Good night: Y’know who’s pretty good is this Tavares kid
The Lead
Admittedly I don’t watch many Islander games. Something about how boring it is to watch a one-line team get beat in ways that are, on a night-in-night-out basis, not very interesting. Any time I do happen across an Isles game, it seems like they’re playing juuuust badly enough to be out of reach of their opponents; two- and three-goal deficits, that kinda thing.
And such was the case tonight when I had no choice but to watch their game because that was the only thing on at 7 o’clock. I had literally no interest in a Habs/Sens game that started a half hour later because I didn’t if Alex Kovalev got booed for leaving (even though he’s worse now than he was in Montreal so I don’t see why Habs fans would care). Same for Canucks/Predators at 8, talk about two boring-ass teams.
And so I figured, sure, why not? If nothing else someone’s going to get blown out and the game could get pretty scrappy much to Peter Laviolette’s chagrin. So okay. Flyers/Isles it is. I don’t have a rooting interest. Off we go. If nothing else, this Johnny Tavares kid has been getting his tires pumped a lot this season so maybe I’ll just sit down and watch him all night.
I did, and he was, I think, better than advertised. Really. Because it wasn’t so much that this was some sort of vulgar display of skill out of the kid. He did alright, got around a few guys, all that. It was more that this kid’s, what, 18 or 19 and he’s just the focal point of the whole game when he hops over the boards. Everything runs through him, and he just has this cool nonchalance about it. “Oh no big deal I’m instantly the best player on this awful team that stinks.”
We’ve seen that before. Some kids named Crosby and Ovechkin. Remember how bad the pre-lockout Penguins were? Dick Tarnstrom led them in scoring. With 52 points. And then the pre-lockout Capitals. Hoo boy. Fire sale. Four of their final top five scorers got traded mid-season, and Jeff Halpern had the most points of anyone that stuck around. With 46. And the Islanders last year? Mark Streit led them in scoring with 56 points.
I’m not saying Tavares is even close to being on the same plane as Sid Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Their talent is off the charts and Tavares is merely well above average. But what I do think is that he’s going to mean the same thing to the Islanders that Crosby and Ovechkin have meant to Pittsburgh and Washington. He’s a franchise-saver. For sure.
If you had the misfortune of swinging by Nassau Colosseum for the equally-unpleasant pastime of watching an Islander game, I imagine you’d find that they’ve already sold a metric assload of Tavares jerseys and shirts. People now care slightly more about the Islanders than they did on this date last year. And while that might be damning Tavares with faint praise, it’s at least something. That franchise will take anything it can get at this point, I’m sure.
And hey, he’s making his team better on top of all that. Sure, the Islanders were trailing 4-0 when he got his back-to-back power play goals, but that’s not his fault. At some point his teammates have to pick up some of the slack. He can only score so many Johnny-on-the-Spot goals per game and can only do so much.
Hell, he’s making Matt Moulson look like he shouldn’t be a third-line guy on a bad KHL team. And that’s plenty.
Elsewhere…
Montreal 4, Ottawa 1
How bad must the Senators be if even Montreal is lighting them up? When’s the last time Jason Spezza scored a freaking goal? Actually I’m gonna go look that up. … Turns out his last goal was on Saturday. Fine. But he only has three this year, so I feel justified in being bewildered by how little I’ve heard his name even in passing this season.
Nashville 4, Vancouver 2
Ryan Kesler’s “rock bottom” speech after they got clowned by the Hurricanes Sunday afternoon has clearly fallen on deaf ears. Giving up a hat trick to Martin Erat? That’s two hat tricks by two mediocre players (the other being Erik Cole) in two games. They have the Thrashers on Thursday. What kind of odds will you give me on a Chris Thorburn hattie?
Anaheim 4, Dallas 3 (OT)
I forgot this game was on and then when I went to NHL.com to check the box scores I was like “oh crap they’re in overtime” and I turned it on just in time to see Saku Koivu carry into the zone on a 3-on-1 and I was like “oh this isn’t going to end well” and then he shot and followed his rebound and scored on the backhand and I was like “yeah I think I saw everything I needed to.”
