Blowing out the Goal light, Ullstrom nets 6

Last week's AHL Player of the week was Bridgeport's own David Ullstrom. The 2008 4th rounder had gone over a month without a goal and then on Feb 16 started a goal scoring rampage, scoring once in a Shootout loss to Springfield and then 2 the next game and ended his week with a hat-trick. Ullstrom's 6 G week brought his totals to 12 G and 30PTS in his first season in the US, which isn't bad all things considered. This year at Bridgeport should be considered a mulligan. However the outburst should be admired and help showcase a sign of things to come.

Ullstrom is yet another example of the Islanders increasingly stronger 2008 draft that has produced: Josh Bailey, Travis Hamonic, Kevin Poulin and Matt Martin for the Islanders as well as Jyri Neimi and Jared Spurgeon for the Rangers and Minnesota Wild, respectively. The Isles have a ton of talent also developing from that Draft as it is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the Organization's history. The Isles picked up Aaron Ness and Corey Trivino in the second round, finishing their College careers, also Travis Hamonic was the 3rd selection of the 2nd Round; the 3rd round brought Niemi, Kirill Petrov and David Toews; 4th round selections were Matt Donovan and Ullstrom; 5th rounders were Kevin Poulin and Matt Martin; rounding out the draft class were Spurgeon and Justin DiBenedetto.

Ullstrom's been getting top line work most of the season, of late he's been paired with Justin DiBenedetto and Rhett Rahkshani makes for a nice young line to gel together now for future dividends.

File this under "Look further into this" in the future. There isn't much else to discuss about Ullstrom here. The AHL is a much different league than the Swedish Elite League. Ullstrom's numbers look a lot better for Bridgeport than they did for his hometown Jankoping 71s. the SEL is known as a defense first league, so the offense is great this year. Definitely one to follow and watch for the future. It'll be interesting to see if Ullstrom will crack the lineup in the bottom six next year. We'll certainly find out.

The obligatory lifetime Stats (again, remember the SEL is much different offensively than the NHL/AHL/etc):

Matt Martin, Micheal Haley, rewarding good play and breeding Confidence

This morning I read a post on SB Nation from Garik16 (@Garik16 on Twitter) describing Matt Martin as a terrible hockey player and using some advanced stats to explain why. Now I'm not a "sabermetrics" type guy (easier in baseball, hockey I don't get the advanced stats at all), but the post does bring up one point I do agree with: Matt Martin shouldn't be in the NHL.

The 6'2 192 lb hitting machine is a great energy line player, I love that he's scrappy, will fight, sticks up for his teammates and will hit anyone and everyone. What I also love about him is the fact that his last season at juniors two years ago was a revelation that Matt can also score and do so without a superstar talent to help him along. Below are Matt's lifetime stats via HockeyDB:





This 65 point campaign made Martin the third leading goal scorer for Sarnia just two seasons ago and the year Steve Stamkos was struggling in the NHL. now, am I arguing that Matt is a 35 goal scorer in the NHL, no, but he could become a better forward with more time at the AHL. In my post about Sarnia teammate and current Sound Tiger Justin DiBenedetto, I hypothesized that "DiBo" was finally catching up to the AHL after 100 games played, maybe Martin needs some more time there as he had some early season success (yes he has out produced his Bridgeport stats in the NHL this year, but he's also played 5 times as many games), but the thing he was getting more of at Bridgeport was ice time. Matt averages about 9 minutes a game, far more than fellow fighter Trevor Gillies, but Gillies has a set role (one he's probably not entirely happy with, but he does it well, and he should be rewarded some more ice time from time to time especially when the 4th line is the only line doing anything), where as Matt, 11 years younger than Gillies, can expand upon his role with confidence and seasoning. Matt's a bottom six forward right now not getting 10 minutes of ice time, but at Bridgeport he'd likely be in the top 6 and getting much more ice time and opportunity to play, develop and maybe go from "energy guy" to full fledged power forward, something the Isles desperately lack.


Enter Michael Haley, Haley's put together his best season thus far at Bridgeport collecting 22 points in 48 games and 134 PIM to boot. Last year he got his first two NHL games late in the season and didn't do much (small sample size, was on the fourth line and it was "garbage time" in the schedule). Haley has more goals this year (12) than almost his last three seasons combined (13). Haley at 5'11 and 198 provides basically the same size as Martin and the same feisty play and can likely handle Martin's role. Haley may also be able to provide some PK time with Colliton or Konopka or Comeau as well, which Matt currently doesn't. Haley's lifetime Stats:





While Haley's an abysmal -17 at Bridgeport, Martin's not much better on LI at -13 and was even in 7 games at Bridgeport (the Sound Tigers and Islanders have had their defenses absolutely eaten ALIVE this year with injuries, inconsistent play, and for B-Port callups). I think swapping Martin for Haley will be beneficial for Matt and a nice reward for Haley's good play this year at Bridgeport. More importantly, Martin needs ice time and Capuano has an idea how best to utilize Haley (I hope, he's left me wanting as an NHL coach, did well at the Bridge, but he's baffled me at best in Uniondale). Finally putting Martin in a top 6 configuration with two good playmaking Centers (either Hisey or Ullstrom) and possibly lining up with Rhaskshani will benefit him and the team in the long term better than having him toil with only 9 minutes a game and not developing as a player.

So the Isles should reward good play and breed confidence NOW to pay dividends in the future. At least that's my line of thinking there.

To quote Commander Lovell: Bridgeport...We have a problem...

I've been thinking about this post since Tuesday nights Bridgeport loss and watching the game tweeted by the Sound Tiger's great Twitter feed. The 3-2 Shoot-out loss to the Providence Bruins continued an alarming trend I've noticed over the last few weeks: Bridgeport's offense has vaporized. Right now, no player on the Bridgeport roster has 25 points; though on the season Rhett Rhakshani has 32 points (he currently is with the Islanders out with a concussion, likely knocking him out of the AHL All-star Game, not to self: check on that) so it can't be all bad right; well no.

Bridgeport's current top scoring trio are Robin Figren, David Ullstrom and Micheal Haley. First the good news: Haley and Figren are having their best years in the AHL, Figren and Ullstrom are picks that are showing promise to be able to help the big squad at some point, and Ullstrom is making his '08 4th round selection look really nice. Now, the bad news (and it's a lot): Figren and Haley are the only two active double digit goal scorers (11 and 12, respectively), The Sound Tigers aren't shooting the puck, no other lines are really clicking, and the team is wasting HUGE Goaltending performances. It's a shame since the organization needs to focus on making winning a priority at every affiliate during this rebuild.

My biggest issue: the team isn't shooting the puck. Tuesday night the team had 17 shots against Providence, against Norfolk over the weekend: 28 on Saturday, 17 on Sunday. In their last three games Bridgeport has only scored 6 goals (losing 5-2, Koskinen's 6th straight loss, 3-2 and 3-2, respectively). Bridgeport's on a nasty 8 game slide where just about everything's gone wrong, but if you cant get shots on net, you're not going to score a lot of goals. It hasn't help that no one has stepped up for Bridgeport during this streak to carry the offense. Since a 3-2 win over Portland on New Years Eve (Kevin Poulin's last start for the team), the team has only scored 3 goals twice. for the most part the goalies have kept Bridgeport in every game except for a 5-3 loss on 1/5 and the 5-2 loss last Friday in Norwalk.

GM Garth Snow (why is the team's GM also the GM at Bridgeport; tough to get a feel for the day to day from Uniondale...the Isles need to hire a GM solely for Bridgeport to handle personnel moves) has been hard pressed to find offense for his struggling Bridgeport team from anywhere. Having recalled Josh Bailey, Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rahkshani in recent weeks, Bridgeport has to rely heavily on two guys (Figren and Haley) who've never produced this much at the level and a Rookie. Now, I'm all for giving guys opportunities, but with the team struggling the way it is, it's tough to observe.

I'm reading post game reports, so being subjective about a select game is impossible, but the problem seems to be that the Sound Tigers do not have enough talent to overcome the lack of capable scoring up front. Draftees Tomas Marcinko and Justin DiBenedetto have put up bad numbers so far this year. In his second full season "DiBo" has 5 points in 23 games, 4 goals and only one helper, last year DiBo put up six goals and 8 assists in 67 games, so he's not on the best of paces. Marcinko has been better with 9 points including 7 assists, he now trails his rookie output by two points in 18 fewer games (he's played 40 games so far this year). Draftees fizzling doesn't bode well. Even players added through PTOs have had a rough go: Olivier LaBelle has 5 points in 27 games (on his second PTO) as an energy type forward; Jason Pitton, in his third go in the AHL THIS season has picked up a goal in 3 games, but I am not expecting much from him; C/D Dustin Friesen has 3 points in 17 for the Sound Tigers and lined up with D Brett Motherwell and F Jean Bourbeau as a line against Wilkes-Barre last week; the best PTO signing for the Sound Tigers has been Brandon Svendsen who has notched 12 points in 32 games; finally PTO signee and affiliate climber Brady Leisenring has no points through 4 matches this year (but has a total of 14 points through 18 games for Odessa, 4 games, and Kalamazoo, 14, this season.

Bridgeport BADLY needs a scorer, maybe giving C Justin Taylor (21 Points in 22 games including 14 goals) another look as he's responded well to his ice time with Kalamazoo. They could also look at K-Zoo vet Kory Karlander (38 Points) or any of the K-Wings top Scorers. They could also look to Odessa, but the current Roster isn't up to snuff and Bridgeport needs a GM of it's own to handle these decisions.

I know this sounds repetitive, but if you're building through the draft and can't easily rely on Free Agents, you NEED your affiliates to be strong and have your prospects confident that they can win just about anywhere.