Watching last night’s game reminded me of Mariano Rivera. What? Yes, last night’s performance by Wade Dubielewicz and the Islanders defense reminded me of how bad Rivera was in 1995, when he was a starter and not the amazingly talented closer that’s destined for the Hall of Fame once he retires [and this is from a life-long Mets fan]. It seems whenever Dubielewicz starts a game this season, the Islanders defense takes a vacation and he isn’t as sharp as he is when he comes in after DP gets rocked or injured.

Seeing this situation unfold numerous times this season has forced me to propose a weird question. Is there any way the Islanders can bring in Dubie for the last two periods and have Joey MacDonald play net until he’s ready? Nah, I’m just joking. What would be better though is if the Isles could have stayed out of the penalty box last night and played better defense against the Dany Heatley, Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza line. As a matter of fact, the Isles couldn’t even play decent defense last night when they were on the powerplay. How many shorthanded goals is this team going to have to give up before they start clamping down and stop taking short cuts on defense?

I don’t know how you guys feel this, but every time I see the Isles give up a shorthanded goal, I want to either throw my size 15 and a half Starbury’s at the TV screen or throw a temper tantrum like Eric Cartman.

But I digress.

Martin Gerber didn’t make things easier for the Isles either, as he made a plethora of quality saves, stifling the Isles attack before it could really get started. Bill Guerin did manage to get a couple of goals, but considering how bad the defense was, it didn’t matter. For most of the game, the Isles weren’t able to cash in on second chance opportunities and get traffic I front of the net. With DiPietro, Radek Martinek and Ruslan Fedotenko all nursing injuries and Shawn Bates now out for the year, the Islanders are going to have to step up their play big time over the next few games. That means everyone from Blake Comeau to Mike Comrie is going to have to basically go for broke until DiPietro and Martinek come back healthy.

Lets be honest here, those two are the Islanders two best defensive players and without them, this team is slightly mediocre. With them, they have great goaltending and an uber solid defensive pairing with Brendan Witt that can keep elite players off the scoreboard. Thankfully, both of these injuries aren’t severe and the two could be back by Saturday. If not though, expect the Devils game to be another stinker if the Isles don’t wake up and play defense.