Isles vs Pittsburgh tonight FSN 7:30pm

Ive been away for a few days and seemed to have missed the Tucker-Avery nonsense as well as the Islanders not being able to capitalize on the opportunity to regain first place with a lowly loss to the Flyers. A game in which Marc Andre Bergeron did something stupid [and something he has been noted doing a lot before the Isles picked him up a year ago] and tried to pinch a little too deep in the offensive zone, thus creating a bad 2 on 1 situation in which Mike Richards scored a shorthanded goal to seal the game.

Anyway, now that I am done with that garbage, we travel to Pittsburgh tonight to face off with the Penguins in a game that I hope Miro Satan is salivating at. There's a few teams out there that Miro really love to play against, one of them being the Devils [check his track record, or better yet his shootout % against them] and the other is Pittsburgh. Last season he lit the lamp numerous times against Crosby and Co and the last time these two teams met, Miro put the game winner in the back of the net once again. The Isles need a win tonight to stay one point behind the second place Rangers and keep the Devils from sneaking past them for third.

The Isles will be without their captain, Bill Guerin tonight who is still suffering from blurred vision after being hit in the eye with a puck two games ago. Sean Bergenheim will be taking his spot in the lineup and Mike Sillinger may be given the "C" for this game.

Brian Berard has been practicing and should be able to play tonight. that leaves an extra defenseman who will be scratched. [Most likely Bergeron] Forward Ben Walter has been sent to Bridgeport so to make room for Berard on the roster. Walter played very well in his short sty here centering a line of Chris Simon and Tim Jackman.

Now onto two things that disgust me. We re-signed Freddy Meyer....WHY? and even worse, we sent Sean Bates down to Bridgeport for conditioning, meaning he'll be back up to play with the Isles in a week.....WHY?

In related news, the last time Bridgeport played Hershey, they had a huge brawl and one of their leading scorers' Blake Comeau, ended up in two fights. One was against resident tough guy Louis Robitaille. Comeau has no right going up against a guy like Robitaille but stood in there like a champ. I bring all this up because Bridgeport goes into Hershey on Saturday and there still a lot of bad blood in the air. Lots of guys got thrown out of the game, guys were fighting all over the arena and guys were still fighting in the runways afterwards. Sean Bates plays his first game Saturday in Hershey. $50 for whatever Hershey player takes him out. We dont want him here on the Island. Go away!