A Hockey Time Out

We've had a bit of a Hockey Time Out over the past week or so. I've not watched anything live since the Gold Medal game of the WJC and the Winter Classic. Part of the cause was the realization that the season is pretty much done for the Islanders and wow, isn't that depressing: being out of the playoff picture by Christmas. The other reason was to give my wife a break. (Thank you! - Mrs. NYIFORLIFE)

I did get to see what may be the only KHL All-Star Game on Universal Sports. Now, I think we all can agree that anything "Jagr" and anything "Yashin" produces stomach acid in all of us but when the two teams are playing on an outdoor rink in Red Square, well, that makes things a bit different. Team Jagr beat Team Yashin 7-6 in a weird game. It was so cold (how cold was it?) that the ice was really choppy and when you're on a bigger ice surface and it's choppy, you have real difficulty skating big wide circles. Seriously, I think I check the walls in my apartment harder when I wake up early in the morning than any of these guys did. Granted, it was an All-Star game but overall, because of the ice, it was not exactly a thing of beauty.

Announced attendance was 3000 hearty souls who braved the weather. Man, it looked cold. Some of the guys took to stuffing towels around their necks to fend off the frostbite.

In Islanders news, Trevor Smith scored his first NHL goal Thursday in Calgary and then got sent back to the Bridge for his effort. Frans Nielsen and Nate Thompson are scheduled to return to the lineup tonight versus the Rangers so somebody had to go. Nielsen missed the last 13 games with multiple leg injuries sustained when Mike Mottau cleaned his clock earlier this season. Thompson was out with a fractured ankle since mid-December.

Doug Weight also apparently felt sorry for all of his injured teammates so now he is on the injured list for the next 2-4 weeks with a lower leg injury. Classy move in Phoenix, by the way, when the Coyotes stopped the game to acknowledge Weight having passed the 1000 career point mark. I was also glad to hear that Doug had about thirty family members in attendance for the game.

Still, the Isles went 0-4 on the West Coast trip. Our boys are now rocking (?) a 12-26-4 record--good (?) for 28 points and thirtieth place in the NHL. But don't look now: Ottawa is next-in-line with 32 points and might I just say that the Ottawa Senators being that bad is just reprehensible. Boo to Craig Hartsburg and boo to Bryan Murray. Boo to owner Eugene Melnyk, too, for jumping around like a four-year-old at the gold medal ceremony of the WJC.

(In the interest of our bilingual readership that supports the Senators, please allow me a second to translate: Boux to Craig Hartsburg and boux to Bryan Murray.)

So, tonight, the Isles are hosting the Rangers. The game is at 7PM and for me, that means I don't get Billy and Howie on the Center Ice package, I get Sam and the turncoat, Joe Micheletti on my regular old cable.