Take away a soft goal and a screen job and I think the Islanders played one of their best defensive games of the season.

Again, while the Islanders defense and goaltending had to carry the majority of the burden, the Islanders offense scored when they had to, with the majority of the offense coming from Josef Vasicek…again. What can I say about his play this season that I haven’t already said yet? Is a 25-season is his cards? What about 30? Let’s slow down a bit before we start making estimations though. All I know is that he’s scored a plethora of big goals this season. For the Islanders sake, let’s hope he keeps it up.

Speaking of big goals, Mike Sillinger played one of his best games so far this season and scored a goal in regulation and one in the shootout. Hopefully, his line starts to produce more and the Islanders can take some of the pressure off the defense. Even though they haven’t been producing offense, that line does produce shots and works hard in the corners, which play a big role in why the third line has been so effective. They get the offensive zone faceoffs and start the forecheck and Miroslav Satan and Vasicek take it from there. Nonetheless, these guys need to start putting points on the board.

The same thing goes for Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie, both of whom had a myriad of opportunities to put the puck in the net. Comrie, however, needs to start hitting the net more. Too many times tonight did he have golden opportunities and he couldn’t even get the puck on net. In order for the Isles to keep themselves in playoff position, Comrie is going to have to start scoring at a point a game pace again. If not, Brendan Witt and the rest of the Islanders defense are going to have a ton of black and blues by the time the season is over.

Close call- Radek Martinek looked like he got his face swiped by a skate in the second period. Luckily he came back and finished the game. Anyone that remembers how well he played last season before he got hurt knows how important he is the team. Losing him down the stretch was almost as big as Rick DiPietro’s concussion problems.

Speaking of DP’s head problems, what exactly was he thinking in overtime running out there like that? For all the maturing he’s done this season, every once in a while he goes and does something like that and I want to chain him into the net so he can’t go anywhere. When is he going to understand that he is completely useless if he suffers a few more concussions? Luckily however, he didn’t hurt himself and turned in another solid game.

With the win, the Islanders are now only one point behind the Rangers with two games in hand. What does that mean exactly? Tomorrow is going to be one heck of a big game.