Guts and Fortitude; Islanders Shoot Out the Rangers

(Above) Wade Dubliewicz blocks Jaromir Jagr in the shootout last night.

Guts and fortitude are two things the Ted Nolan Islanders are very long on.

Some of the posts that I have written lately prove me to have less faith in the team than the players do who play hockey for a living.

It was only a matter of time before another player got injured. It was only a matter of time before the pressure got too great. And it was only a matter of time before the Rangers skated into the playoffs and clinched their berth right in front of the fans of their greatest rivals.

Not so fast, said Wade Dubliewicz. Not so fast, said Chris Campoli. And not so fast, said the Islander Warrior, Brendan Witt.

That's why the games are played and why the Islanders pride is coming back. Brendan Witt had to be dragged off the ice after blocking successive shots with his feet...only to return from the locker room to hear his name chanted as he made his way back to the bench minutes later. To anyone who thinks that the Ted Nolan Islanders were thinking more about golf and less about winning hockey games, you were proven wrong. I was proven wrong.

Wade Dubliewicz--a guy who has proven to be a pretty darn good goalie--took it on his shoulders to keep the team alive. He may have played better games in his life or in his dreams but he has probably never played as well as he did last night in a game that meant so much.

Maybe Jaromir Jagr doesn't like the shootout. Maybe he isn't comfortable doing it. Big deal. The man is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Wade Dubliewicz, to be fair, at this point of his career, probably is not. But perhaps the man they call Dubie can nut up with the best of him. He obviously does not back down in a competitive situation.

Perhaps the Islanders have just staved off the inevitable early arrival on the off-season when the playoffs seemed damned-near guaranteed a month ago. Maybe they are just delaying elimination for another day. Could be true. But they are going down swinging. They're going down competitively in the face of injury and all-out roster depletion. It doesn't matter. The New York Islanders simply will not quit.