Isles Downed by Oilers; Canucks Tonight

Anyone else notice that Rick hasn't won since he hurt his knee the other night?

This Western swing has not treated our boys kindly. OT loss in Colorado--on a shot that DiPietro should've made--and a gak 4-0 blanking last night in Edmonton. The Isles should be treating games against teams like the Oilers--teams with losing records--as important games where they should not settle for less than two points. But here we are.

DiPietro is probably fired up to play against Roberto Luongo tonight, as he should. Luongo was essentially sent to Florida just so Milbury could shock the hockey world and pick Ricky first overall back in the day. Luongo hasn't really had a ton of playoff heat but he has done one thing Rick has yet to do--get out of the first round of the playoffs.

Now, saying that, does that mean Luongo is better than Rick DiPietro? Right now, I would not make that trade. Luongo has a little more experience than Rick does and yes, he was really good in the NHL Rock the Rink game for the PS1, but then again, so was Taylor Pyatt. To me, Luongo does not have the intangibles of a player like Rick DiPietro and he does not bring what Ricky can when he is in good form.

Was Milbury fleeced by the Panthers? Well, yeah. Kinda. But you have to recall that at the time, the Islander organization is not what it is now. Guys with talent and huge upsides had to take on bigger, more substantive roles than they were ready for. That's why players like Todd Bertuzzi and Eric Brewer blossomed when they left the Island. The teams that traded for them had time to let them grow and had infrastructure in place within the organization that allowed for the guys to mature at a reasonable pace. The Isles needed them to wake up, jump out of bed, and start vacuuming the house. Vancouver and Edmonton were able to allow for Bertuzzi and Brewer to have some coffee first and ease into it. Of course, both have regressed professionally but that's a column for a different day.

Let me ask a different question: what the heck happened to Ruslan Fedotenko? He and Josef Vasicek have been in-freaking-visible of late. These guys are counted on to chip in with the Scoring by Committee Plan as devised by Ted Nolan and Garth Snow. Instead, both guys are getting about the same ice time as I would if I were on the team.

Miro Satan is missing in action as well. This leaves the bulk of the scoring square on the shoulders of Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie. Both of them, by the way, have been known as streaky players. I guess Ted Nolan is really happy they're both on a bit of a hot streak...last night notwithstanding.

What does this mean going forward? Well, obviously, it means that the Islanders as constituted need to pick up the scoring. This is not new to any of us who follow the team, is it? in fact, if the first half of the season had a theme to it, that's what it would be: we need to score more.

And I'm not sure how the heck they are going to do it.