Isles to Draft Fifth; Playoffs Not Looking Good for Bridgeport

Let me ask a question here: if the draft order is going to end up just being the exact same order the 14 non-playoff teams finished, why even bother having a draft lottery show?

Maybe I am a little bitter, I don't know. You know the odds are against you but you hold out against hope that you're gonna win the thing. That's why there are currently two casinos in the state I live in. Oh, well. Tampa is forced to trade Brad Richards to Dallas to dump salary and now they get the chance to draft a can't-miss kid that they can ease into their lineup--a lineup that already features Dan Boyle, Martin St-Louis, and Vincent Lecavalier. Great.

They say this is a deep, deep draft and that there are all sorts of talented kids that should be available to the Islanders at 5. Stamkos will be gone and Drew Doughty probably will be too. The Isles will probably be looking at players like Colin Wilson of Boston University (C) or Luke Schenn, defenseman of the Kelowna Rockets. Now I am not draft prognosticator but I do recall that during the WJC, Pierre McGuire was really talking up both players. I like Pierre a lot and I think he is pretty smart. Plenty of time to go so we shall see.

Despite reinforcements from the NHL, the Sound Tigers are really up against it in their chase of the Hershey Bears for the last playoff spot in the AHL. The Bears have 86 points in 77 games and the Sound Tigers have 80 in 76. In between them is the Binghamton Senators. The Baby Sens have 81 points.

Stop me if you heard this one before, but Jeff Tambellini won the AHL Player of the Week for the second time this season. Blake Comeau and Kyle Okposo chipped in with points in their first game back with the Sound Tigers, a 6-3 loss at Hershey over the weekend.

Tomorrow we'll have our playoff predictions...and I promise that the live blog of the 1980 NHL All-Star Game is in the works!