NYI vs NYR

First off, I realized something this weekend: Do the Islanders even have fans? I have never once met an Islanders fan, which leads me to the conclusion that they’re a fictional race. If that is the case (since we all know Jessie is never wrong), do the Islanders themselves even exist?

I digress. Tonight’s Versus game is Islanders vs. Rangers. Due to being a person employed in an 8-5 job in the Pacific Time Zone, I missed the first half of the game. But I came in right in time for a Scotty Gomez goal. Scotty’s a former Tri-City American which has earned him a spot on my list of favorite players. For the record, other former Ams include Carey Price, Olaf Kolzig, Dayond Langkow, and Brian Boucher. You’ll probably be seeing goalie Chet Pickard in upcoming years, too.

This was another high-scoring game. That seems to be the trend this season. The majority of games this season seem to be going into the 6-10 goal range when it used to be 3-4 goals a game was standard. Maybe it’s just my viewpoint as a goalie but high scoring games have a tendancy to be boring, not to mention killer on a goalie’s stats. Low-scoring games are usually that way for a reason: stellar defense and even better goaltending.

Though as far as high-scoring games go, for the most part they have been good games. The number of overtime and shootout games is extremely high this season, which means a lot of very close hockey. This third period was a good example of that. It went from 2-1 to 3-4 in just a few short minutes and then going back and forth between the Islanders and Rangers with a near-comeback by the Islanders. If you’re going to have a high-scoring game, the switching of the lead is the way to go. But Isles, 4 goals in the 3rd? According to Versus, they have been outscored 56-31 in the third period this season. That’s not a good thing! They need to figure out how to close the deal.

Not a bad game, though. A lot of good goals were scored, a few good saves. Sounds like Trent Hunter will be alright after that scary hit into an open gate, good for that. Tomorrow’s game is New Jersey and St. Louis. Blues have been struggling (last place in the West) but the last game I saw Mason played a fantastic game (ended up a 0-0 tie going into a shootout). They play hard so it should be an interesting match-up. I’ll be interested to see the goalie game. Will Legace be playing? Brodour’s still out with that elbow injury so Clemmensen should be holding down the fort.
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Other news around the NHL:
The San Jose Sharks were crazy enough to sign claude lemieux to a “two-way deal”. This guy’s 43 years old and has been retired for 5 years… what possesses the Sharks to sign him? Lemieux was my least respected player ever to play in the NHL, second only to Patrick Roy. He may have been a good player but I think the NHL is better off without him, not to mention I doubt he could even make an impact in today’s NHL. Sorry, Sharks, you have a good enough team this year, you don’t need to take a step backwards like this. At least it looks like Lemieux will be spending most of his time in the minors.

Thursday’s Winter Classic is drawing near. I’m so stoked for this game. Not only is it a Winter Classic, but it’s my Wings playing! It should be a great game. When I saw the teams scheduled to play before the season I had to groan– matching the defending Stanley Cup Champions against a team that didn’t even make the playoffs? But the ‘Hawks have had an excellent season thus far and with the points as close as they are between these teams, it should be a fantastic game. Here’s to a day of 25 degree weather, slightly overcast (keep the glare off the ice), without wind. Maybe a few snow flurries, just to make it interesting. These could be the most exciting two points available this season.

Paul Kariya plays for the Blues? Shows how observant I am. I will refrain from making any hip-injury jokes. I’m sure you can guess what they would be. For the record, he’s 36.

Not Hockey Related, but funny. Curling… interesting sport but horrible commercial!

Versus named this the #1 play of the week, and I agree. Hot diggity damn, that’s some excellent hand-eye coordination.