Wednesday January 28

There were 4 games on the Wednesday night schedule. Former Islanders continue to contribute in at least half of the posted games, it seems, and this night was no exception as FIs tipped in their help in 2 of those contests. Here is a quick look:

A trio of FIs were involved in the scoring as the Calgary Flames dispensed of the visiting Buffalo Sabres 5-2. Calgary winger Todd Bertuzzi netted the game winning goal just over 7 minutes in to the 3rd Period to seal the victory. The second star of the night, Bert now has 12 goals and 20 assists for 32 points on 42 games. The game winner was his 4th of the season and the 34th of his career. The 4 game winners is the 2nd most Bertuzzi's has ever had in a single season and his most since he had 7 during the 2002-03 campaign while still with the Vancouver Canucks. Assisting on the game winner was defenseman Adrian Aucoin. Aucoin has 6 goals and 16 assists for 22 points on 47 games. He is riding a 5 game consecutive assist streak in which he has notched 6 helpers. The point scoring streak is his longest since December 13-21, 2007 when he scored 7 points (2 goals, 5 assists) over 5 games. Interestingly enough, the last Aucoin had assists in 5 straight was April 23-30, 2002 - Games 3-7 of the Isles' infamous 1st Round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2002 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Picking up most of the scoring load for the Sabres was center Tim Connolly who has been a man on fire as of late. TimCo scored a powerplay tally and added an assist to lead the Buffalo offensive attack. Connolly now has 8 goals and 7 assists for 15 points on 15 games. Over the last 5 games Connolly has notched an impressive 8 points (6 goals, 2 assists).

All-Star goaltender Roberto Luongo is flaming out really fast and is winless in his last 4 starts (0-2-2) thanks to another poor performance. Luongo stopped 33 of 37 shots as the Canucks were downed by the Nashville Predators 5-3 in Vancouver. Luongo's goals against average has swelled to 2.45 while his save percentage has nose-dived to .919. In many ways it appears that Luongo is not quite fully back to the 100% mark he claims to be. There is a lesson in all this to Current and Former Islander goaltenders alike: Do not claim to be in better shape than you really are because for all you know you will just end up shelved for the rest of the 2008-09 season after playing only 5 games... Ooh sorry, said too much!

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