Chico the mind-reader

I had no problem watching last Friday's Islanders-Devils game on MSG Plus HD. Thanks to Cablevision's insistence on always placing the Islanders on MSG Plus 2 whenever the Rangers, Devils or Knicks are playing the same night, I had to choose between listening to Howie Rose and Billy Jaffe and watching in low-def or watching in HD with Mike Emrick and Chico Resch.

It was really no contest. Sorry, Howie and Billy, but I have a nice HD set and cannot watch hockey on low-def anymore. Plus, Emrick is one of the best play-by-play men anywhere -- and now a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame -- and I've never had a problem with Chico. The guy was an ex-Isle and he's likeably goofy.

But did you know Chico was also a mind-reader?

Immediately after Frans Nielsen was leveled by Mike Mottau in the third period of the 5-2 Devils win, Chico came to Mottau's defense and said he knew that Mottau was not trying to go at Nielsen's head or injure him.

Really? You knew what he was thinking? Well, Chico, I think you may be wasting your time doing Devils color commentary. Mind-reading is a pretty marketable skill. You can play Vegas with an act like that, although the government would probably find a use for you as well.

Mottau clearly made a run at Nielsen, who was flying around the ice like Apolo Anto Ohno and has been one of the Isles' best players recently. Mottau went after him, and if Nielsen wasn't so quick, he would have caught him clean in the head.

As it happened, Nielsen wasn't hit as hard up top, but in the process caught an edge and is now out 8-12 weeks with a leg injury. It was an awful, awful play and a tough break for an Islanders team that has already had to deal with a ton of injuries.

That said, I have no problem with the two-game suspension handed down by Colin Campbell. Would I have given him three or four games? Probably. But had Nielsen not caught that edge, he probably would have been well enough to continue. The leg injury was collateral damage, in a way, and while I have no doubt what Mottau's intent was, you could make the argument that he didn't mean to go after his head. A weak argument, I'll grant you.

But Chico can't tell us he KNEW what Mottau intended, especially when the visual evidence implies the opposite.

Two out of four ain't bad

Wins aren't going to come easy for the Islanders this season, so when they get one like Thursday's night's 4-3 overtime victory over the Lightning, we should all be happy.

Sure, they lost a 2-0 lead and a 3-2 lead in the third period to a winless Tampa Bay club, but let's look at it this way: In the first four games of the season, playing without their starting goaltender, playing for a new coach in a new system with a bunch of new faces, the Islanders are 2-2.

You think Barry Melrose would take that right now? They guy's tearing his mullet out.

This was a game that the Isles could have easily let get away from them -- and it almost did. But credit the forechecking Frans Nielsen for being where he should have been, and send a nice big fruit basket to Olaf Kolzig for wandering behind the net and coughing up the puck to Nielsen, who found Trent Hunter for the winner.

Hunter had two goals in the game and after looking a little sluggish in the opener has picked up his game, with four tallies so far. We'll take offensive production wherever we can find it, and we know Hunter can score. If he can step it up a notch this season, that will go a long way.

Rick DiPietro looks like he could be back soon, if not Saturday against the Panthers then almost definitely for the home game against the Stars on Thursday, Oct. 23. D.P. had a solid practice this week and his return should provide a big boost.

Meanwhile, Radek Martinek is out 4-6 weeks and Blake Comeau is working on his game in Bridgeport. Martinek's injury hurts but is not surprising -- he's pretty brittle. Hopefully, Comeau will get the message that no one is given a spot in the lineup -- you have to work for it. He's a good young player with the kind of skills this team can't afford to pass up, but Gordon did the right thing by sending him down.

One last thing -- welcome aboard and good luck to the 10 new members of the Islanders Blog Box. That makes 20 of us. And who says no one cares about this team?

Game recap: Penguins 4, Islanders 2

"The power play was awful."

That's Sean Bergenheim's assessment of the Islanders' brutal 1-for-9 performance with the man advantage Tuesday night against the Penguins, and Sean, thousands of Islanders fans agree with you. Awful, awful, awful.

This was a huge opportunity to take down the Penguins, who played shorthanded for half the game and are still without Sidney Crosby. Instead, they failed to capitalize on the power play, and while Ty Conklin made 50 saves, this was a case of quantity having nothing to do with quality.

Conklin himself said, "Sometimes shot clocks aren't indicative of the game necessarily." You got it, pal.

The Isles outshot the Pens 23-6 in the first period and were down 2-0. Frans Nielsen cut the gap to one in the second period, but the Pens scored the next two in the third to put it away.

Just a horrible, horrible loss at home with plenty to gain. The Isles visit the Hossa-less Thrashers Thursday before hosting the Flyers Saturday afternoon in a crucial conference battle.