Islanders win third in a row!

Forgive Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro if he was lonely Saturday night. The team in front of him only allowed the fiery Atlanta Thrashers ten shots on net. Rick gave up one goal late in the game when he was probably too bored to do anything about it. The Isles beat the Thrashers 4-1 in front of a sellout crowd and have now won three games in a row.

Odd, isn't it, that without three of the team's top defensemen: Brendan Witt, Bruno Gervais and Chris Campoli, the Islanders held such offensive stalwarts like Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa and the rest of the Thrashers team to just ten shots. Think about that for a second. Ten whole shots. And yes, that is the lowest amount of shots in a game by an opponent in Islanders team history. Ricky lost his shutout when the luckiest Atlanta player, center Todd White, scored on the power play with just over one minute left in the game. But by then, it was so seriously over.

If White was the luckiest, then Atlanta defenseman Garnett Exelby was the dumbest. Exelby lost his cool in the third period and went after Blake Comeau with a spear and some punches. Exelby received a combined 17 minutes in penalties and was given a game misconduct. Comeau was okay, though, and the Fox cameras caught him laughing about Exelby's attack afterward on the bench. We here at nyiforlife.com are glad that Comeau was able to see the inanity of the whole thing because watching Exelby lose it was just plain weird. And the spearing was just plain stupid as Exelby was clearly aiming for a very personal area on the person of Blake Comeau.

Speaking of Comeau, another impressive night for The Kid Line of Comeau, Frans Nielsen, and Jeff Tambellini. The Bridgeport Connection was buzzing around the Thrasher net all night and had quite a few reasonably decent scoring chances. We know that Ted Nolan is playing the kids together out of necessity, but we hope that he can keep the line intact because they are creating chances for themselves. Eventually, one of these chances is going to get in the net.

Miroslav Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marc-Andre Bergeron and Sean Bergenheim (third goal in four games) scored for the Islanders. Fedotenko and Satan have been paired with Josef Vasicek of late and the whole line seems to have been able to come out of their collective funk together. We've been impressed particularly with the play of Vasicek and The Tank around the net of late. Both guys are big enough to make people move out of their ways when they assert themselves physically.

Satan's goal, and it bears mentioning, came on a very nifty pass by Richard Park. Park was skating behind the goal when he slid a pass on his backhand through the crease at the side of the net to Miro, who buried it into a open net. Great vision on the play by both guys; especially by Park, who never gets the credit he deserves.

The Islanders currently have 61 points in 59 games after going 3-6-1 in their last ten. Of course, the Isles have won their last three games after dropping an OT game to Minnesota on the ninth and losing 6 in a row before that. Today the San Jose Sharks are at the rink for what promises to be a loud and partial crowd of children on winter vacation. Presidents Washington and Lincoln would be happy to know that hockey is being played on the day we celebrate their birthdays!