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02/19/2007 - Uniondale, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Sillinger scored with 26.8 seconds to play, as the New York Islanders handed the Pittsburgh Penguins their first loss in regulation in over a month with a 6-5 win at Nassau Coliseum.
With time winding down in the third, Sidney Crosby set up Mark Recchi for a one-timer from the low right side, on which Rick DiPietro made a save.
The Islanders skated back down the ice on transition and, from the top of the right circle, Andy Hilbert sent a pass to Sillinger, who, from the slot, used Mark Eaton as a screen and snapped a shot on net. Marc-Andre Fleury slowed down the puck with his glove, but it retained enough momentum to trickle into the net with 26.8 to play.
Pittsburgh pulled Fleury from the net but was only able to get one shot on net, and the Islanders gave the home crowd a victory.
"It was a big win. Obviously any time you outscore Pittsburgh something is going right," said Sillinger.
Chris Simon scored two goals and Randy Robitaille added three assists for the Islanders, who have won three of their last four contests.
Rick DiPietro stopped 25 shots in the win for New York, which, with 66 points, is in a three-way tie with Toronto and Montreal for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.
Ryan Malone notched his second-career hat trick, Mark Recchi had two goals and three assists, and Sidney Crosby added four assists for the Penguins, who lost in regulation for the first time since January 10 and went 14-0-2 during that run.
"I think our mistakes were just big mistakes and the puck ended up in our net," said Crosby.
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 24 shots for Pittsburgh, which has 73 points and moved into fourth place in the Eastern Conference thanks to the streak.
Pittsburgh broke a 4-4 tie just 48 seconds into the third period when Crosby flicked a shot on net from the right circle on which DiPietro made a save, but the rebound went right to the slot and on his second attempt Malone got the puck into the back of the net for a 5-4 win.
However, the Islanders tied the game a little over a minute later when Robitaille fed a pass from the left point to the top of the right circle and Simon blasted the disc into the left corner of the net.
The Penguins grabbed a 1-0 lead just 45 seconds in when Malone grabbed a loose puck out of the air, laid it on the ice and shot it between the pads of DiPietro.
The Islanders tied the game on the power play when Arron Asham sent a pass from the right boards to the high slot where Viktor Kozlov shot it under the right pad of Fleury with 5:11 left in the first.
However, Pittsburgh scored the next two goals to assume a 3-1 lead.
Shortly after a 5-on-3 advantage expired, Crosby sent a pass between the legs of two defenders from the left side of the net to the right side where Recchi tapped it in with just 49 seconds left in the first.
In the second period Malone tucked in a wraparound attempt from the right side of the net just 49 seconds in. The play was reviewed to see if the puck crossed the goal line, and after a lengthy review the goal was awarded.
New York, though, responded with three goals to grab a 4-3 lead.
Simon scored his first goal in 26 games when he accepted a pass from Robitaille at the inside of the left circle and redirected it into the net 2:03 into the second.
Just 15 seconds later on a delayed call Jason Blake banged an errant shot out of the air and into the net to tie the game.
A little less than six minutes later Kozlov snapped a shot from the right circle that Fleury saved, but Miroslav Satan pounced on the rebound and banged the puck into the net for his 21st goal of the year.
Recchi, though, tied the game when he banged in a loose puck during a 5-on-3 advantage with 1:59 remaining in the second.
Game Notes
Both of Malone's hat tricks have come against the Islanders, with the last one occurring on December 15...The Islanders host the Maple Leafs on Thursday...Pittsburgh travels to Tampa Bay for a contest on Thursday...The Penguins went 2-for-5 on the power play, while New York finished 1- for-3...Marc-Andre Bergeron, who the Islanders acquired on Sunday from the Edmonton Oilers, had two assists in his debut with New York.
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My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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