**4:20 pm: surprise, surprie! According to Rob Carlin @ MSG, it's Marty Biron who gets the start tonight. According to Rob, Marty is 3 -1 -1 in his last five. Okay!
We’ll see.
With two days of rest in the California sun, let’s see who comes out to play tonight. In the past, the extended off time hasn’t done well for the NY Islanders. But with so many players on IR and those pesky “undisclosed” injuries maybe the time off is exactly what they needed.
With luck, John Tavares hasn’t had time to cool off. He was red hot on Tuesday and finally the center of media attention he is used to being. It will be interesting to see if he can play just as well on the West Coast of the US as he does on the West Coast of Canada.
The Ducks have not had a great season either, however they do have a few more points heading into tonight. They stand at 72 to the Isles 67. All other numbers on the charts are very close. The last time they met in January of ‘09, the Isles edged them out by only 2 - 1.
Much like the Islanders, the Anaheim media coverage is sparse. The best coverage of the team comes from their own website and their PR guy, Adam Brady. Brady writes an exceptionally entertaining and informative blog on the Ducks website and often adds his own non-Getty Images photos to tell the story. He sometimes does in game blogs as well which are especially helpful when you can’t actually watch the game or passed out long before it was over.
The surprise addition to the Anaheim Ducks is ex-NY Islander and recent EX-Leaf Jason Blake. While Blake was shocked he was traded to the Ducks (which only the Pope of Hockey, Brian Burke could have possibly pulled off) he seems far happier to be out from under the Toronto microscope and almost totally under the radar under the California Palms.
Also on the news front is the suspension of Ducks D James Wisniewski for his hit on Blackhawk Brent Seabrook. I have no problem with the eight game suspension for that hit. I just would have liked that punishment to be doled out to a few other players as well. I am also glad that he will not be in the line-up tonight because should that sort of hit be delivered to one of the Islanders younger players, it could be career ending. If you watch the video again, notice how Seabrook goes down to the ice seeing stars and little birds flying around his head. This is not a cartoon. This is an assault. It’s also a “brain injury” as it was described on the radio yesterday. Let’s not keep candy-coating these things.
Ryan Getzlaf is listed as day to day and Robo-hockey player Teemu Selanne is playing in pain but none of that will matter if Jonas Hiller puts up the type of performance we all have seen him be capable of. This could be a low scoring game that comes down to the very last minute to determine the winner.
Katie Strang tweeted yesterday that Kyle Okposo was in a yellow non-contact practice jersey. There has been no word from the team (to my phone at least) since Tuesday. Can we GUESS that it will be Roloson in net? Sure, why not.
Should anything come up during the day, I will be sure to post it. Get out the Starbucks, it’s going to be a long, long night.
**Note: News from the team is that Doug Weight's operation was successful, however no word has come down about Robbie Schremp's surgery.
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