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Bruins expectation, sports barbiturates, the final hurrah of the Islanders' dynasty

Sunday 5/12/24

I don't expect to see the Bruins win another game this season. You can't win if you're getting 3 or 4 shots per period. Here's a stat for you: Charlie McAvoy doesn't have a single shot on goal this series. Three games, no shots on goal. Move on from this player. Trade his dead, panic-y, overrated ass out of Boston.


The Red Sox won 4-2 yesterday to move a game back over .500. A season of thrilling mediocrity. There are quite a few games like this this year where they only give up a couple of runs. I look at the box score, and I'll see that they used five pitchers. That's depressing. It's like sports barbiturates. It has to be five? No one can go out and just be good at something and get it done? Everyone needs to have their balls gently cupped? I hate that. This guy goes five, this guy goes an inning and two thirds, this guy goes a third of an inning, this guys goes one, this other guy goes one. It's so nondescript and faceless and unheroic. How am I supposed to care about five guys pitching nine innings? What am I supposed to get excited about there? The first guy going five? Whoop de fucking do. So like by definition now, I can't get excited about pitching. And no one thinks that maybe this isn't so hot?


It was forty years ago today that the Islanders' dynasty had their last hurrah. To set the scene: They had won four Cups in a row and were facing the Oilers in the Finals. Yes, the Finals used to happen during the time in which we're now halfway through the second round. The Oilers were seen as being unable to get over the hump in general and over the Islanders hump in particular. They had been knocked out by the lowly Los Angeles Kings in 1982, then swept by the Islanders in the Finals in 1983. The Islanders were thought to be in the Oilers' heads, and Isles goalie Billy Smith was believed to be in Wayne Gretzky's.


The Islanders were actually better in the regular season in 1983-84 than they had been the year prior. The Finals opened with a goaltending battle for the ages, with the Oilers prevailing 1-0 behind Grant Fuhr's sterling performance in net. A 1-0 game at the time was pretty uncommon. Yes, the Oilers won, but you kind of felt like they only did so because of Fuhr and it was more of the same. Gretzky was just about invisible.


Come Game 2, and it's an Islanders beatdown, 6-1. All of the Islanders' stars were on the score sheet. Big games from Trottier, Bossy, Potvin. Gillies with the hat trick. Hall of Famers all, doing their thing, and Hall of Famer Smith in net shutting the door on the mighty Edmonton offense.


At the time, one would have likely been thinking that the Islanders were going to complete their so-called Drive for Five. That was the last game they won, though. The Oilers took the next three by scores of 7-2, 7-2, and 5-2. Not in doubt.


Shows how fast things can change. We look back on the series now, and it seems very one-sided, and there are those who think that Oilers team is the finest of all-time. But the Islanders could have won those first two games. Then what? If you were an Islanders fan, you would have felt good when this day was over in 1984. But that was going to be it. And ever since, really. There were these moments--the Easter Epic in 1987, beating the Penguins in 1993--but no serious title contention.


Here's the game, with Dan Kelly--who might be the best play-by-play guy ever--on the call.



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