Mike and Dan look back at a packed week of trades, wins, a season sweep and one terrible loss that makes an already daunting upcoming week for the Islanders even more scary.<\/p>\n
For five days last week, Islanders fans were feeling good. Three wins, two over the Rangers in a humiliating season sweep complete with chirps from a goofball kid who\u2019s already a star, and trades for Carson Soucy and Ondrej Palat that, while open to criticism, have yielded good early results. Then Saturday happened, when the Islanders played a sloppy, maddening game against the Nashville Predators at home and took a giant step back after three steps forward. It was the last thing we wanted to see with a huge slate coming up and an Olympic break looming that will put us all in stasis for three weeks.<\/p>\n
We look back at all of last week\u2019s games and ahead to games against the Capitals, Penguins and Devils to close out the pre-Olympic schedule. One against a team directly behind you, one against a team directly in front of you and one that should be easy on paper but might end up being necessary. It\u2019s a massive week that will tell us a lot about how the trade deadline might shape up. Of course, we said that before this week, too…<\/p>\n
Finally we look at an article that ranked NHL arena experiences and at UBS Arena\u2019s fair placement. It\u2019s a great venue with one huge issue keeping it from the league\u2019s upper echelon.<\/p>\n
Be sure to count the times Dan says he wants to talk about something and then just never does. This might be an all time record.<\/p>\n