A Night to Remember

On the night when the Isles honored journeyman Mike Sillinger for becoming the 6th Islander to reach the 1000 game milestone, the 'yet to win on the road 'Lightning came to the Coliseum attempting to improve upon their disappointing visit to the NYC metro area. They already lost to the Devils and rangers while being outscored 9-2 in those two match ups.

Congrats to Mike Sillinger, who received the accolades of the Islander team and organization for doing what so few have done, namely survive 1000 games in this league. The Isles really seemed to take the bull by the horns with respect to getting fans to this game and preparing a fitting pre-game ceremony, which is commendable.

Anyone else get a little anxiety when MAB and Sutton are playing in their own end? That's not to say they both don't bring something to the table (Sutton for example can do a great job of clearing bodies from in front of DP and MAB has a devastating, if not unpredictable slap shot), but to me they seem to be our weakest pairing when speaking strictly defensively. Sutton's skating out of position tonight almost cost us a goal in the first, if not for DP's highlight reel save on Hlavic. Furthermore, Sutton's puck handling in his zone tends to deteriorate noticeably when under pressure. While Bergeron's previous defensive shortcomings have been well documented, Sutton has room for improvement.

Lets give some credit to Chris Campoli for a nice play in the neutral zone that sprung Vasicek, Park and Satan and lead to the second goal. (And to think how unsure Campoli's standing was on this team in late September). Its also nice to see Hunter get a nice tally in the third for his second on the season. And oh, by the way, congratulations DP on your twelfth career shutout!

I've go to cut this short as we're in the middle of packing for our move next week and I can't find any of my socks. Have a great night, go Isles, and happy birthday Mr. Al Arbour.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thankfully it was a night to remember, and put the night to forget behind us. Bring on the Rangers, and lets put them on ice, like the stripers that are finally showing up. Capt. Dan the Fan

Jim McGlynn said...

Capt. Dan, thanks for the post. Hopefully we can take on the pens as well on the way to the rangers. Where are you fishing out of? My friends and I were thinking on taking a fall trip, depending on the weather and the fishing.