Tavares scores twice as Islanders handle Canucks

Hockey Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - Vancouver, BC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rookie John Tavares posted two goals and three assists to lead the New York Islanders to a 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks at GM Place.

Matt Moulson added a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who have won three straight following a four-game winless skid. Dwayne Roloson was strong with 35 saves, while Dylan Reese and Freddy Meyer also scored for the victors.

With 67 points and 12 games remaining in the season, the Eastern Conference playoff race is taking shape with the Islanders on the outside looking in. New York sits seven points behind the current eighth-seeded Boston Bruins.

Kyle Wellwood and Alexandre Burrows scored for the Canucks, who saw their seven-game home win streak halted and failed to record at least one point for only the second time since the Olympic break (6-2-1). Roberto Luongo allowed four goals on 12 shots through two periods before being pulled in favor of Andrew Raycroft, who ended with seven saves.

After Colorado's win in St. Louis earlier Tuesday, Vancouver's lead atop the Northwest Division was trimmed to three points.

The Islanders opened the scoring at the 6:22 mark of the first period on Reese's first career goal. The rookie defenseman held control at the centerpoint and released a wrist shot that made its way through traffic and past Luongo.

A roughing minor called on Vancouver's Mikael Samuelsson at 11:29 led to New York's second goal.

Only 16 seconds into the power play, Tavares scored his 19th goal of the season. He held control along the goal line to the right of the net and passed to Blake Comeau in the low slot. Comeau's one-timer was saved, but the rebound was put home by Tavares from the right post.

Moulson, who had earlier in the game hit the post with a wrister from the left circle, lit the lamp at the 15:30 mark of the second period for a 3-0 Isles lead. From the bottom of the right circle, Tavares' blind backhand pass perfectly found the stick of Moulson, who redirected it into the back of the net from the top of the crease.

However, only 65 seconds later, Wellwood cut the Vancouver deficit to two.

Exactly two minutes after Wellwood's tally, the hosts drew within 3-2 via Burrow's 32nd tally of the campaign. The play was made possible by Daniel Sedin, who held control behind the net and sent a beautiful backhand pass from a sharp angle to the cutting Burrows, whose backhander from the goal mouth beat Roloson.

New York regained its two-goal advantage with eight seconds remaining before the second intermission. Tavares streaked down the right-wing side and attempted a stuffer at the near post. The puck trickled past Luongo's far pad and deflected off the leg of Meyer, who was falling down in the crease.

Roloson was solid down the stretch and stopped all nine shots he faced throughout the final stanza before Tavares' empty-netter capped the scoring.

Game Notes

The Isles halted their nine-game road skid...Despite the loss, Vancouver is still 25-8-1 at home this season...The last Islanders victory in Vancouver was on March 19, 1999...New York was 1-for-4 on the power play and held the hosts without a goal on both of their chances with the extra skater.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.