Isles 4, Flyers 3

A six-pack of scary words for the Islanders and their fans: Brendan Witt; sprained knee; no return. Happened last night in the first period when Witt took a knee-to-knee hit with Scott Hartnell in the neutral zone. Witt was penalized for tripping on the play.

It took a season-high 47 shots for the Isles to beat our Atlantic Division rivals last night.

First Islander goal was scored by Trent Hunter, who also chipped in with two helpers. Slumping rental Ruslan Fedotenko also added a goal and an assist while Jeff Tambellini scored his first of the season last night (finally) and Sean Bergenheim scored one of those goals that only he can score (all-out hustle) for his sixth on the campaign.

Rick DiPietro earned his 21st win of the season, stopping 26 Flyer shots, to raise the team to 57 points. The compacted back end of the Eastern playoff table now finds the Islanders 6 points out of eighth place.

The Isles meet up with old friend Jason Blake in Toronto tomorrow night. Saturday they host the Thrashers at home. Game time is 7PM.

Hey--did you notice that the Senators and Hurricanes made an old school honest-to-goodness hockey trade this week? Cory Stillman and Mike Commodore took their rings to Ottawa and Patrick Eaves picked up Joe Corvo for a trip to Carolina. It's one of those "makes sense for both teams" deals! Ottawa needed secondary scoring and they get that with Stillman. Carolina needs a PP QB and Joe Corvo plays that kind of game. Win-win!

Does this mean more trades are coming? Is this the first domino to fall, as some are predicting? Will we see a bunch of exciting player movement that would be shocking enough to slew foot a Wookie? Is Peter Forsberg going to come back to the NHL and if he is, which team will he choose to play for?

My best guess is that the majority of teams that aren't near the cap (and would have theoretical room to add salary) are probably at their own internal spending thresholds. That's a fancy way of saying that I don't think any huge mind-boggling trades are going to come down between now and the trade deadline. A two-fer-two trade between Ottawa and Carolina isn't going to open a flood gate.

I guess that leaves our friends in the Canadian hockey media to speculate more and more about which players will make up Team Canada for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. (Yes, they've started and yes, I have read all of the stories.)

One more thing to note. The AHL suspended Sound Tigers' forward Kip Brennan for 15 games this week after Brennan received a match penalty Saturday night for punching Portland's Geoff Peters from behind after Peters had laid out Pascal Morency with an elbow. Brennan's punch reportedly broke Peters' nose.

This is Brennan's second 15 game suspension in the AHL. In 2005, while with Chicago, Brennan was suspended for his part in a pre-game brawl.