Jesseau hopes to stick with Sound Tigers
BRIDGEPORT — Stepping onto the ice with an AHL team after a year away from the pro game, with experience a couple of rungs lower in pro hockey: It isn’t like going from zero to 60 miles an hour, Dustin Jesseau said.
“Zero to 100, actually,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s a big transition, going from just skating for six months to an AHL camp. This is crazy. They call it the Jungle for a reason. Guys are going 160 percent trying to make the NHL.”
Early this week, Jesseau was one of 27 players at camp in Bridgeport — not officially the Bridgeport Sound Tigers yet, but for all intents and purposes — with another six sent down from the parent New York Islanders on Wednesday.
Jesseau’s was one of the more intriguing names. Of those 27 players, 23 are under contract, from rookies with NHL contracts like Arnaud Durandeau to veterans under AHL deals like Steve Bernier and Colin McDonald.
Two of the four players on tryouts are under contract with Bridgeport’s affiliate in the ECHL, the Worcester Railers: former Sacred Heart defenseman Connor Doherty and forward Kyle Thomas. The other is Ben Thomson, an AHL veteran.
Then there was Jesseau, 27, a forward who didn’t play last season, partly due to groin and knee injuries and partly by choice.
Married in the summer of 2018, he said didn’t want to uproot his wife, Lauren, who is from Brewster, N.Y. He began coaching with the Connecticut Junior Rangers at Chelsea Piers in Stamford and rehabbing.
“He’s coaching ’09s (players born in 2009) in Stamford, and he’s got a pretty good skill set,” Sound Tigers coach Brent Thompson said. “His skating is good. He’s good in tight areas. He’s got good hands. Learning the pro game, learning this level of pro, is going to be a
challenge.”
Jesseau also runs his own skilldevelopment and skating program, SpeedNSkillz.
“I decided to skip the desk job and go right to coaching youth hockey,” he said. “It’s pretty fun. You get to develop the little guys and see them grow, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Jesseau has a contract with the Danbury Hat
Tricks, the city’s new entry in the Federal Hockey League. His pro career includes 68 FHL games along with 37 in the Southern Professional Hockey League.
“I would rather stay here,” Jesseau said. “This is one step away from the big leagues, right? It would be great to play in Danbury, but it would be even better to play here. We’ll see what happens.”