Making Excuses is In Vogue for the 2009-2010 Season.

Be it Colin Campbell making excuses as to why action is hardly taken on borderline hits, such as the aforementioned one in Jeremy's previous post, or losing to the Islanders.

Yes, the Islanders had the game by the throat by the middle of the second period in last night's, truth be told, 5-0 romp of the Buffalo Sabres at Nassau Coliseum. While the Sabres are one of the hottest teams of the season, I want to note they've also played the fewest games in the NHL, the Islanders seemed to rub their faces in it last night. What's more is the Sabres up until last night, had given up the fewest even strength goals in the league, 9 to be exact. The Islanders managed to put up 4 goals against the Sabres last night, and scored the fifth and final goal, on the powerplay. What does this mean? Well, it could be that we haven't seen a large enough sample size of the Sabres to jump on the Sabres are hot wagon. I'm guilty of it myself, most teams seem to be cooling at this point, but the Islanders are heating up. They're actually meshing and playing like a team for the first time in a long time, so long, in fact, that I can't remember the last time they played this way.

Jeff Tambellini put up a hat trick, his first career hat trick, actually, last night. His previous high water mark was two goals in one game, oh yeah, that was actually on October 26th, of this year. What up surprise player of the year? It seems the Islanders are getting more scoring from their "secondary" scoring than from their primary scoring at this point. Tambellini is a surprise because it seemed earlier in the season he was going to show all this potential, and no production, as he's done throughout his career. He has points in three consecutive games at this point, which I think may be a career high for him as well, though that stat isn't handy to me right now. Who were the other scorers from the Isles you may ask? Why, it was Richard Park and JOSH BAILEY. Yes, Bailey finally found his stick scoring a goal, which most Islander fans have been dying for this season, seeing as how well he did at the tail end of last year, there's been high hopes for Bailey in Islander Country. John Tavares, Kyle Okposo and Matt Moulson were held to 0 points in 5 on 5 play and Okposo and Tavares tallied assists on Jeff Tambellini's third goal of the night. So the Islanders are getting scoring from players that aren't on their top lines and were still out shot 38-30.

Where are the excuses? Oh, just the Buffalo Sabres being flu ridden, the Caps didn't play to their full ability, and the Rangers didn't have Marion Gaborik. All of the teams out shot the Isles, but were not able to convert when they needed to, so why make excuses? Why not just admit you ran into a goaltender who wasn't going to let you beat him. Speaking of goalies, Martin Biron posted his 200th career win against his former team, and to make it sweeter, he shut them out. He didn't do it on his own, though, jumping to my mind most immediately was Radek Martinek making a beautiful save in the crease on Biron's behalf in the first period. It was good positioning by the Isles that beat the Sabres, not to mention, their winning seems less flukey this year than it did last, I think the Atlantic division is earning it's title as one of the toughest divisions in the east. The Isles are currently tied for points with the Flyers, and have a .500 record for the first time since the 2006-2007 season, when they went to the conference quarterfinals.

Of course, I'm not going to jump the gun and say the Isles are playoff bound just yet, but the chances are looking a lot better than they did last year. Well done, Islanders, when you end up having a winning record for a sustained amount of time, maybe only then, will other teams (and fans) show some respect. Attendance was horrible for the game last night, with the official number being 8,889, this number is punctuated by the fact that they were giving out free tickets to anyone under the age of 14 who showed up in costume. Hockey fans, take notice, I think the league just got a bit more competitive.