The Wolf Pack Does What The Rangers Can't

The Wolf Pack defeated the Tigers last night with a score of 3 - 2. This is more than the Rangers can muster as they have been 0 - 3 with the Islanders thus far this year. That being said, this sucks the Tigers under the .500 mark to 13 - 14 - 1 - 3 and a ten game streak of 3 - 7- 0 - 0.

Mark Wotton (his first) and Jeff Tambellini (16 - 14 - 30) scored the only goals for the Tigers with assists coming from Boguniecki, Nolan and Nielsen. The problem, as it has been for some time, was a lack of defense (we had 33 shots against) and a no-show offense (only 22 shots from us). I must admit, however, that the Tigers did not look bad tonight. They appeared to be one step closer to working as a team and showed no signs of giving up. It was encouraging.

If you were in the arena, and listened at several times during the game, the calls for Marshalls ouster are growing louder and coming from more people. Take some time to look at the impressive stats of all the players brought in at the beginning of the year, and then look at them now. It is rare that you see such a group of talented individuals drop so low when put together as a team.

I was speaking with "Silent Bob", one of my guest bloggers, and he brought up a great point. If this were back in the Mike Milbury days, Dan Marshall would have been gone already. Mike had a way with getting rid of the anchors that weighed us down. Mike, could you come back for a guest appearance just to get us someone who can coach? Those of us who saw Ted Nolan in the stands were hoping he would be called in to sub for this game.

The thing that few seem to have acknowledged is that Nolan is putting together a world class hockey team. Thus far, however, Marshall has done little, to nothing, to do the same. If the Tigers are supposed to be the pool that the Islanders pull from this is truly handicapping Nolan. I know that Ted would never hang his organization out to dry and admit that, but that's because he is a classy guy whose sole purpose is to win hockey games and he has to rely on Dan doing his job (which he is not).

During an Islanders game one night they had an interview with Radek Martinek and they asked him why he came out of his shell this year and is playing so well. He stated that Nolan has a way of coaching that makes you want to play better and he makes them feel like a team. For those of you naysayers who say that the coach doesn't have that much of an impact and that it is solely the players need only look at the Islanders to start eating your crow. It's time for Dan to go.

One final question, and I would love to hear from someone who can answer this, is why did he leave Mole in the game last night? Mole did a great job, and I am not saying he should have been pulled, but Dan pulled Thompson under the same circumstances less than a week ago. I would love to understand why he does what he does.

Well, let's see how we do against the Falcons this evening. The Phantoms are only 4 points behind us and we play the River Rats on Sunday and they are 4 point ahead of us. We need some victories. We are 12th in the division and only 5 points out of 8th place. The problem is tha those 5 points are looking awfully big right now.