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I haven’t seen it on video yet but apparently Mayfield had another WTF moment tonight.

I was expecting them to lose, so I didn't pay close attention, but he should be a third pair defender. He typically is. I think Roy is still trying to figure out what he's got, so he's playing them all more. Or he's thinking Mayfield is signed for 7 fucking years, so he HAS to use him. Maybe he's hoping he'll get hurt if he plays a lot. But any confidence Mayfield had is gone. He needs to flatten or beat the hell out of someone to get the fans on his side, at least a little bit. I don't think it would work, but he needs to do something. Maybe one of the team leaders could step up and tell fans to leave him the hell alone, that the entire TEAM allowed 6 goals vs the Rangers, not just Mayfield.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Cizikas is out. Got hit in the hand with a shot in the game vs the Pens. Probably broken. The PK was already shit. It will be much worse without him.
Kyle MacLean called up.
Fasching moved to LTIR. Bortuzzo had a "setback" and remains on LTIR. No idea what even happened to Fasching, but that sucks. He's been a good 3rd/4th line player when called upon. Bortuzzo can stay there.

Tonight vs St Louis will be like the battle for the worst PK.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

A bad tweet about Scott Mayfield...

https://twitter.com/stefen_rosner/statu ... 9657201672


...followed by a good one.

https://twitter.com/eklundisles/status/ ... 7851820429

He makes mental mistakes, and quite frankly, he's made a lot of them this year. But fans have been on him so much it's turning into a Chuck Knoblauch situation, where he got so rattled by his own team's fans that he couldn't make the throw from 2nd base to first and if he did, Yankee fans sarcastically cheered like crazy. Mayfield's contract is just too long and fans are pissed and turned on him.

Tonight they play in St Louis, his home town. I'm hoping for a huge game from him that sets him down a better path. Also, they're on a road trip so maybe being away from Isles fans will be good for him.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Isles allow 3 goals in 32 seconds to the Blues. Franchise record for the Blues. Probably for the Isles too. Canes and Wings win. Isles are fucking themselves so hard right now.
Going into the third down 3-0. Sounds like a recipe for success!

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

In what I thought could be a really positive turn for the Isles, something I'd never seen happen happened. Clutterbuck took an obvious high stick to the face and fell (probably embellishing). Puck battle continued and Pelech's stick got caught in the blade of a Blue, who went down. Ref's arm went up for Pelech. At the whistle Clutterbuck went to the ref and showed him the cut on his chin and was talking when the feed cut to commercial. When they came back, Burke announced that Clutterbuck had done such a good job of pleading his case that the officials talked and agreed the Blue who clipped him deserved a penalty. Pelech still got his (which wouldn't have happened if they'd called the high stick but whatever). I thought "this is the good turn they need! This can lead to the goal that starts the comeback!" Roy pulled Varlamov with like 6 minutes to play to make it a 5 on 4 but the Blues couldn't ice the puck since it was technically even. As this season dictates, instead of the Isles breaking the shutout and starting a comeback, Buchnevich put his third of the game into the empty net. 4-0 loss.

I turned it off at 4-0. Wes McCauley provided a gem after that. Blues tipped a shot in with a high stick, refs called no goal. They reviewed, then McCauley got on the mic and said "you're not gonna like this, but the call on the ice was correct. No goal."

Fuck this team. They don't deserver my time.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Isles home for the Bolts again, not long after whooping Tampa 6-2. Isles are fighting for their lives, against Tampa (and others), so I fully expect a dog shit performance and something like an 8-2 Bolts win. Isles have the mental toughness of roadkill.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Isles blow a huge opportunity and once again took part of the game off, losing 4-2 to the Lightning. Bolts got out to an early 1-0 lead and the Isles stormed back and scored the tying goal, until Cooper challenged because Lee was offside by a few inches. But he was offside. Quick review worked in Bolts' favor, and then 1:22 the Lightning hat a 2-0 lead instead on a pretty weak goal that Sorokin probably should have had. The 3-0 goal was deflected and the Isles had that look like they were resigned to lose it. Then Lee made up for his offside by scoring to make it 3-1 with 6:16 to play. Shortly after Hedman put the puck over the glass and lost his shit on the refs and linesmen while they met to confirm the delay of game call. Hedman slammed his stick on the boards repeatedly and should have gotten an extra for acting like such a little baby, but he didn't. Then it was Cooper's turn to go full Karen. Isles managed to score on the PP, for a rare PP goal. But unfortunately "making it interesting" doesn't get you points and the Isles gave the puck away and the Bolts hit the empty net for a 4-2 win.

Season is pretty much over with that loss. 7 points back now. Time to sell anyone not named Barzal, Dobson or Sorokin. Not that anyone will make an offer for just about anyone else on this roster with their insane contracts.

Monday they'll lose to the Stars.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Fasching is on LTIR but was sent down to Bridgeport for conditioning. How can you have a guy able to play but still on LTIR?
Bolduc was also sent down for conditioning. He hasn't played in a while, despite Mayfield supposedly being hurt now. Mayfield isn't on IR, so I think it's mainly his feelings that are hurt, as fans continue to bash him big time. His 7 year, $3.5M AAV contract with full NTC til 2007 is not looking too good.

Lou needs to hire a young GM, but not his son, who has made Bridgeport much worse.

Isles are going to wind up out of the playoffs, but too high for a good draft pick. It seems inevitable.

Nelson moved to first line. Sooooo, that makes Nelson-Horvat-Barzal. Three centers on the top line. Sure. Okay. Other centers now are Cizikas, Pageau and MacLean. Okay. Why not? Fuck it. I think Nelson is being showcased for trades. Rumor is teams have been calling about him. He's got 1.3 years left on his deal at $6M AAV, but has a 16 team trade list. I'd hate to see him go, but I also realize they need to retool, big time, and he's one of the pieces who could bring back a good haul. Pageau? Maybe. He's got 2.3 years left at $5M AAV, and also has a 16 team list. Notice a trend here? Someone needs to take away Lou's ability to put NTCs into contracts. Or better yet, just replace him as GM. Keep him as Pres, since he supposedly still commands so much respect around the league. But he's tarnishing his reputation with these contracts. I'd love to see a new GM by the draft. The sooner, the better.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

This team was built with the idea that they were going to contend a little longer after those semi final seasons. And with Barzal, Dobson, Sorokin, they definitely don't need a teardown. They're in that Pittsburgh, Washington zone where they're stuck in between. A quick reset could do wonders.

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Agreed, except that retooling is going to be difficult with the contracts they currently have in place. The system is also pretty barren, as every scout article says. The "win now" mode really screwed them. And I was all for it at the time. They looked poised for a real shot. Fucking Tampa killed it. I hate them. Probably more than the Rangers these days.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

New rumor today is that old friend Barry Trotz is one of the suitors for Brock Nelson. Makes perfect sense. Trotz loved Nelson while with the Isles.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

3-2 OT win over the Stars, again. Because of course they went to OT. Instead of the Bettman or Loser point it should now be called the Islander point. 24-20-14. Ridiculous.

Isles didn't control play that well. Until OT when Barzal took like a 2 minute shift and basically said screw you all, I'm not losing again. Lost the puck but actually checked someone! And took it back, made a beautiful pass to Horvat for the OT winner. After scoring Horvat just kept saying "Wow. Wow."

Seems like they're creating false hope once again though. They're on pace for 87.67 points. Hardly looking like a playoff team overall. They're pretty much have to play close to .750 hockey the rest of the way to hit 98 points, which is the usual cut off. No more games vs the Caps who are now ahead of the Isles. Only 1 vs Philly. Detroit on Thursday. Chance to make up some ground there, although Detroit and Washington play tomorrow, which is a lose/lose for the Isles. Going to be lots of those nights coming up.

I had an old man moment of screaming at the TV tonight during the pre-game of all times. Brendan Burke said the Isles need to start winning now that games count more. I hate that stupid idea. How about this idea, if they'd won just HALF of their FOURTEEN OT losses, they'd have 70 points and be in a playoff spot instead of desperately trying to make up tons of ground. If they hadn't blown that lead vs the Sharks early in the season. Or the Preds. Wins are always 2 points (I guess unless it's an OT/SO win vs a conference opponent, but you get the point). So yeah, I yelled all that and plenty of curses at the TV. During. The. Pre. Game. Show.

So yeah. Thursday they'll probably let me down again, just because I have a tiny bit of faith in them now. Very tiny bit.

_________________
Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Rumor mill has Lou retiring at year's end, or being fired if they don't make the playoffs. Then Roy would take over as GM and DeRosiers would take over has HC. I can't see Roy as a GM. I see him as a coach. And DeRosiers' HC job in junior was a shit show.

_________________
Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Yikes. I think that would be bad. Roy gets all the credit in the world for barging into the front office and telling Rick Pracey and the scouts at the time that the Avs were taking Nathan MacKinnon in 2013. Reportedly the "brain trust" there didn't even have MacKinnon in their top 5. So...thank him for that for sure. But outside of that, any influence he had over the front office led to some very bad things. He apparently pounded the table for the Avs to take A.J. Greer in the 2nd round (not a bad player per se but he never panned out for the Avs) and was primarily responsible for bringing aboard the corpse of Francois Beauchemin.

My money, if Lou has any say as to who his successor is, will be Mark Hunter. He was in the running to succeed Lamoriello in Toronto before Shanahan ultimately decided on Dubas. I guess Columbus is pursuing him as well, so I guess we'll see. I'd take the Isles gig even though Lumbus has the better prospect pool.

I'd prefer Mark Hunter as GM and Roy on the bench. Derosier's HC record is far from stellar in junior. How is he supposed to get respect from NHL veterans?

Big game vs Detroit tonight. I'll miss it. Probably a good thing. The win the other night has me almost invested again. Getting smoked by the Red Wings would probably annoy me to watch.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Isles beat the Red Wings 5-3. (checks notes) They won in regulation? Are they allowed to do that? What the hell? They're ripping fans off of the free OT hockey??? Bastards. And, AND they scored an EMPTY NETTER??? Holy flaming shit balls!

Still nowhere near a playoff spot, but they got a whole one point closer, as Tampa lost in OT. They're really going to bring this down to the wire and miss by a single point.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Seriously? Last night was their FIRST empty netter!?!?!? That's insane.

I am deadly serious. It's been a running joke among Isles fans that the day they were eliminated from playoff contention they'd hit for 2 empty netters per game, winning out the rest of the season. Or maybe I wrote that... Cynical bastard that I am. I had also said that either goalie would get tired of this shit and be the first to get an empty netter. THAT would have been awesome.

Every time they faced an extra attacker/empty net they either just weathered the storm, or gave up the tying and probably then the OT losing goal. It's been a very interesting season! But, you can't spell ENGvall without ENG.

The Bruins visit tomorrow. The Blues on Tuesday. Then it's off to the west coast. Sharks on Thursday, Ducks on Sunday, Kings on Monday, then back east at the Sabres on Thursday the 14th.

Still just on pace for 89 points. 23 games to play. They have to win 17 or 23 to hit the usual watermark of 98 points, or play at a .740 pace. They've played at like 0.598 so far this year. Could they do it? Yes. Is it likely? No.

_________________
Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.