Opening draw
The Providence Bruins will approach the halfway mark of their 2011-12 season series with the Manchester Monarchs upon visiting Verizon Wireless Arena Saturday night.
Winless in their last seven outings (0-6-1), the P-Bruins will look to pull ahead in the season series after most recently edging the Monarchs, 1-0, on home ice Nov. 11 and extracting a 3-2 shootout decision in their only other excursion to Manchester Nov. 5.
Manchester, on the other hand, hopes to avoid a second consecutive loss to an ostensibly weaker opponent. The Monarchs’ six-game winning streak was obliterated in Binghamton Friday night when the Senators claimed a 4-1 victory.
That upshot, coupled with the P-Bruins’ identical 4-1 falter against Connecticut, flip-flopped the Baby Bs and Baby Sens in their positions as the least successful teams in the Eastern Conference. Providence now has the second-worst winning percentage in the entire AHL (.375) behind the Hamilton Bulldogs (.350).
Notable names
Upon splashing a six-game production drought, winger Brandon Kozun has since tallied a point in each of his last three appearances, giving him a hand in three of the Monarchs’ last seven goals.
Defenseman Slava Voynov, who has played in each of Manchester’s first four meetings with Providence but only eight AHL games overall, was recalled to the parent Los Angeles Kings for the second time this season Nov. 15. He has not been back in the minors since, but rather cemented a regular spot on the active roster, appearing in eight straight NHL games.
Goaltender Martin Jones, Saturday’s presumptive starter for the Monarchs, has won each of his last three starts and is 2-1-0 against Providence with only one goal-against in each of those three meetings.
Miscellany
Both Providence and Manchester are experiencing a bit of a power-play drought. The P-Bruins have deferred on each of their last 15 man-advantage invitations, dating back to Jamie Tardif’s first-period conversion against Norfolk last Friday. The Monarchs, meanwhile, are 0-for-8 over the course of their last three games.
The Monarchs are still riding a five-game winning streak at home, although every win has been decided by a single goal, including one overtime and two shootout decisions.
The P-Bruins are off on Sunday while the Monarchs are slated to visit Worcester before the two parties converge yet again on the Dunkin Donuts Center next Friday.
Showing posts with label Manchester Monarchs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manchester Monarchs. Show all posts
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Pre-game Puckbag: P-Bruins @ Manchester Monarchs
Opening draw
Two teams with at least slightly better fortune on the road than at home will complete a back-to-back series Saturday night when the Providence Bruins visit the Manchester Monarchs at Verizon Wireless Arena.
The P-Bruins are vying to rinse out the vinegar from Friday’s 2-1 shortcoming at the Dunkin Donuts Center, which has already dropped them to 0-2-0 in their season series with the Monarchs.
Manchester improved to 4-4-0 on the road in Friday’s bout, with two wins apiece coming in Providence and Portland.
Conversely, the Monarchs have not won in their own domain since opening night, when they plastered the Springfield Falcons, 5-2. Since then, they have been blanked by St. John’s, 1-0, conceded a 2-1 decision to the Falcons and submitted to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 4-1.
Notable names
Winger Brandon Kozun, who commenced the scoring on Friday, is on a two-game goal-getting streak and has landed at least one shot on net in each of his last 10 appearances. Linemates Jordan Nolan and Andrei Lotkionov have assisted on each of those tallies. No other Monarchs are fostering an active string of consecutive appearances on the scoresheet.
With Anton Khudobin and Martin Jones having dueled in the creases on Friday, there is a reasonable chance Providence could give Michael Hutchinson the nod and pit him against Manchester’s Jeff Zatkoff.
Zatkoff is 4-3-2 all-time in 10 starts against the P-Bruins, winning his first four decisions but going 0-3-2 for the better part of last season. Hutchinson, on the other hand, is 3-0-0 versus the Monarchs.
Miscellany
Providence newcomers Josh Hennessy and Jamie Tardif have each claimed two of their first four points at Manchester’s expense. Tardif assisted on Hennessy first strike as a P-Bruin at The Dunk on Oct. 14 and both were credited with setting up Max Sauve’s goal in Friday’s bout.
This is only the P-Bruins’ second excursion to Manchester in this calendar year. They won their previous visit on March 9 after deleting 1-0 and 2-1 deficits before claiming an epic, 14-round shootout. Providence figures to have seven holdovers from that game suiting up tonight, including both of its goaltenders and Lane MacDermid, who gave the Bruins the 5-4 win in one-on-ones.
Two teams with at least slightly better fortune on the road than at home will complete a back-to-back series Saturday night when the Providence Bruins visit the Manchester Monarchs at Verizon Wireless Arena.
The P-Bruins are vying to rinse out the vinegar from Friday’s 2-1 shortcoming at the Dunkin Donuts Center, which has already dropped them to 0-2-0 in their season series with the Monarchs.
Manchester improved to 4-4-0 on the road in Friday’s bout, with two wins apiece coming in Providence and Portland.
Conversely, the Monarchs have not won in their own domain since opening night, when they plastered the Springfield Falcons, 5-2. Since then, they have been blanked by St. John’s, 1-0, conceded a 2-1 decision to the Falcons and submitted to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 4-1.
Notable names
Winger Brandon Kozun, who commenced the scoring on Friday, is on a two-game goal-getting streak and has landed at least one shot on net in each of his last 10 appearances. Linemates Jordan Nolan and Andrei Lotkionov have assisted on each of those tallies. No other Monarchs are fostering an active string of consecutive appearances on the scoresheet.
With Anton Khudobin and Martin Jones having dueled in the creases on Friday, there is a reasonable chance Providence could give Michael Hutchinson the nod and pit him against Manchester’s Jeff Zatkoff.
Zatkoff is 4-3-2 all-time in 10 starts against the P-Bruins, winning his first four decisions but going 0-3-2 for the better part of last season. Hutchinson, on the other hand, is 3-0-0 versus the Monarchs.
Miscellany
Providence newcomers Josh Hennessy and Jamie Tardif have each claimed two of their first four points at Manchester’s expense. Tardif assisted on Hennessy first strike as a P-Bruin at The Dunk on Oct. 14 and both were credited with setting up Max Sauve’s goal in Friday’s bout.
This is only the P-Bruins’ second excursion to Manchester in this calendar year. They won their previous visit on March 9 after deleting 1-0 and 2-1 deficits before claiming an epic, 14-round shootout. Providence figures to have seven holdovers from that game suiting up tonight, including both of its goaltenders and Lane MacDermid, who gave the Bruins the 5-4 win in one-on-ones.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Pre-game Puckbag: P-Bruins vs. Manchester Monarchs
Opening draw
Three weeks after brooking a 7-1 throttling at the hands of the Manchester Monarchs, the Providence Bruins will vie for a refreshing do-over with their Granit State rivals at the Dunkin Donuts Center Friday night.
Since their previous meeting, both parties in question have generally strode in opposite directions from where that 7-1 upshot may have pointed. The P-Bruins amassed their first win the subsequent night and have gone 5-2-1 to improve from 0-3-0 to 5-5-1.
Manchester, on the other hand, was initially off to a 3-1-0 start but has since dipped to 1-6-0. They disrupted a five-game losing streak with a 5-2 win at Portland last Friday, but then endured a 4-1
In terms of winning percentage, the Monarchs are last in the Eastern Conference and second-last in the league behind the Lake Erie Monsters with a .364 point-getting rate.
Friday’s bout will constitute Part I of a home-and-home set, which will pick back up Saturday evening at Verizon Wireless Arena. It will be one of three times this season that the P-Bruins swap visits with an adversary on back-to-back the nights, the other sets being with Connecticut (Dec. 10-11) and Worcester (Jan. 20-21).
Notable names
Despite missing the first two games of the season, Jake Muzzin is tied for second among league defensemen with three goals and fourth among all AHL blueliners with 30 shots on goal.
Richard Clune leads the AHL’s penalty minute leaderboard with 55 and is second in terms of five-minute majors with five such infractions.
Goaltender Martin Jones is tied with the P-Bruins’ Anton Khudobin for second in the league with five losses on the year. Only Lake Erie’s Trevor Cann has had more setbacks with seven.
Touted defensive prospect Thomas Hickey has three assists on the year, but has gone 46 consecutive regular-season games without a goal, dating back to Jan. 14 of last season.
Miscellany
The Monarchs are one of two teams, the other being the Rockford IceHogs, who have yet to go to overtime in a single game.
Over the next two full months, the P-Bruins will tangle with the Monarchs in seven of their next 24 dates, beginning Friday at The Dunk and ending on New Year’s Eve at Verizon Wireless Arena. After that binge of battles, the two rivals will go nearly two full months without crossing paths and will clash only twice more overall in the second half of the season.
Three weeks after brooking a 7-1 throttling at the hands of the Manchester Monarchs, the Providence Bruins will vie for a refreshing do-over with their Granit State rivals at the Dunkin Donuts Center Friday night.
Since their previous meeting, both parties in question have generally strode in opposite directions from where that 7-1 upshot may have pointed. The P-Bruins amassed their first win the subsequent night and have gone 5-2-1 to improve from 0-3-0 to 5-5-1.
Manchester, on the other hand, was initially off to a 3-1-0 start but has since dipped to 1-6-0. They disrupted a five-game losing streak with a 5-2 win at Portland last Friday, but then endured a 4-1
In terms of winning percentage, the Monarchs are last in the Eastern Conference and second-last in the league behind the Lake Erie Monsters with a .364 point-getting rate.
Friday’s bout will constitute Part I of a home-and-home set, which will pick back up Saturday evening at Verizon Wireless Arena. It will be one of three times this season that the P-Bruins swap visits with an adversary on back-to-back the nights, the other sets being with Connecticut (Dec. 10-11) and Worcester (Jan. 20-21).
Notable names
Despite missing the first two games of the season, Jake Muzzin is tied for second among league defensemen with three goals and fourth among all AHL blueliners with 30 shots on goal.
Richard Clune leads the AHL’s penalty minute leaderboard with 55 and is second in terms of five-minute majors with five such infractions.
Goaltender Martin Jones is tied with the P-Bruins’ Anton Khudobin for second in the league with five losses on the year. Only Lake Erie’s Trevor Cann has had more setbacks with seven.
Touted defensive prospect Thomas Hickey has three assists on the year, but has gone 46 consecutive regular-season games without a goal, dating back to Jan. 14 of last season.
Miscellany
The Monarchs are one of two teams, the other being the Rockford IceHogs, who have yet to go to overtime in a single game.
Over the next two full months, the P-Bruins will tangle with the Monarchs in seven of their next 24 dates, beginning Friday at The Dunk and ending on New Year’s Eve at Verizon Wireless Arena. After that binge of battles, the two rivals will go nearly two full months without crossing paths and will clash only twice more overall in the second half of the season.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monarchs Have Tripped Since Trouncing P-Bruins
The presumptive debut of Chris Clark and possible returns of multiple scorers who were itching to break through even before their respective injuries is enough on the home front for the Providence Bruins to carry conviction into this weekend’s home-and-home set with Manchester.
Now throw in the fact that the Monarchs have done some, but certainly not much, to follow up on the 7-1 flare-up they inflicted on Providence in their last encounter three weeks ago. They did proceed to belt the Portland Pirates, 5-1, the following evening but have since gone 1-6-0, their other win being another lopsided upshot at the Cumberland County Civic Center.
The P-Bruins, who have gone a respectable 5-2-1 since hitting their nadir against Manchester Oct. 14, will have to play their cards carefully so as not to risk reinvigorating the Monarchs. That said, they will doubtlessly thirst for a redress in Friday night’s bout at the Dunkin Donuts Center considering the way the Monarchs made human Zambonis of them three weeks to date.
Other than a single play that saw Josh Hennessy, Jamie Tardif and the power-play brigade all break the ice after two games off, the P-Bruins let the data underline the stench that night.
En route to completing an empty three-game, season-opening homestand, they mustered but one goal for the third straight outing. They again let the final margin grow to three goals and beyond.
Moreover, despite manifestly out-disciplining Manchester, taking two minor penalties as opposed to the Monarchs’ seven, they reaped no rewards beyond Hennessy’s strike.
And it was patently a team loss. All 18 Providence skaters finished the night in the red under the plus/minus heading. The Monarchs had 17 players in the black while veteran Marc-Andre Cliche finished even.
The P-Bruins’ altogether unripe defense, which happened to be missing Matt Bartkowski in their first meeting with Manchester, has since improved to authorize 22 opposing tallies over eight games. That translates to a nightly average of 2.75 after letting in precisely five goals per night in their first three ventures.
On the other end, the Bruins have not let any adversaries confine them to fewer than two goals in any of their last eight outings.
Conversely, the 4-7-0 Monarchs have been outscored, 27-15, while going 1-6-0 over their last seven outings. In each of their last four losses, they have mustered two goals or less, including their second shutout setback of the year in a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of the Connecticut Whale.
Across their stats sheet, 12 individual Monarchs had at least three points in their first six games while four of them―Andrei Lotkionov, Cliche, Justin Azevedo, David Meckler―had at least three goals. Over Manchester’s last five ventures, no one has mustered any more than a single goal or two points.
In addition, the P-Bruins have settled six of their last seven games by a single goal, going a more-than-decent 4-1-1 in those arm-wrestling bouts. Overall, Manchester is 0-5-0 in games decided by two goals or fewer.
No time like Friday’s home date and Saturday’s rematch up at Verizon Wireless Arena for Providence to improve its handle on leads and exploit the Monarchs’ principal follies. Unless they let Monarchs extract the same minerals that have given them one scoring buffet in Providence and two in Portland, the Bruins ought to be raising the upper hand.
Now throw in the fact that the Monarchs have done some, but certainly not much, to follow up on the 7-1 flare-up they inflicted on Providence in their last encounter three weeks ago. They did proceed to belt the Portland Pirates, 5-1, the following evening but have since gone 1-6-0, their other win being another lopsided upshot at the Cumberland County Civic Center.
The P-Bruins, who have gone a respectable 5-2-1 since hitting their nadir against Manchester Oct. 14, will have to play their cards carefully so as not to risk reinvigorating the Monarchs. That said, they will doubtlessly thirst for a redress in Friday night’s bout at the Dunkin Donuts Center considering the way the Monarchs made human Zambonis of them three weeks to date.
Other than a single play that saw Josh Hennessy, Jamie Tardif and the power-play brigade all break the ice after two games off, the P-Bruins let the data underline the stench that night.
En route to completing an empty three-game, season-opening homestand, they mustered but one goal for the third straight outing. They again let the final margin grow to three goals and beyond.
Moreover, despite manifestly out-disciplining Manchester, taking two minor penalties as opposed to the Monarchs’ seven, they reaped no rewards beyond Hennessy’s strike.
And it was patently a team loss. All 18 Providence skaters finished the night in the red under the plus/minus heading. The Monarchs had 17 players in the black while veteran Marc-Andre Cliche finished even.
The P-Bruins’ altogether unripe defense, which happened to be missing Matt Bartkowski in their first meeting with Manchester, has since improved to authorize 22 opposing tallies over eight games. That translates to a nightly average of 2.75 after letting in precisely five goals per night in their first three ventures.
On the other end, the Bruins have not let any adversaries confine them to fewer than two goals in any of their last eight outings.
Conversely, the 4-7-0 Monarchs have been outscored, 27-15, while going 1-6-0 over their last seven outings. In each of their last four losses, they have mustered two goals or less, including their second shutout setback of the year in a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of the Connecticut Whale.
Across their stats sheet, 12 individual Monarchs had at least three points in their first six games while four of them―Andrei Lotkionov, Cliche, Justin Azevedo, David Meckler―had at least three goals. Over Manchester’s last five ventures, no one has mustered any more than a single goal or two points.
In addition, the P-Bruins have settled six of their last seven games by a single goal, going a more-than-decent 4-1-1 in those arm-wrestling bouts. Overall, Manchester is 0-5-0 in games decided by two goals or fewer.
No time like Friday’s home date and Saturday’s rematch up at Verizon Wireless Arena for Providence to improve its handle on leads and exploit the Monarchs’ principal follies. Unless they let Monarchs extract the same minerals that have given them one scoring buffet in Providence and two in Portland, the Bruins ought to be raising the upper hand.
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