Sound Tigers avoided virus, saw players grow
This strange and shortened AHL season wasn’t going to be about much more than getting players back on the ice from February to May after almost a year off, about development and avoiding the virus that shut down the world for too long.
And in that, in their 20th season, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers — as they were called — succeeded. Of their 24 games, only one was postponed, and that not because of positive tests or contact tracing, but because Hartford couldn’t clear a second goalie through quarantine in time after a New York Rangers transaction.
“The players, the coaches, the training staff, certainly the medical staff deserve a tremendous amount of credit for taking this challenge on the way they did at the time they did,” Bridgeport general manager Chris Lamoriello told reporters on Wednesday as the team broke up for the summer.
“Our expectation was really day-to-day all year maintaining health, maintaining safety . ... To complete the season without any interruption on the ice, I think, is a tremendous accomplishment.”
The team finished 8-142-0. It suffered a streak of 11 games without winning a game in regulation. But after that, it went 5-1-1-0 over its last seven.
“We saw a lot of growth from a lot of players, whether it was the older guys, the younger guys, the team grew together in that small window,” Sound Tigers coach Brent Thompson said at the end of his eighth season in charge of Bridgeport’s bench.
“We did a good job organizationally getting through it without having any disruption in the season due to COVID. I thought guys did a great job following the rules. Organizationally, we tried to put a tight leash on it all, and it was great.”
Players talked about
getting food delivered and not seeing teammates away from the rink.
“I have buddies in the (junior Ontario Hockey League) who I think haven’t played in over a year now. We’re definitely fortunate in that regard,” defenseman Bode Wilde said.
Its ECHL affiliate in Worcester, Mass., didn’t play this season, so Bridgeport had an oversized roster early. It pared down to a more manageable 25 men over the brief season, with a couple of players released from AHL contracts, a handful sent to other ECHL teams and a couple traded in the parent New York Islanders’ deal for veterans Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac.
Five of the 14 remaining forwards made their pro debuts this season and generally got better as the season went on. Also debuting was defenseman Sam Bolduc, who stood out throughout the campaign and finished second in team scoring to Cole Bardreau.
Players’ perspectives on the year varied in their online exit interviews with reporters. Mitch Vande Sompel, who lost all of 201920 to injury, was just glad to be back on the ice after going nearly two years without playing a game. Otto Koivula, a healthy scratch a couple of times, was also thankful to get a season but said, “I just want to move forward from this.”
Thompson wished they had a full 76-game season to see that growth continue.
“I think we can be proud
of how we played the last seven games,” captain Seth Helgeson said. “It’s a lot of respect for the guys on the team that we all came together, were able to succeed in this odd year with a lot of stuff going on, the restrictions, protocol that made it a little more difficult of a year.”
The Sound Tigers meanwhile continued to hide online hints in plain sight that they’ll be changing their name to “Islanders” on Monday to match the parent club. They still have not formally confirmed the switch.
As tumultuous as its early years were, the franchise has wound up being a remarkable survivor. Only six of the AHL’s other 30 teams have been in their current cities longer: Providence, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Hartford, Hershey, Syracuse and Rochester. Only the first three of those have had the same affiliation the whole time.
Only the first two have had the same name: their parent clubs’, the Bruins and Penguins. Hartford became the Connecticut Whale for a 21⁄2 seasons, 2010-13, before returning to the Wolf Pack.
The league on Thursday approved two franchise moves for next season. New Jersey’s farm team moves from Binghamton, N.Y., to Utica, N.Y., with Vancouver’s going from Utica to Abbotsford, British Columbia.