Overtime Not the Charm Any Longer for the Islanders

Islanders 1 : Avalanche 2 (OT)

The Islanders started off the road trip with a bit of a whimper instead of a bang. Save for the heroics of the white-padded Rick DiPietro, an unintelligent and sloppy showing led to another point lost to the battered Avs at the Pepsi Center.

An overtime goal by Marek Svatos (his 16th on the season) sealed it for the Avs, who were without Joe Sakic (sports hernia- out 8-12 wks) and Ryan Smyth (broken ankle- out 8 wks) but who had some skill to spare. The Islanders scored first despite being outshot by a wide margin in the first period, on a good shot by Tim Jackman that went past Jose Theodore's shoulder at 3:18 of the first. That, however, would be all she wrote for the Isles, whose offense got some great chances but ultimately would not finish. Mike Comrie's 5-game points scoring streak was snapped, and to add insult to that, a couple of point-blank chances for him went wide or were blocked. His ineffectiveness, as well as that of Miro Satan, Josef Vasicek and Ruslan Fedotenko (who, by the way, has only scored one goal in the last twenty games), put the Isles in a bad offensive situation; meanwhile, the defense wasn't their usual physical and stingy self, often leaving it up to DiPietro (37 saves) to make some great plays, especially with the left pad. With his new (and shall I say, very sharp) pads, he has only allowed two goals in four-plus periods. Not to say he completely outdid Theodore (23 saves), who made some brilliant saves to keep the score tied, but if not for a garbage goal late in the second by Jordan Leopold, which banked off of him and through DP's pads, DiPietro would have stolen two points for the Isles, instead of one.The Isles continue to record points in seven of their last eight games, mainly on the play of DiPietro as well as a rejuvenated offense that stumbled a bit last night.

Al Trautwig and Stan Fischler, meanwhile, finally made it clear that they see DiPietro as one of the elite goaltenders in the NHL, something that they insist they saw all along. However, I don't believe the latter one bit; every time I hear them talking about goaltenders, Henrik Lundqvist's name comes out of their mouths. Not to say anything negative about the Rangers goaltender, who obviously has been effective for the last two years he's been playing, earning two straight Vezina nominations, but you cannot say as of late that he has been as consistent or as much of a factor for the Rangers as DiPietro has been for the Islanders. Lundqvist has flip-flopped between looking lost and paving the way to greatness in his last few starts. His record is 18-14-4, and he has a 2.26 GAA, but that doesn't seem to show exactly how the goaltending situation is on the Rangers' side- Stephen Valiquette, the Rangers' backup, is 2-3-1 with a 2.73 GAA, and both of these goaltenders have failed as of late to hold the fort for their team. From the way the two in the "Hockey Condo" talk about him, however, you'd think Lundqvist was better than what he's been showing. DiPietro (16-13-4, 2.50 GAA), along with Wade Dubielewicz (who seems to be shaping up considerably), has consistently done that, barring injury and fatigue, of course- but he has been the anchor of his team, and when he does well, the team usually flourshes. This, unfortunately, was a game in which the team failed to follow DiPietro's example. Seeing as DiPietro's and Lundqvist's stats look somewhat similar, perhaps the guys on the show should talk about him as much as they talk about Lundqvist.

PS, while I'm talking about the Rangers... Ryan Hollweg receives a major misconduct for checking from behind, this time against an Edmonton player, finally... never mind he's been doing it all season. Now, let's see how long it'll take Colin Campbell to refuse a suspension and rescind the penalty, as you know he'll never let it happen. This has me thinking Chris Simon did right by the idiot (Hollweg, that is).

Now, on to yesterday... and the radio show interview with Alex and Steve on Hockey Night on Long Island, which went well. Alex and Steve asked great questions about out blog, about the Western Conference trip, and we talked also about the differences between Wade Dubielewicz and Rick DiPietro. Overall the guys were great, and it was a pleasure to talk with them about hockey. Granted, I was a little nervous, so I sounded like a dummy for just a few minutes... but for my first interview, it went all right. Hopefully we'll have the archive up on our site in a little bit. Thanks again for inviting me, guys!