The Captain

What a weekend for the Islanders and captain Billy Guerin. He had no goals for what seemed like forever and now he has scored 4 in the last two games.

Guerin, who followed up his hat trick Thursday against the Capitals then topped himself with Saturday night's winner against the Devils. The power-play goal on (former Islander) Kevin Weekes with 3.7 seconds left in overtime.

First off, the Capitals. I think the only way to sum up that one was fairly ugly. Not bowling shoe-ugly, but certainly not one I am going to transfer to DVD. Of course, I never feel good complaining about a win in any way. Giants football taught me that. Besides, hanging 5 on the Capitals after years of having trouble beating them is nothing to sneeze at either.

The Devils game started scary bad as Zach Parise scored less than a minute into the game. Definitely took the wind out of the place with all of the Fire-fighting professionals in the house. (Does everyone still think about Pierre McGuire ripping the Isles for not drafting Parise back in the day like I do whenever you hear his name?)

After a shaky first, the second line stayed hot vs. New Jersey as Vasicek tied the game after getting to the rebound of a Miro Satan shot at the right of the crease and went around a sprawling Weekes in the second period to bring the score to 1-1.

Two minutes later--the next time the Vasicek line was on the ice--Satan finally netted his first goal of the season at 5:35. Mike Comrie decided to dance and poked one past the Devils goalie to give the Isles a 3-1 lead. It was short-lived.

In OT, the Devils began the extra time with 42 seconds of carry-over power play time and Rick DiPietro had to settle in to get bombarded. Karel Rachunek made like Ronaldinho and rang a shot off the crossbar and then Ricky turned aside a breakaway by Sergei Brylin; setting up Guerin to save the day for the Islanders.

The Isles now have the entire week to rest up until they meet the Hurricanes on Saturday. That's actually good news for Islanders defenseman Bryan Berard suffered a groin injury early in the game Saturday night. Aaron Johnson, who had been skating on the fourth line as a forward, got some time on defense with Andy Sutton and even was rewarded with some time on the PP by the coaching staff. Johnson showed quite a bit of the talent that Ted Nolan had been bragging about while Johnson patiently waited his turn after being a healthy scratch during the first few games of the season.