ESPN continues their not-making-any-sense-whatsoever and apparent western conference bias with their rankings. The Sporting News is a little more reasonable. ESPN ranked both the Blackhawks and Sharks above the Capitals whereas The Sporting News put them at number 2, behind only San Jose. The Sporting News also dropped the Hawks to number 4, which is pretty accurate considering their woes over the past week. ESPN apparently doesn’t see that as a real reason for them to drop anywhere. Whatever, though. No sense even bothering with ESPN’s analysis on hockey, or well, any other sport, since they also were picking the Jets over the Colts. I digress.

Capitals have won something like 9 out of 10 of their last games and they have allowed fewer goals in 5-on-5 situations than any other team in the league. Oh, their powerplay is clicking around 26%, for best in the league. Simply put, the Capitals should have put most doubters to bed this year, even if Mike Milbury did call them the “Crapitals,” but what did he ever know about hockey anyway?

The Rangers looked dominant coming into this week, just destroying Montreal and Tampa Bay, scoring 14 goals through two games this week, then they lost a hard fought (literally) game to Philadelphia, and were absolutely ABYSMAL against Montreal for their second go with Les Habitants, Montreal, who seem to be on an upswing since beating out NJ at the Rock. I’m expecting Montreal to put together a run, and I feel like I always pick them to go pretty deep every time they make the playoffs, and this year isn’t really any different.

Woes continue in Beantown, where they’ve dropped 5 straight and have a horrible 2-7-1 record over the last 10. Injuries have caught up with them, and as a result, they’re losing games they should be able to win. Detroit is still out of playoff contention right now, but unlike Boston, Red Wings fans should hold back on the complaining, now you know how the rest of the league has felt the past 16 or so years, ya jerks.

Philadelphia still won’t get the respect they probably should just for the simple fact that they’re so cocky about everything. Buffalo, however, was looking great, now, not so much, every team has their ups and downs and it seems the Sabres are in the middle of a down. Phoenix really proved themselves, even in their loss to Washington, they’re a tough team to play, with a never say die attitude, they’re not the shock of the year anymore, they’re in playoff contention because they want to be, and they do what they need to do to stay there, kudos Phoenix, and I still believe the desert deserves a team, too.

The Islanders, ah, where to start with the Isles. They’re a good team, especially at home. However, playoff berths are usually a result of road wins, where the team is better than they were last year, but still not great. They have 2 games they can prove themselves in this week, the first of which, I’ll be attending, against the Washington Capitals at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Tuesday. The Isles and Caps have actually matched up well over the last two seasons, pretty much every game they’ve played the last two seasons have been decided either in OT or a shootout, and the last time they played the Isles came away with a win at the Verizon Center, arguably one of the toughest places to play a game in the east. The second game this week is on Saturday, in Philadelphia, since the Flyers seem to be on the upswing and they’re never an easy win, regardless of what their record says.

Carolina, which is a team the Isles will play in the middle of the week, have been playing some good hockey recently. They dropped a tough game earlier this week to the Lightning in overtime, which they rebounded from with a convincing win against the Thrashers. They then dropped 2 points to Philly and bounced back with a 5-1 crushing of the Bruins. They’ve been up and down, and somewhat inconsistent, but they’ve been playing better than they did earlier this year, that’s for sure. They see two New York teams this week, the Rangers first, then the Isles, and then they see Chicago on Saturday. They can use wins, even if they’re realistically out of the playoffs.

I don’t know what else I could add here, I’m sure there’s a few teams I missed/believe it or not, I just down right don’t care about some teams, call me biased, but the truth is, I don’t care.

Sean Avery crashing, much like the Rangers have been doing recently.

Do they even have one? They seem like a team that’s had a hard time finding who they really are. They went from a team that looked like they were Stanley Cup bound in the beginning of the season, to wallowing at .500 alongside another New York team, the dreaded arch-rival Islanders.

What have the Rangers shown us through the first few weeks of the season? Well, the first thing they showed us this year was that they were going to score more goals. Yeah, maybe not so much, as a matter of a fact, Marian Gaborik has made up for 85% of the Rangers offense this year. If you factor in that Gaborik has horrible playoff numbers, traditionally, and he’s not in a better situation in New York than he was in Minnesota, it’s starting to become a bit ridiculous.

Why not compare the Rangers to the Islanders this year, since they’re so even in the standings and all, it seems like a fair comparison. The Rangers are a team that hardly gets secondary scoring, and genuinely roll over and die in the middle of the game. This slide has been happening since the loss to the Islanders back in October. The Rangers don’t seem to have any desire to play harder than their opponents. It’s almost as if the loss of Brandon Dubinsky has just sucked the life out of them, there’s hardly ANY work ethic. Chris Drury giving an interview last night sounded like a player who just got beat and had his nose rubbed in it. The penalty kill has been the Rangers one saving grace this year. They need to find a way to build around the momentum they have during the PK. They play with more desperation and look like an actual team when killing penalties, but 5-on-5 or on the man advantage, they look pathetic, aside from Gabby, of course.

Their cross town rivals have an identity, everyone knows they’re a team in transition, but they take their style of hockey back to the basics. The Islanders play blue collar hockey that’s actually entertaining to watch. The Rangers, at times, look like an offensive team playing the trap, and others looking like a trap team playing offensively and being caught out of position. John Tortorella was supposed to be the guy to turn the team around, but they’re right back to where they were with Tom Renney. The only difference now, is they have the top goal scorer in the league, whereas last year, they hardly had one guy cracking the top 50.

So after three losses in a row, the Rangers have to go back to the drawing boards. Maybe they need to play a team like Toronto to get their mojo back, but the Rangers have NOT been playing good hockey, regardless of what MSG commentators want to say.

Credit goes to Newsday

The Islanders, a team who have seemed to put their dead last days behind them, have two goaltenders right now, that almost any other team wouldn’t mind having. Yes, it’s true, one of them is enjoying success, while the other can’t buy a win right now. Their numbers are by no stretch of the imagination particularly bad, the Isles just tend to score more when one goalie is in net, and not score when the other is.

Rick DiPietro… remember him? He was drafted first overall by the Isles, in a year which 2 out of the top three draft picks have been injured more than they’ve played. In 2000, Rick DiPietro headed up the draft class with players such as Dany Heatley and Marion Gaborik. While DP and Gabby are obviously the two oft-injured players in that group, it’s DP in particular that hasn’t really played much in the last few years. Oh, I should mention, the injury prone, 28 year old from Winthrop, MA is locked into a blockbuster contract for 15 years, $67.5 million. After playing just 5 games last year and having undergone surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee, DP is feeling up to task to start playing for his contract again, Garth Snow stated as per Katie Strang of Newsday, that DP’s target date to return to action is the middle of December.

What does this mean for that Islanders organization that seems so much better now than they were before? Well, I’m not even exactly sure, though there’s one thing I AM sure about, the Isles would be insane to carry three goaltenders, my guess is that Marty Biron will be dealt somewhere, since the Isles have 40 year old Dwayne Roloson under contract for the next 2 years. Now the Isles have played extremely well in front of Roloson and horribly in front of Biron, which explains why Biron only has two wins on the season. Marty’s also a guy who would benefit more from getting his starts on a daily basis, so Biron is the only one who really loses in this current arrangement.

Now, can we expect Rick DiPietro to be the same goalie he was before? Well, a lot of time has passed, and I’m leaning closer to ‘no’ than ‘yes.’ Can he still be effective? This time I lean closer to ‘yes.’ Is it going to take some time before he is at peak performance? This time I’m leaning to ‘absolutely.’ Have any questions really been answered? Not so much, but at least now we know when to expect him back.

Update: DP is expected to start in net for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Newsday reports, as part of a conditioning stint.

But really, can you think of a more dynamic duo since Batman and Robin than Dany f’n Heatley and Jumbo Joe Thornton? Because I’m really hard pressed to think of any center/winger duo that has looked better together. As far as the Batman and Robin reference, I don’t know if Heater would be Batman or Jumbo Joe, but that’s probably unimportant anyway. Joe Thornton leads the league in assists, not so surprisingly, actually. Dany Heatley has in my opinion, never looked more consistent that he does on the Sharks (sorry, Sens fans) what I thought was going to be hellacious in the locker room has turned out to be probably one of the best moves any team has made this season.

Enough about the Sharks though, there’s 29 other teams to dissect. I’ll start with the team that looked great to start the season and have considerably cooled since then; the New York Rangers aren’t looking like a very good team right now. They’re not getting any secondary scoring to speak of, if it’s not Gaborik or Prospal scoring, the Rangers aren’t scoring. A lot can be said about injuries, they’re all over the league, but it can’t be used as an excuse, coaches don’t accept it, fans really shouldn’t use it as a crutch either. Chris Drury is one of the downed Rangers, and even when he was playing this season he hasn’t looked like he’s worth much anyway. Sean Avery has apparently disappeared from the line up, replaced with some tame guy, and someone who, in my opinion is an underrated playmaker, hasn’t been contributing much points wise, either. Chris Higgins has not contributed anything, at all. The guy who looked like he was going to be a rookie phenomenon, Michael Del Zotto has adjusted and has been playing like a rookie, even seeing a decrease in ice time. Losing Brandon Dubinsky is a big blow to this club and the Rangers can only benefit from getting him back ASAP. Some high points is a ridiculously high penalty kill and of course, Gabby and Prospal scoring as many points as they have. Teams have adjusted, and the Rangers seem like a one-trick pony right now, they go back into the same shell they did last year, even with a new ensemble cast of characters.

One of the less depressing things for New York hockey fans (unless the Rangers are the only team they can feel good for, of course) is the New York Islanders. The Isles have shown marked improvement over last year, granted they’re not on pace to lose 500+ man games to injury, but of course, that still wasn’t an excuse for a 26 win season last year. 26 wins last year- as in the number and age of the Isles surprise break out winger, “Mighty” Matt Moulson, as all the Isles fans and bloggers have been calling him. The chemistry between he and Tavares has only helped the team, that plus, the Isles ARE getting secondary scoring on a regular night. They lost 2 games in a row, probably the first time all season they didn’t get ANY points in a 2 game stretch which is rough, but they’ve shown they’re able to rebound. Their main caveat is that they’re still a young team, and they are going to make mistakes a young team makes, it’s unavoidable. As talented as Tavares and Moulson are, they’re still getting their feet under them, and yes, they did hit the ground running, which is a sign of great things to come for this Islander team. Their powerplay and penalty kill are both pretty effective, which never hurts.

The Washington Capitals are up on tap, and they’re a bit underwhelming. They play down to their opponents, they lost a 2-1 game in Toronto over the weekend, which for a team as talented as the Caps should have been a complete blow out. There shouldn’t have been any second guessing that they should have won that game. I’ve said it before, a good team will beat teams better than them, a GREAT team will beat teams they SHOULD beat. The Caps have yet to show that they’re really ready to make that step towards being a great team, which a team with as much talent as they have is sort of tough to watch.

I’m expecting to edit this a few times with whatever other thoughts I can put together.

How many blown calls can you make in one week, you may ask? Well, the NHL officials seemed hell-bent on setting a precedent this week, from Detroit not getting a goal while the puck was in the net and the somewhat even more blatant example was the ref STARING AT THE PUCK IN THE NET and blowing the play dead against Toronto. Not only that, but there’s hardly any consistency in regards to hits to the head, this player gets suspended, this player doesn’t. It’s almost like players have to draw straws in Colin Campbell’s office for him to make a decision on whether or not what they did was worthy of a suspension.

Egghead, Gary Bettman said on the NHL hour, his daily show broadcast on XM and simulcast on NHL.com, that “if a ref intends to blow the whistle, the play is dead.” Well, then, I ask you, Mr. Bettman, why give them whistles at all? They can run around the ice saying “I INTENDED TO BLOW MY WHISTLE BUT SINCE I DON’T HAVE ONE, THE PLAY IS DEAD.” That is the most asinine thing I think I’ve ever heard. A play shouldn’t be dead until the whistle is blown, plain and simple. If that doesn’t fit into the NHL’s already ridiculous and always wavering set of rules, then I propose those calls be sent to the War Room, and have the decision made there, since, well, the refs on the ice are too incompetent to call the game themselves.

What’s actually troubling to me, is that EVERY OTHER SPORT has an established set of rules that everyone can figure out. In the NHL, what looks like a penalty, probably isn’t, and what is a penalty, probably seems harmless. In that case, what looks like a goal in the NHL, apparently isn’t anymore.

The past few seasons, it’s been “the refs are still getting used to the new rules” but hey, guess what? It’s not acceptable anymore. Learn how to call a game, or find another occupation. The league needs to stop making excuses for the refs and force them to own up to the decisions they make on the ice, every other sport has a sense of accountability, apparently the NHL is devoid of all logic and sense.

And it was Bradley again Tuesday night in New York, inspiring a Caps team with which the Rangers were having their way through the first 10 minutes at the Garden.  Despite the return of Alex Ovechkin to the lineup, the Caps spent most of the time chasing various Blueshirts around in their own zone.  New York scored quickly (albeit, not Alex Semin-quickly) on a Marian Gaborik shot past Sem-YON Var-LA-mov just 1:16 into the game.  For the next nine minutes the Garden was jumping and the Rangers were cruising.

And then Proffessor Bradley decided it was time to get bloody:

Bradley had to go into this fight feeling a little like John McClane, knowing full well he’d probably be on the wrong end of an ass-kicking, but that if the end result was that he’d saved the day it’d be full worth it.  And through a mess of blood and fury, asking the ref if he was cut while skating off was classic Brads.  Not five minutes later, Ovechkin put a sick one-timer past Henrik Lundqvist on a power play to tie the game at one.  And the Proffessor’s class was over…or not.

With the game tied at 2 late in the third period, Bradley stole a pass at center ice and outraced Rangers D-men Wade Reddy and Matt Gilroy then schooled King Henrik textbook style – high glove side – for what would be the game winner.

Bradley ended up an assist short of the Gordie Howe hat trick (why isn’t it the Brendan Shanahan hat trick?) and was awarded the team hardhat after the game.  And maybe looking for that assist, he passed the hat on to Quintin Laing, who’s gritty effort landed him a broken jaw while blocking a shot.

Brian Pothier added a late empty-netter and the Caps won 4-2, avenging a loss to the Rangers in D.C. 5 weeks earlier.  Game over, warm up the bus.  Class dismissed.

Your homework for tomorrow?  Pick up the grammatically-challenged-Brads inspired tee from the Shop.  Enjoy:

Also in the schedule for the Isles this month is the struggling Carolina Hurricanes, who couldn’t buy a win right now, an also struggling Panthers team, oh, hey, look at this, another struggling Bruins team, and a struggling Wild team. The Blues haven’t had any more luck than the aforementioned, and when it comes to the Maple Leafs, forget about it. The Isles come back to host some not-so-gracious guests Thanksgiving weekend, namely the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins, before heading out to visit their friends in New Jersey at the Rock.

With all those struggling teams, the question may be “how is this a test,” well, for one, they’re all on the road, and secondly, they need to assert themselves on these teams, save for the Pens, Flyers and Devs, not many of these teams have been feeling too confident, the Islanders need to play like they’re the underdogs still. It’s not hard to go out and play your hardest against teams with winning records, you have something to prove, when you start playing teams you should beat, is when things get a little hairy. The Islanders have played well, I won’t take that away from them, but they need to play some of their best hockey this month, hands down. Not to mention ANY of those teams are due to turn around, so here’s where the Isles can make believers out of some.

This is a blow to the Capitals who have been looking like a different team lately, and taking Ovi’s stick out of the line up isn’t going to help them get back to their winning ways. All is not lost, however, Ovechkin is a freakish human being and I’d be surprised if he’s out for more than one week, actually, although I don’t know the severity of the injury, Ovechkin isn’t the type of player to be sidelined for a long time, so we’ll see what happens with that.

Meanwhile, Simon Gagne of the Philadelphia Flyers has been sidelined for 6-8 weeks, from what I understand he’s getting surgery to have not one, but two hernias repaired and needs that time to recover. If you have Gagne on your fantasy team, like yours truly, expect a December-January return, and who knows how he’ll do when he gets back, I think I’ll hold on to him unless someone surprises everyone and has the season of his career that happens to still be available.

Tom Renney, assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers, had a conversation with Newsday’s Islander corespondent Katie Strang and apparently said the Isles are a playoff bound team:

“It was fits and starts getting the job done. Scott came in here with a really good game plan and structure and a way he wanted to get things done. Last year you saw the beginning of that and at the front end of this year–where guys were still trying to get in line with it–but now it’s corrected itself and I think they’re an excellent team. I think they’re a playoff team.”

Now I’m not sure of Renney is drinking the same Kool-Aid he did when he thought the Rangers he was coaching last year were Stanley Cup-bound using his system, but hey, whatever’s clever.

Speaking of the Oilers, they skate vs. the aforementioned Islanders tonight at Nassau Coliseum, Isles are coming off a 3 game win streak which saw them down the Rangers, Capitals, and Sabres, whereas the Oilers have lost 4 of their last 5.

Philly Flyers and Tampa Bay are currently in action, at the time of this, the Flyers are up 5-1 in the 2nd with 8:15 to go. That game was moved up for tonight’s game 5 match up between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees, NY leads the series 3-1, opening pitch is at 7:57. The other game happening tonight is a west coast clash between the Phoenix Coyotes and the LA Kings, Shane Doan is going to start after being destroyed against the Ducks, speaking of which, James Wisniewski received a suspension for that elbow to Doan’s face, and he earned it, I’d not be surprised to see Jeremy post his further thoughts on it later on, so I won’t go into too much detail there.

ESPN released their week 6 power rankings, I usually look at them for fun and not for real analysis, ESPN is lacking on hockey, and every other sport, but that’s neither here nor there. They have the Penguins at number one right now, rightfully so, they have the best record in the league. Some peculiar things though is the Devils ranked at number 8 while winning I think a total of 1 game at home, while the Islanders were ranked at 20, with one home win, and they made that the reason they weren’t higher. Again, ESPN can’t be taken seriously, but you can look at their list here.

Also, the NHL schedule is finally picking up, it was skimpy the first few weeks, so I think there should be more wiggle room in the coming weeks, and I’d not be surprised to see teams finally decide on their lines they’ll probably use for a majority of the season, this is the first week where there’s multiple games every single night, and that’s something to be excited about.

Yes, the Islanders had the game by the throat by the middle of the second period in last night’s, truth be told, 5-0 romp of the Buffalo Sabres at Nassau Coliseum. While the Sabres are one of the hottest teams of the season, I want to note they’ve also played the fewest games in the NHL, the Islanders seemed to rub their faces in it last night. What’s more is the Sabres up until last night, had given up the fewest even strength goals in the league, 9 to be exact. The Islanders managed to put up 4 goals against the Sabres last night, and scored the fifth and final goal, on the powerplay. What does this mean? Well, it could be that we haven’t seen a large enough sample size of the Sabres to jump on the Sabres are hot wagon. I’m guilty of it myself, most teams seem to be cooling at this point, but the Islanders are heating up. They’re actually meshing and playing like a team for the first time in a long time, so long, in fact, that I can’t remember the last time they played this way.

Jeff Tambellini put up a hat trick, his first career hat trick, actually, last night. His previous high water mark was two goals in one game, oh yeah, that was actually on October 26th, of this year. What up surprise player of the year? It seems the Islanders are getting more scoring from their “secondary” scoring than from their primary scoring at this point. Tambellini is a surprise because it seemed earlier in the season he was going to show all this potential, and no production, as he’s done throughout his career. He has points in three consecutive games at this point, which I think may be a career high for him as well, though that stat isn’t handy to me right now. Who were the other scorers from the Isles you may ask? Why, it was Richard Park and JOSH BAILEY. Yes, Bailey finally found his stick scoring a goal, which most Islander fans have been dying for this season, seeing as how well he did at the tail end of last year, there’s been high hopes for Bailey in Islander Country. John Tavares, Kyle Okposo and Matt Moulson were held to 0 points in 5 on 5 play and Okposo and Tavares tallied assists on Jeff Tambellini’s third goal of the night. So the Islanders are getting scoring from players that aren’t on their top lines and were still out shot 38-30.

Where are the excuses? Oh, just the Buffalo Sabres being flu ridden, the Caps didn’t play to their full ability, and the Rangers didn’t have Marion Gaborik. All of the teams out shot the Isles, but were not able to convert when they needed to, so why make excuses? Why not just admit you ran into a goaltender who wasn’t going to let you beat him. Speaking of goalies, Martin Biron posted his 200th career win against his former team, and to make it sweeter, he shut them out. He didn’t do it on his own, though, jumping to my mind most immediately was Radek Martinek making a beautiful save in the crease on Biron’s behalf in the first period. It was good positioning by the Isles that beat the Sabres, not to mention, their winning seems less flukey this year than it did last, I think the Atlantic division is earning it’s title as one of the toughest divisions in the east. The Isles are currently tied for points with the Flyers, and have a .500 record for the first time since the 2006-2007 season, when they went to the conference quarterfinals.

Of course, I’m not going to jump the gun and say the Isles are playoff bound just yet, but the chances are looking a lot better than they did last year. Well done, Islanders, when you end up having a winning record for a sustained amount of time, maybe only then, will other teams (and fans) show some respect. Attendance was horrible for the game last night, with the official number being 8,889, this number is punctuated by the fact that they were giving out free tickets to anyone under the age of 14 who showed up in costume. Hockey fans, take notice, I think the league just got a bit more competitive.

During a Ducks power play in last night’s Coyotes-Ducks tilt in Glendale, Wisniewski gave a hard elbow to the jaw of a streaking Shane Doan, who was moving with the puck in the Ducks’ zone, in a collision that sent both skaters to the ice, but left Doan stumbling to regain his footing shortly thereafter:

Doan would eventually return and get his vengeance in a grudge match that saw Doan land a few punches on Wisniewski before pile driving him to the ice and landing once last haymaker before the stripes intervened. (Maybe if either of the jerseys said “Crosby” on the back, they’d have intervened as quick as they did in Pittsburgh last night, where the refs’ moved quicker than Kyle Wellwood chasing a ham sandwich so as not to subject pretty boy Sid’s Travolta Face to any potential punishment.)

Here’s Doan’s retaliation:

I suspect we’ll be hearing from Campbell’s NHL Disciplinary Lottery Balls shortly, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for any particular result. The max fine ($2,500) is as likely as a pat on the head and a “Now, Jimmy, go apologize to Shane.”

In related news, the Coyotes won said matchup, extending a three-game win streak and moving them into a tie for 2nd place in the Pacific Division with the Los Angeles Kings. MVP goalie Ilya Bryzgalov was the 1st Star after stopping 32 of 34 shots through regulation and overtime, then pitching a shutout in the shootout, stoning Anaheim supersnipers Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne. (SHB-fave Sami Lepisto was the 3rd Star.). Both Los Angeles and Phoenix sit one point back of division-leading San Jose and will face off in Glendale Monday night. Center Icers should definitely tune in, and look for yours truly during any action in the corners at the bottom right of your screen. I’ll be the guy explaining to Rob Scuderi exactly what a Sally he is.

UPDATE: a credible-quality video finally made it to YouTube. You no longer need suffer my embarrassing digi-cam recording of my circa-1993 TV screen. Check it out up there.

UPDATE, Episode II: The NHL has thrown a 2-game suspension at Wisnewski today. He’ll miss upcoming games against Pittsburgh and Nashville, and should be available for Saturday’s game against…Phoenix. Keep your head on a swivel, Jimmy.