The mood in the room after the 2 - 1 SO win was jovial, but not euphoric. They knew what they had accomplished, but weren’t so foolish as to gloat over it. But there were smiles, there were jokes and there was laughter. After weeks on end of desperation and despair in the room, it felt good, even for me.

Zenon Konopka sat in his stall smiling like a Cheshire Cat waiting for the microphones and tape recorders to get around to him. I turned my back on the horde of reporters to ask him what he said to Crosby that caused the game misconduct.

He answered like a 5th grader called into the principal’s office. “Ohhhhhh, I don’t know. Anything I say, I get a game misconduct. They can say anything they want. I don’t really understand it.” It was almost songlike. “I tell ya, I was a little concerned ‘cause I was going fifth in the shoot out and I got kicked out.” couldn’t help but laugh. So did he. “But we got her done.”

“What a way to close the old year at home.” I heard Stan Fischler say to the player he was interviewing. I moved away from the cameras again. The room was buzzing so loud, my little Olympus struggled to pick up anything useable.

Rob Schremp spoke to a Hofstra Radio reporter at lightning speed about Rick’s performance. He admitted he hadn’t seen him play that well before. “I’m so happy to see him like that. He had a tough time with the injuries. Obviously it’s frustrating. You want to play. Fans were kind of on him, people were on him about not playing like he did. If you think he didn’t want to play, he did. I mean that guy is the most competitive guy going in this room so. To see him back up on top like he is now is really good to see.”

Rob said the chemistry was “huge.” “As Gills always says, we’re blood brothers through thick and thin. It’s good to see team mates sticking up instead of shying away. We did a good job of that tonight.”

Speaking of “Gills”, Trevor Gillies may not have much ice time, but he certainly has an impact in the room. While he’ll miss his family, he said “I t will be good to get on the road with the boys. It will bring us closer together. Have some nice meals and all that good stuff.. And hopefully get some more wins like this.”

When I mentioned that Sidney Crosby was kept off the score sheet, he sheepishly admitted that was one of their goals for the evening simply because “He’s a great player . It was nice to be able to shut him down.”

With less than two minutes left of Overtime, the Islanders were called for a penalty and the Penguins called a time out. This gave assistant coach Scott Allen time with his PK unit. He was animated behind the bench, pointing and barking instructions. Whatever it is that he does back there, he does it well.

“Oh yeah. Our D played phenomenal. And Frans Nielsen was incredible tonight out there defensively and he got that nice goal, and the shoot out (classic Nielsen), he had a couple of huge blocked shots (4). I mean the “D” just played phenomenally. It was a good team effort.

I asked if the bench got nervous when it came down to a shoot out. “Nah, not for me. I have the best seat in the house. It’s kind of fun for me to watch the really offensive players do their work. I know I’m not going to do it., but I enjoy it. I’m glad our skilled guys came through.

Everyone crowded around Frans Nielsen. I couldn’t get close enough so I stayed close to Rick DiPietro while he rearranged his equipment for Shakey getting it ready for transport and waiting for the media throng to turn their attention to him.

He was relieved when Kimber told him there would be no MSG camera on him. Armed with that knowledge, he shoved a small wad of tobacco in his mouth and I cringed. (Oh, not another one.) When Newsday’s Katie Strang asked him how big this win was, he joked at first “As big as this chew, NO.” He stopped himself while the circle of recorders and bodies closed in on him (and me.)

“No, it was a good test for us. We played pretty good hockey. We obviously got away from it a little bit there in NY (Rangers won 7 - 2 on a snowy Monday night) where we came out strong but we didn’t exactly put our best foot forward. But it was good to come in tonight against a really good team and get two points.”

This was not just another team. This was the streaking Penguins. “That’s a good team. Any time you beat a team like that, I mean two points is two points, but when you beat a team like that it’s nice. It was nice for “Eats” (Mark Eaton who played 24:52, blocked four shots and doled out three hits.) to play against his old team. I thought our PK did a fantastic job. Obviously, there’s a lot of work to be done, but you’ve seen a lot of young guys step into big roles here and play good hockey. That’s what we’re trying to build here.”

Rick knows keeping the Penguins to 38 shots and only a single goal, a lucky one by Chris Connor, was a full team effort. And then Rick did something I have never seen him do. He began to explain the game the same way I would expect a coach to. “I thought we did a good job in the neutral zone denying them speed. And then our forwards came back and put a lot of back pressure and our D have been our rock for us, blocked a lot of shots (28 in all!). Travis stepped up since he’s been here with Mac and played big minutes for us.”

This is a mature, intelligent Rick DiPietro even though he seemed more like a kid after the shoot out win when he jumped into Matt Martin’s arms knocking him to the ice. Well, he can’t always contain the kid in him.

Emotions ran high in this game, for everyone. For Rick it was the crowd cheering him on over and over again, through the penalty shot, the great saves, the overtime scramble and the shoot out. When Chris Kunitz took some liberties with Rick in his paint, Rick pushed him to get him out of the crease. Kunitz then speared Rick in the stomach to push him back into his net. Well, that was it. A scuffle broke out and Frans Nielsen jumped in and tackled Sidney Crosby who was moving in to help Kunitz.

It’s that “one for all and all for one” mentality that is becoming so evident. “Like I said, there’s not twenty other guys I’d rather go to war with every night, and we proved it again tonight.”

They get to prove it on the road for the next eleven days beginning on New Years Eve in Detroit. “A whole ’nother animal.” as Rob Schremp explained.

Note: Matt Moulson is snake-bitten. He told me he can’t buy a goal. I say that will change tomorrow night in Detroit. I am invoking the hockey gods to shine down on Moulson and break HIS scoreless streak. Now, I just need to find three live chickens and some pomegranates to off up. Okay, maybe three live lobsters and a lemon will do it. That’s my New Year’s Eve dinner.

Prospect Blog: And for a really good read from Matt Clausen and his new Islanders prospect blog, check out http://islandersprospects.blogspot.com/ and his article on Sebastian Thinel from the ECHL. Really great stuff by this soon to be college graduate!

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