AUTHOR: The Maven TITLE: What more can I do? DATE: 11/07/2006 03:53:00 PM ----- BODY:

DUNHAM'S LOST ISLAND Well, I gave it my best for Mike Dunham. I plugged and plugged and plugged to have him starting in goal for the Islanders. As a matter of fact, so did Nassau Coliseum fans who chanted for the vet goalie on Saturday night while Rick DiPietro was losing to the Thrashers. So, in goes Dunham on Monday night and out goes another Islanders victory; this time a 5-1 rout at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning. What went wrong – apart from Dunham not producing a W? Obviously, one goal is not enough if the other team is going to get at least two. More importantly it was careless penalties that did Dunham in. In a tightly contested game, in which Dunham looked sharp in the first, two key penalties in the second period, reversed any momentum Alexei Zhitnik's late first period goal gave the Isles. First, Martin St. Louis converted on a holding the stick penalty assessed to Richard Park. Then the Isles took a too many men on the ice penalty, resulting in a Filip Kupa power play goal. And more important than that is the challenge before Ted Nolan. After the debacle he used the Q word – quit – in describing his team's performance once the Lightning powered to a 3-1 lead. What's more, he's seeing first hand the dismaying ennui that too often characterizes Viktor Kozlov's play and helps explain why the large Russian is no longer a Devil. Give Nolan credit for candor. His response to the booing fans was as straight forward as could be; they deserved to boo his team. "That was worse than a clunker," he said. "The most frustrating part was that we seemed to quit. You can get ‘outskilled,' but when you quit that's another story. "When they got up 3-1, we looked like we didn't want to fight back. We played so well in Jersey that we thought it was going to be easy." Confronted with a five game road trip, Nolan will get an opportunity to prove that he has the goods to stimulate a slightly slumping club before it gets too late. To put the game out of reach, Kuba would convert again in the third period when Sean Bates was sent to the box for hooking. So how much blame goes to Dunham? Not much.... But that's hockey, so expect to see DiPietro in net on Thursday at Philadelphia.

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THE FIRST BIG TEST FOR HENNY For the time being, the term "King" has been removed from Henrik Lundqvist's resume. He's Henny The Goalie for now and on Wednesday night in Florida, it will be Comeback Time for the embattled Rangers stopper – or will it? That's the question as the season becomes more serious by the week and it seems evident that there will be few patsies around in the East this year as there was last semester; as demonstrated by Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington last year. The Kevin Weekes experiment was successful; no question. Tom Renney's so-called backup pulled five out of a possible six points out of his three games. That's good in my book; especially since the one OT loss was to Buffalo. Lundqvist hasn't felt this kind of sophomore – show me! – pressure before. It will be most interesting to see how he delivers. Personally, I like his comeback chances. But the best news of all from Rangerville comes from Jaromir Jagr, who insists that his surgically repaired shoulder suffered no damage from what appeared to be a dangerous fall Sunday night at the Garden.

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DEVILS AND DETERMINATION Facing Stanley Cup champion Carolina on Tuesday night at the Meadowlands, the Devils need only hark back to an early season game last year in Jersey to inspire themselves tonight. Yup, it was against the Canes and the 6-1 loss was a borderline disaster. Tuesday night's game at the Meadowlands affords Captain Patrik Elias an excellent opportunity to begin scoring goals in the manner which Devils fans had become accustomed. For a low scoring team, seven goals in their last four games, the Devils desperately need a hot stick from their captain, particularly with Scott Gomez on the shelf with a groin injury. Needless to say nobody has to remind Elias of his roll. "Would I like to have more goals? Yeah," he said. "Does this team need me to score more goals? Yeah, because maybe we would have won more games or we could have had easier games sometimes. "I know I'm going to get going, I really do." Tuesday night vs. Carolina will tell.

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