Stealing thunder from my colleagues headline the other day.

At about the mid-way point of the first period last night, I was starting to repeat the same old lines.

“Why isn’t Garth doing something about this?”

“Why is this team not responding?”

“Why?”

I was just hoping that Jack Capuano would take a page from the Herb Brooks manual, and destroy a table, or something along those lines, to get into the players heads.  Something needed to be done.

Like a friend of mine that thinks it is his ideas that are always correct, I will take the responsibility on this one.

Sometimes scoring a goal in the first minute of a period can be just as critical as the last minute.  The Matt Moulson show started that, and despite Montreal getting another one to make the score 3-1, it did not deflate the Isles at all.

The third period, in the past, the absolute nightmare of a stanza turned out to be a lightning rod for the visitors in white.  I believe that there were 7 or 8 icing calls on the Habs, and the defense was frustrating Les Habitants perfectly.

Finally – a secondary scoring effort.  Frans Nielsen got a nice shot off, and got the score all square.

Then – overtime.  Despite being so cool in his description afterwards, JT gets off a brilliant pass while falling on his keyster to Michael Grabner, who see Thomas Hickey all alone.  First of all – that pass was brilliant, but most of the mainstream media will think nothing of it, since it was an Islanders player.  Then, the finish.  Thomas, you will never have an easier goal in your life; and to get it at number 1, BRILLIANT!

Where this team has had trends of yuck, they now need to start trends of wow!  This has to be the time.  It all continues tomorrow in Buffalo against the Sabres.  Unfortuantely for Islander nation, we all know too well, that the Isles love to be giving, and allow players to get their first goals, first wins, etc.  Tomorrow, Ron Rolston (brother of Brian – the dingbat), takes the reins in his first home match in Buffalo, replacing the beloved Lindy Ruff.  C’mon Isles, let’s not be in too giving a mood, won’t ya?

My “STAR” of the game – Has to be the man that scored goal number 1 in the NHL, Thomas Hickey.  The former first round pick spent such a long time making it to the big level, and for someone of his size and stature, has not been disappointing.  He has not lit it up, but for most of the time, has not embarrassed himself on the ice.  Savor this one, dude!

My “DUD” is a hard choice, but despite getting the win, I will have to go with Evgeni Nabokov.  He did make some great saves, some excellent ones at point-blank range.  But he did let up a goal on shot number 1, and the third goal I really thought he should have gotten.  The first few moments of the game could be critical, and this team last season gave up 11 goals on their first shot received.  That is not a good stat to have.  There will not be many times that he (Nabby) hits this list.

To contact me – @islessection317, or gharding14@gmail.com