard he has just built for himself these last two weekends.

P-Bruins Log: Big Breakout Weekend For Ridderwall

Call it coincidence or call it a pattern. But so far, Providence Bruins rookie winger Calle Ridderwall has clearly carried over a tendency to inject his team back into a game that began in the climactic phases of his college career.

Along with that, he variously figured in to an altogether irreproachable five-point, three-game weekend for the P-Bruins. His team trailed at least once in all three of their latest outings. And at least once, when there was a deficit glowering at him and his mates, Ridderwall either put a biscuit in the basket or an adversary in the penalty box.

And after each of those acts, the Providence strike force thawed out its sticks and found a way to elude a regulation loss, or better yet consume a victory.

This motif may not necessarily retract. The last time Ridderwall was a regular in an active lineup, he was similarly clicking in desperate situations.

Almost seven months ago, he connected on a power play to put his Notre Dame team on the board and whittle Merrimack’s 2-0 lead in half late in the first period of the NCAA Northeast Regional semifinals. And that was only 27 seconds after Merrimack had augmented its lead to begin with on a shorthanded goal.

Leading up to Ridderwall’s goal, the Warriors were also outshooting Notre Dame, 13-8. For the rest of regulation, the Irish went on a 28-16 run and deleted another two-goal deficit en route to a 4-3 overtime victory.

Less than two weeks later, in a Frozen Four semifinal bout with Minnesota-Duluth, Ridderwall inserted his own shorthanded strike with 17:55 to spare in regulation, closing a deficit to 4-3. Initiating an odd-man rush after a turnover in the Irish zone, Ridderwall escorted the puck to the point position and drilled a homeward-bound saucer through a forest of backchecking bodies.

From the next face-off onward, Notre Dame outshot Duluth, 14-1, although Bulldogs goalie Kenny Reiter answered everything to preserve his team’s victory.

Fast-forward to this past weekend. For the first time since joining the team as a free agent on an AHL contract in mid-August, Ridderwall got his chance to suit up for more than one game with the P-Bruins on the same weekend.

All he did with that was land a cumulative nine shots on goal, four on Friday versus Worcester and five on Saturday at Portland, with two of those amounting to his first professional points.

More telling, though, were the circumstances and timing of Ridderwall’s two strikes. Not unlike the Irish in those two NCAA tournament games, the P-Bruins were trailing the Worcester Sharks by a pair of goals for much of Friday’s first 40-plus minutes.

Then, with 1:46 off the third-period clock and just 78 ticks after Mike Connolly had pulled the visitors ahead, 3-1, Ridderwall absorbed a feed from fellow rookie Craig Cunningham and inserted a backhander. Although the Sharks continued to throw their share of flurries at the Providence net, the newly-fortified P-Bruins propped up the one-goal differential until Jamie Tardif’s extra-man conversion with 30 seconds left.

In Portland the following night, the host Pirates converted a power play in a hurry to claim a 3-2 advantage with 40 seconds off the clock in the third period. Providence was patently on its heels, as evidenced by Portland’s concomitant 4-0 run in the shooting gallery within the first five minutes.

But then, with 6:17 gone, Ridderwall simultaneously broke the Bruins’ drought and beat goaltender Justin Pogge to draw the third knot of the night. For the rest of the ride, the shooting was relatively even (9-8, Portland) and Carter Camper inserted the final goal for Providence en route to a 4-3 triumph.

Oh, and one-third of the P-Bruins’ nine third-period stabs were off of Ridderwall’s twig.

Most recently, playing his third game in as many days after seeing action in only one per weekend to start the young season, Ridderwall revitalized the Bruins in an uncredited way. In turn, he may have helped to salvage another point the same way he set the course to pilfer a pair of wins the preceding two nights.

Leading up to the halfway mark of Sunday’s opening frame at the Dunkin Donuts Center, the Albany Devils were subsisting on a 1-0 lead and running up an 8-2 edge under the SOG heading.

That was when Ridderwall nabbed the puck in his own end and broke it down to Albany property, where encountered a high-stick courtesy of Devils’ defenseman Brandon Burlon.

With Burlon bound for the sin bin at the 9:59 mark, the Bruins charged up five power-play shots and went on an 11-3 run. And less than four minutes after Burlon’s jailbreak, Zach Hamill finally solved Albany rookie stopper Maxime Clermont.

Albany and Hamill traded strikes once more in the third period, thus securing the single-point for Providence in an eventual overtime setback.

Key P-Bruins Team Statistics (Through Games of Oct. 23)

Special Teams
Power Play: 4-for-36 (11.1 percent)
Penalty Kill: 30-for-37 (81.1 percent)
Combined Special Teams: 34-for-73 (46.6 percent)
Shorthanded Goals For: 0
Shorthanded Goals Against: 2

Situational Records
When Scoring First: 3-0-0
When Opponents Score First: 1-3-1
When Leading After 1: 2-0-0
When Leading After 2: 1-0-0
When Trailing After 1: 1-2-0
When Trailing After 2: 1-3-0
When Tied After 1: 1-1-1
When Tied After 2: 2-0-1

Period-by-Period
Goals For-Goals Against in 1st period: 6-9
Goals For-Goals Against in 2nd period: 5-10
Goals For-Goals Against in 3rd period: 7-7
Shots For-Shots Against in 1st period: 82-93
Shots For-Shots Against in 2nd period: 56-92
Shots For-Shots Against in 3rd period: 69-77
Shots For-Shots Against in Overtime: 3-10

Penalty Breakdown
Minors: 43
Majors: 6
Misconducts: 0
Opposing Minors: 44
Opposing Majors: 6
Opposing Misconducts: 0

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 24

1995: In their first meeting, the P-Bruins beat the expansion Baltimore Bandits, 4-3, at Baltimore Arena.

1997: After going a full year without crossing paths, the P-Bruins host the Hamilton Bulldogs for the first time, ultimately dropping a 2-0 decision.

1998: In their first visit to the newly-built Tsongas Arena in Lowell, the P-Bruins fall short to the expansion Lock Monsters, 4-3.

2007: Trailing the host Hartford Wolf Pack, 3-1, at the 16:46 mark, the P-Bruins score once in each period en route to a 4-3 win.

2008: Wacey Rabbit scores the eventual winner and inserts a late, shorthanded dose of insurance for a 3-1 win at Worcester, keeping the P-Bruins unbeaten on the year at 5-0-1.

Post-game Puckbag: Devils 3, P-Bruins 2 (OT)

Swift summation
Do the Providence Bruins have some psychological aversion to working a puck over a fresh sheet of ice? If so, it very well may have come back to bite them Sunday afternoon, when Zach Hamill scrambled to delete a pair of one-goal deficits, only to concede the extra point in overtime to the visiting Albany Devils before 5,072 rooters at the Dunkin Donuts Center.

In each full-length, regulation stanza on the day, the P-Bruins failed to land more than two shots on goal within the first 10 minutes. Outside of the opening frame, they took no more than one within the first five minutes of a center-ice draw.

And in the bite-sized bonus round, the Devils once again bolted off the draw as defensemen Matt Taormina and Matthew Corrente sent Tim Sestito off to insert the walkoff strike at the 12-second mark, finalizing the 3-2 decision.

Leading up to the halfway mark of the opening frame, Albany had registered an 8-2 edge in the shooting gallery with prolific puckslinger Steve Zalewski beating Bruins’ stopper Anton Khudobin at 5:25, only six seconds after Kevan Miller’s cross-checking penalty expired.

But then, in a span of six minutes, Providence went on a 9-3 run, the bulk of those shots coming on the Bruins’ second power play when Albany blueliner Brandon Burlon went off for high-sticking at 9:59.

In the sixteenth minute, the burgeoning Carter Camper broke up an Albany swarm and handed things over to the freshly reassigned Jordan Caron. In turn, Caron hustled to the other end and found Zach Hamill, who cut in to beat Clermont through the five-hole for the equalizer at 15:35.

Three unanswered Providence penalties permitted the Devils to get the majority of the looks through the first three quarters of the middle frame. But Khudobin handled everything in reasonably digestible fashion. Devils’ stopper Maxime Clermont did the same when the Bruins perked back up late, thus keeping the 1-1 deadlock intact through another intermission.

After Dan Kelly renewed Albany’s lead at 2:46 of the closing frame, the Bruins stalled once again, but crammed in the latter half of the period. Then in a sequence reminiscent of Zalewski’s icebreaker, Devils’ defender Eric Gelinas was fresh out of the box when blueliners Colby Cohen and David Warsofsky were busy churning the puck along the points.

Cohen returned the puck to Hamill, who laced in a backhander with 6:54 to spare in regulation, ultimately extending the P-Bruins’ point-getting streak to five games at 4-0-1.

P-Bruins pluses
Early and often, particularly in the aftermath of Zalewski’s icebreaker, Albany was pressuring aggressively and flustering multiple Bruins’ breakout attempts. Seeing that the Devils were canoeing smoothly on momentum early, Khudobin proceeded to fluster them by getting quick whistles on most every shot he faced over the latter half of the stanza.

Since going pointless during the team’s acrid, winless three-game homestand to start the season, Hamill has now run up a 4-3-7 scoring log in his last five outings. In each of those five games, he has landed at least two shots on goal and taken no penalties.

Bruins blights
Before Craig Cunningham was flagged for hooking at 11:45 of the second period, Miller was taking the brunt of the Bruins’ penalties. The rookie blueliner took three trips to the box for cross-checking early in the opening frame and for a pair of high-sticking infractions within the first five minutes of the second.

Speaking of rookie defensemen, Sunday was yet another rough outing for the unit of Marc Cantin and Zach McKelvie. They had a minus-2 rating apiece and McKelvie’s turnover to J.S. Berube effectively amounted to the Devils’ second goal.

Devils notes
Clermont won his professional debut with a 28-save effort. Corrente garnered the primary assist on the game’s first and final goals.

Zalewski matched an AHL career high with eight shots on goal. He had previously landed eight SOG against Binghamton last Sunday, an identical number against the B-Sens on Feb. 19 of last season and as a member of the Worcester Sharks against the Lowell Devils on Oct. 17, 2009.

Miscellany
Hamill donned a P-Bruins jersey for the 223rd time in his career, thus tying himself with Bill Armstrong for eighth on the franchise’s all-time games-played leaderboard. Andy Hilbert is next in the No. 7 slot with 234 career appearances with Providence.

Jamie Arniel once again led Providence in the shooting gallery with five registered stabs at the opposing net. Carter Camper and Kyle MacKinnon followed with four shots apiece.

On the ice for the opponent’s walkoff strike, Tyler Randell matched Cantin and McKelvie’s minus-2 rating. Conversely, Berube, Corrente and Taormina all mustered a plus-2 for Albany.

Sunday was the first of three straight non-divisional games for the P-Bruins. They will host the Norfolk Admirals this Friday and travel to Bridgeport the following night.

Pre-game Puckbag: P-Bruins vs. Albany Devils

Opening draw
The Providence Bruins will have a chance to pole-vault the idle St. John’s IceCaps for first place in the Atlantic Division on Sunday afternoon as they engage the Albany Devils at the Dunkin Donuts Center.

At 2-5-0, Albany is presently last in both the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference. Their defense is tied with that of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers for the basement of the league, having authorized 28 opposing goals in its first seven games. This despite having already played six games on home ice.

In their lone away game so far, the Devils brooked a 6-1 shellacking at the hands of the Worcester Sharks last Saturday. They snapped a three-game losing streak in their most recent outing with a 5-2 triumph over the Adirondack Phantoms.

Notable names
Former P-Bruins and Providence College Friars captain Jay Leach will face the Baby Bs for the first time as an Albany Devil, though he spent substantial time in Lowell during a previous stint in the New Jersey system.

Leach, whose last game as a Worcester Shark was against Providence before a February trade, is off to a slow start, going pointless with a minus-4 rating in Albany’s first seven games.

Matt Anderson spiked his team-best scoring log to 3-3-6 with a goal and two assists on Saturday’s 5-2 home win over Adirondack. Linemate Stephane Vallieux and defenseman Eric Gelinas matched Anderson’s three-point output, which included two power-play strikes by Gelinas set up, in part, by Vallieux.

Veteran pivot Tim Sestito is second only to Manchester’s Richard Clune on the AHL’s penalty-minute leaderboard with 41, although he has yet to engage in a fight. His totals are compounded by three minors, three 10-minute misconducts and a five-minute major for boarding.

Miscellany
Albany center Adam Henrique was called up to the parent New Jersey Devils on Saturday after tallying one assist in three AHL appearances.

Goaltender Jeff Frazee has scraped the blue paint in two straight games for the Devils this weekend after rookie Keith Kinkaid was summoned to The Show. Maxime Clermont, another first-year pro, has yet to see game action.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: October 23

1998: The P-Bruins snap a three-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over the Portland Pirates.

1999: Providence goaltender Kay Whitmore and Lowell Lock Monsters rookie Roberto Luongo combine for 75 saves in a 3-3 tie at the Civic Center. Peter Ferraro highlights the offensive cause for the host Bruins with a goal-assist value pack.

2010: Jamie Arniel scores two goals, including the overtime clincher in a 4-3 victory at Worcester’s DCU Center.