Talent Shmalent, The Isles Have It

Islanders 2 : Penguins 3

This is a game the Isles were capable of winning. I continue to be baffled by the abundance of Isle penalties this season, with the Isles taking 8 penalties this game compared to the Penguins 4. Judging by the comments made by Isles fans sitting around me and Angie’s ‘what the?!?!’ texts during the game, I am not alone in bafflement. Wow bafflement is really a word so says spell check. After making it through the 1st period, Penguins up by 2, the Isles started out strong in the 2nd period leading to BAM-BAM goals by Park’s PPG and Vasicek’s tip in (within 45 seconds of each other) and then WHAM-WHAM consecutive penalties on Witt and Vasicek (Whitney for Pens.) which led to Kennedy scoring the game winning goal on the PP. The Isles continued to play strong in the 3rd period but weren’t able to nab a comeback win…Sillinger showed us how a ‘holy cow he sooooo missed the net!’ breakaway attempt is done and an Isle who shall remain nameless until later on in this blog entry created an short handed uphill battle for his teammates by (insert your own description/opinion of what he did to Ruutu here).

In one of our many debates Angie and I recently disagreed on whether or not the Isles have talent. There has also been much talk amongst Isles fans lately about the Isles lack of talent – that the Isles need to acquire (or get rid of) this or that kind of player in order to win more games and salvage the season. To this doom and gloom type of chatter I say NEY! If better talent is what it takes to win, explain the NY Yankee’s performance last 3 seasons, or should I say performance enhancing. Talent isn’t the problem with the Isles…coordination of talent is, although I certainly think the Isles are trying their best to get it together and find their groove. In a previous blog entry I suggested a goal for the Isles this season – attunement. Sensing where your teammates are around you is an important skill to master in a fast-paced sport like hockey- where a player doesn’t always have the time to visually find a teammate or see through an opponent to a teammate. This is where the ‘third eye’ becomes as important as the other two. The Red Wings seem to get this concept somehow and it’s a key element to their flow as a team, appearing effortless when at their highest level of attunement. It’s also the ‘chi’ of the Isles that needs some attention. The chi, the life force of the Isles does not appear in a state of attunement. The Isles can exert all the chi they’ve got individually but if they don’t harness it together, sculpt it into attunement, what it can lead to is a team of frustrated artists – struggling with the transitions from primary process (raw material), to secondary process (process of creating) to tertiary process (finished product). Maybe it’s a good time for the Isles to go back to the drawing board and reinforce their hockey 101 skills – working on positioning, accuracy in passing and shooting, peripheral vision, and my sister’s biggest peeve with the Isles, keeping their sticks down on the ice, especially in front of the opposing team’s net. Maybe some off ice team building workshops as well.

As for Chris Simon – what he did to Ruutu sucked big time. Mix potential weapons like a stick, puck and skate blades with the force of the body and a player’s ill intention - not only do you wind up with an intention to cause injury penalty but you also have the potential to end someone’s hockey career (including Simon’s own career via retaliation). In the words of a Starbucks employee (Rangers fan) said to me as I walked out the door after discussing Simon’s antics, “There is no ‘I’ in team but there is ‘me’.” It appears that Simon needs to decide who he is playing for…the team or himself. Like the child’s game…Simon says: take one step towards anger management classes.

LET’S GO ISLANDERS!!