See what happens when a team has almost a week off between games?  They wind up sliding in the standings from a division leader to losing home ice advantage in the playoffs.  Ah well, things will get made up and it’ll all work out in the end.  I just don’t like seeing them sitting in 5th in the conference is all.

Anyway, the parade of New York teams continues tonight with the Islanders coming in with a 5-3-2 record in their last 10 games after getting pummeled by the Oilers last night, 4-0.

And according to Alanah at Canucks & Beyond, it appears that Alex Edler might be sidelined with back spasms – yet another blow to the Canucks defensive corps.   Considering the number of players they’ve lost to injuries this season, you can’t say anything but good things about how the Canucks have stuck to the game plan and gone out and found ways to win.

Alanah’s also going to live blog the game tonight so if you want comment or contribute in some other way, she’s put the invitation out.

J.J. at the Canucks Hockey Blog writes about how a lot of what the Canucks are today is thanks to the Islanders.  It’s a great post, go have a read.

For myself, I’m going to call the Canucks to win this one 3-1.  Anyone else want to kick in with a prediction?

It’s kind of hard to get worked up over a two game winning streak, but here we are.  The sad thing is that it took until almost the middle of November for the Canucks to get their first streak.  If they’re going to start putting something together it has to start now.  The next six games are against Northwest Division teams, and if they could win four of the six they’d be in a good position.

The scary thing was that I walked out of the room with them up 1-0, came back five minutes later and all of a sudden they’re up 3-0.  Uh, what?  Byron Ritchie and Alex Burrows scored 16 seconds apart to seemingly put the game out of reach after Brendan Morrison put the puck in the net from what seemed like an almost impossible angle.

Penalty trouble in the third period almost did them in though, allowing the Flames to score twice in 33 seconds and get them back into the game.  But too little, too late, as they say, and the Canucks escaped with the victory.

Next up are the Avs, tonight at GM Place, where the Canucks have to start getting wins or there’s going to be riots.  And Alanah doesn’t want to have to deal with losses to Colorado.