Goalie Woes, Dubie & Small Deal.

Tough game last night against the Rangers. The Islanders made two mistakes and they both ended up costing them. Chris Campoli gaveth the Islanders a 1-0 lead off a blast past Henrik Lunqvist, but later he tooketh away when he made a bonehead backhand clear off the glass right to Scott Gomez, who fed the puck to Chris Drury to make it 1-1. Later, Blake Comeau missed the net with a shot on the PK and for some ridiculous reason Bruno Gervais pinched in deep for a scoring attempt. During a PK?? Come on Bruno. That made it 2-1 and the Islanders couldn't get the equalizer.

More interesting was watching Joey MacDonald go down with a groin injury 5 minutes into the game. He was relieved by Yann Danis, playing only his 4th game of the season. Mike Dunham, now the Islanders goaltending coach, reportedly would have been the emergency replacement had anything happened to Danis. Dunham has not played in the NHL since March of 2007.

Even more interesting than that, it was reported shortly before the game by Newsday that the Islanders have been in contact with former goaltender Wade Dubielewicz and he could possibly get signed to a one way deal to help MacDonald finish the season. Dubielewicz was recently bought out of his contract with Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL, the same team prospect Kirill Petrov play for.

Dubie is reportedly in contact with two other teams. My guess is one of the other two teams could St. Louis.

Yes, there are 39 games remaining on the season, but it seems now that the Islanders only threat in the Tavares race are Atlanta who are now 5 points ahead of the Islanders and Ottawa, who are 6 points ahead after beating Carolina tonight. It would be nice to see Dubielewicz come back and possibly challenge for a job next season, but hopefully not at the expense of Tavares. Personally, I'd rather see the Islanders sign someone like Craig Anderson over the summer as he will be a free agent.

What this means though for the rest of the season is that Rick DiPietro is apparently close to having his season shut down after getting into only 5 games the year.

The Islanders made a minor deal today with Atlanta, acquiring 2004 Hobey Baker winner Junior Lessard from Atlanta in exchange for D Brett Skinner. This is primarily a Bridgeport deal. Don't look into it anymore than that. In fact, Garth Snow has made a deal like this during this exact week of January each of the last 3 seasons (last year he dealt Darryl Bootland for Matt Keith and the year before he traded Matt Koalska for Tomas Malec). Maybe Lessard can find his scoring touch for the Sound Tigers and make them stronger for a playoff run.

Once again, I have a college update from this past weekend:

Jase Weslosky: He played very well last Friday night in a 3-1 win over UMD. He faced a ton of shots. Weslosky has a very wide stance but uses his pads well. He has very good reflexes and gets from side to side very quickly. I think he has a future as a pro and could possibly make a good backup one day in the NHL. He's probably the only drafted goaltender the Islanders have that has a future in the pros. Right now he's a junior. I will get another look at him this weekend when he faces Minnesota.

Jason Gregoire: This kid is a diamond in the rough. He's been great everywhere he's played. Two years ago he was the MVP of the USHL. He is having a great sophomore season at North Dakota. Friday night he scored the game winning overtime goal against Minnesota and added another one in a 7-1 drubbing of the Gophers Saturday night. Over the weekend he had 4 points and was awarded with WCHA player of the week honors. This kid is going to be a fan favorite one day for the Islanders.

David Toews: He scored a goal and had an assist against the Gophers Saturday night. The freshman is a very good player along the boards. He's obviously not offensively gifted as his brother, but he will surprise some people with his offensive play. Not a slouch offensively.

Aaron Ness: after his big weekend in the Dodge Classic, Ness along with his entire Gopher team were pretty quiet of the weekend as the #3 Minnesota team was clobbered both nights by the Sioux.

And now I want to finish with a commentary...

I am getting sick of reading certain other commentaries about Tavares not being in the same class as Sidney Crosby because Crosby is at the level of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. First of all, Crosby should not be mentioned in the same breath as those two guys. Those two players put up unbelievable numbers every season. Crosby right now isn't even the best player in his team.

Maybe the instant impact of Tavares won't get us the Lighthouse Project done and maybe some Nassau County officials have never heard of him as some other blogger has pointed out, but Rome wasn't built in a day. What I said was Tavares will renew interest in the team and more fans will come out to see him play, further raising awareness.

Update: I forgot to mention that last weekend I also watched Rhett Rahkshani of Denver once again. He scored an empty netter in a 3-1 win over Michigan Tech. Once again he was impressive. His coach said Rahkshani has "sick hands". It would be interesting to see if maybe he would be willing to forego his senior year at Denver and sign with the Islanders. He's arguably already Denver's best player. Great skater, great will and everywhere on the ice.