FanHouse TrentHunter

The New York Islanders, playing without Trent Hunter, Kyle Okposo, Dean McAmmond, and Andy Hilbert were simply in over their heads on Tuesday night against the runaway locomotive that is the Carolina Hurricanes, falling 9-0. Amazingly, the score isn't the most incredible series of numbers to come out of this game.

Honestly, we haven't seen a hockey game this one-sided since the Slovakia Women's National Team annihilated Bulgaria, 82-0, earlier this year. OK, maybe it wasn't quite that bad.

Flames 5, Flyers 1: The Calgary Flames were the big winners during the NHL's trade deadline, picking up Olli Jokinen from the Phoenix Coyotes and Jordan Leopold from the Colorado Avalanche. It didn't take the two newcomers long to make an impact for the Flames, as they each scored in the first period of Calgary's 5-1 win in Philadelphia.

Jokinen scored a pair of goals in the first period, while Leopold added his seventh of the season to help the Flames race out to a 4-0 lead.

Islanders 4, Avalanche 2: Monday night was the worst case scenario for the Versus "game of the week." The only game on the NHL's schedule featured the worst team in the Western Conference, the Colorado Avalanche, taking on the worst team in the NHL, the New York Islanders.

Combine two disappointing teams with the fact New York is under a foot of snow, and you had two bad teams playing in front of about 14,000 empty seats. Oh, and the Islanders won, 4-2.

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.

The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.

Mike Sillinger, Kyle Okposo, Blake Comeau and Mike Comrie scored for the Islanders.

Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.

Montreal Canadiens defenseman Ryan O'Byrne has yet to score a goal this season, and thus far, only has one in his brief NHL career. Unfortunately for Montreal, the 24-year old rearguard scored on his own net with just under five-minutes to play in regulation on Monday night, sending the game to overtime. The own-goal proved to be costly for Montreal, as the Islanders took the game in a shootout, 4-3, picking up the extra point and winning for the fifth time in their past six games.

The O'Byrne gaffe happened on a delayed penalty call, which led to Canadiens goalie Carey Price heading to the bench for the extra-attacker. O'Byrne, unfortunately, sent the puck backwards toward the yawning net -- as seen in the above video -- tying the game at three, much to the chagrin of the Bell Centre crowd.

Seriously, that's just painful to watch. O'Byrne instantly covered his face and looked like he wanted to dig a hole in the ice and crawl out of the arena. What do you even say after that?

Islanders forward Bill Guerin was credited for what will surely be the easiest goal of his career.

Richard Park and Trent Hunter scored the other goals for the Islanders, while Steve Begin, John Gorges and Maxim Lapierre scored for Montreal.

Trent Hunter and the Islanders recently went to arbitration, with the arbiter ruling half-way and giving Hunter a $1.55mil/1 season contract. This is a workable and fair number for both sides. Hunter is an industrious worker bee who hits almost everything that moves.

What has always puzzled me is just how Hunter has failed to build on a successful rookie season, whereby he merited some serious Calder Trophy consideration.

 SEASON  GP  G  A  PTS
 2003-04 77  25 26  51
 2005-06 82  16 19  35
 2006-07 77  20 15  35
  

During his rookie season, Hunter was a 1-man force of nature. He would put onto any line that was struggling, and give them a boost with his hard work, strength in the corners, and ability to do the dirty work. It looked like Hunter had a bright future ahead of him as a bonafide 2nd line powerhouse.