Senators Artcles: Mihaly still intent on making lineup
March 19, 2005

Posted by: Bob Howard
Credit: Scott Lauber of Press Connects.com

Mihaly still intent on making lineup

BY SCOTT LAUBER

Press & Sun-Bulletin

BINGHAMTON -- The morning skate ended 20 minutes earlier, but Arpad Mihaly remained on the ice after the last of the Binghamton Senators had left and fired puck after puck into an empty net. Then, after sitting in on the Senators' short video meeting, he came back for more.

Practice became even more important to the hard-working Mihaly on Friday when he was the odd-man out of the 22-man playoff roster submitted by the Senators to the AHL. According to league rules, he's ineligible to play for the rest of the season unless "emergency conditions" occur.

But several scenarios, including minor injuries or illness to enough players, will clear Mihaly to return to the lineup. Exclusion from the playoff roster rarely means a player sits out for the rest of the season.

Mihaly's ice time has been diminished this season because of the half-dozen locked-out NHL players on the Senators' roster. He's played in only 43 of the team's 67 games and tallied three goals and one assist.

CATCHING UP

A primary reason Hershey Bears enforcer Dennis Bonvie never got a full-time job with the Ottawa Senators was the presence of Chris Neil. But there was no animosity, only smiles, when Bonvie and Neil chatted near the blue line during pre-game warm-ups Friday night.

"I haven't seen him in a while, so we caught up on a few things," Neil said. "I played in that four-on-four (Original Stars league) during the lockout. We played a game in Antigonish, his hometown (in Nova Scotia), and I saw his parents. So we were talking about that."

Bonvie played 12 games for Ottawa in 2002-03 after Neil broke his leg, but once Neil came back, Bonvie was sent here. He played in Binghamton until December 2003 when, angered by not having a chance to play in Ottawa, he left the team and was summarily traded to Hershey.

LOST OPPORTUNITY

Don Biggs still wonders what could've been.

Biggs, who will be inducted in absentia into the city's Hockey Hall of Fame tonight, was the leading scorer on the 1992-93 Binghamton Rangers team that set AHL records with 57 victories and 124 points, but was bounced from the playoffs in the second round by the Rochester Americans.

"There was a quiet cockiness about our team," Biggs said last week. "We won some games even before we stepped into the building. But we let an opportunity to do something special slip away. Maybe we got caught up in our success. That cockiness may have come back and bit us."