"We Shot Ourselves in the Foot"

I was looking forward to this game because the tension of trade day was over. We know this is the team that we are ending the season with and they had an exceptional showing over the Black Hawks on Tuesday.

I stopped at the Isles store on my way home and then picked up way too much Taco Bell with the idea of being able to sit in front of the big screen and just enjoy the game.

Yeah.

I forgot how great listening to Chris King actually is. I was in the car at 7pm and turned on 94.3 FM to listen to the game so I wouldn't miss anything. Once the puck dropped, Kinger was replaced by TV crew Howie Rose and Billy Jaffe. Everything was fine, my reception was clear as I head east, but then the unthinkable happened. Billy and Howie were talking about Dylan Reese and his first shift on the ice, which was fine. However, within a few minutes (literally minutes) I found myself yelling at the radio, "STFU Howie and call the game!!" I could hear the action on the ice, but I had no idea what was happening. It was then I understood the frustration of those who cannot watch the game, only hear it on the radio.

I would never think of telling Howie to shut up while I was watching the broadcast. But when I was forced to listen to it, that was totally different. This doesn't work. Not by a long shot.

Neither did the Islanders defense as it was already 3 - 0 by the time I opened my front door and threw the Taco Bell bags on the table to turn on the TV.

Our "MVP," Dwayne Roloson must have been having a reaction from the pressure and uncertainty of trade deadline day because he gave up "3 goals on 7 shots. It just wasn't working." That's how Scott Gordon described it in the post game report with Rob Carlin. He looked like he could have spit nails MSG's Rob Carlin as he tried to ask the coach questions about a game Rob felt that the Thrashers dominated.

"First things first, they didn't dominate. Not even close. The reason why they scored their goals was us shooting ourselves in the foot." He then went on to detail all the things that went wrong. Line changes, turn overs, it bothered him. "So before we give Atlanta too much credit, we need to look at ourselves and see what we did to allow them to capitalize on those opportunities."

Yep. I think he was a little miffed. This was the same team that had just beat the Black Hawks 5 - 3, and here they were down 6 - 1 at one point before Robbie Schremp tried to make it look respectable late in the third. But it was too late for that. Tim Jackman, sweating in the full shield, made it 6 - 3 at 12:48 of the third, which only made it a little less frustrating.

Marty Biron didn't like the game either. You could tell by the way he skated out to bat the puck out of his own end to try to give himself a break for two seconds. After all, his defensemen let Afinogenov skate from behind his own net all the way down the ice, dancing around every Islander present until he was Marty's doorstep, where he promptly deposited it in the net. That was the fourth Thraser goal and probably the one that gave Scott Gordon the headache.

He handled Bergfors first goal at 05:04, and Antropov's first of the evening at 08:51. He probably started to feel it a little when MacArthur lit the lamp behind Roloson again at 09:16. That's when he figured it was time for Dwayne to take a seat and let Biron see the game. But after Afinogenov's goal, Antropov scored his second on a power play at 10:05 of the 2nd he was probably looking for some Advil and when Artyukhin netted the Thrashers' 6th at 15:53 of the 2nd, his eyesight may have gone fuzzy. He could no longer take solace from Mark Streit's goal in the first.

Neither could I.

This was Dylan Reese's first NHL game. His family was in the arena. They watched him play 9:59 and handle himself pretty well. "I think the first time being in the NHL, I think for the most part he looked like he was comfortable out there. He didn't play tentative and that's what I liked about it."

And that was probably the ONLY thing Scott Gordon liked about this game.

Bruins up on Saturday for a 2 pm bout. We know how day games go. Bring Advil.