It's no saving grace for DiPietro

Wallace Matthews, there's nobody in the business worse than you.

I bet Matthews hated when hockey had ties and now that a team actually wins the game, he hates that too.

What a clown.

Mr. I-know-the-pulse-of-the-public !! If he ever read the Ranger and Islander boards, he would know the true hockey fans do not like the shootout. this guy is a total putz.

Go teach high school english you bum!(Wallace Mathhews you suck!)

ETR wrote:

Mr. I-know-the-pulse-of-the-public !! If he ever read the Ranger and Islander boards, he would know the true hockey fans do not like the shootout. this guy is a total putz.

One might say.........er......oh, I don't know..........perhaps 'poison'?

ETR wrote:

Mr. I-know-the-pulse-of-the-public !! If he ever read the Ranger and Islander boards, he would know the true hockey fans do not like the shootout. this guy is a total putz.

ETR

You too? I hate it. It makes no sense and if you're gonna do it, only the winner gets points. I don't like that way either but it's better than the current system. I really don't have a problem w/ a tie.

Very nice article....DiPi looked great last night and as a huge Isles fan was very proud of his performance.....we almost stole that game away from the Rangers......Thursday night should be another great game.

Matthews is right on here, especially about the travesty called the shootout. One of these days the teams are going to wake up and realize that the current NHL administration is sanitizing and dumbing-down the game into oblivion. And what is all this marketing to children really about? They are just a revenue stream who whine for overpriced "food" and souvenirs at arenas, and are indulged by their spineless yuppie parents. I say the NHL needs to do the following: 1) Get rid of the shootout; if a game remains tied after a 5-minute overtime, so be it. 2)Stop picking on goaltenders ... get rid of that trapezoid monstrosity, and let up on their equipment. 3) Get rid of the instigator penalty; this will REDUCE violence by allowing the players to police their game more effectively. I'd rather see 1,000 fights than one player maimed by a cheap shot by a coward. 4) Announce restrictions on mascots, like confining them to a concourse or other area while play is in progress. I don't travel >2 hours each way to see Sparky.

I've gotta disagree with this piece. The days when ties were part of the game weren't that long ago, so most fans understand the comparitive differences between the game then, and the game now.

As for Rick's record, the game goes down as an OTL, not just an L. People often times, myself included, lose sight of the fact that an OTL is totally different from in an L in that A) You get a point, and B) Like you said, it's not necessarily the product of the game itself. Sooner or later most fans will come to the understanding that OTLs are not indicitive of the teams performance.

But either way, the truth is Rick is set for life. His contract is signed and ready to go for the next 15 years, so the truth is the "numbers" are nothing more than just that. They don't need to serve as anything more than relatively unimportant statistics. Rick's legacy will not be judged by his overall record, but rather how many Stanley Cups he wins, and no shoot out can ever decide that.

Very interesting article, though.