Funny how when you're in 30th place, game day focus can be quickly overtaken by fairly non-shocking yet pot-stirring news.

Item: Joey MacDonald's prognosis is, as expected, 2-4 weeks.
Comment: Ruh-roh. Dubie, step on up for one more ride.

Item: Wade Dubielewicz (Dubie) has reached agreement to rejoin the Islanders.
Comment: Dubie is understandably a cult hero for Islanders fans -- yours truly included -- but don't expect him to save the day (what's to be saved, other than lottery position?). His aggressive style -- which compensates for his lack of size -- gets overexposed at the NHL level when teams see too much of him, and there is a reason he was bought out in Russia. Yann Danis, tonight is your chance. (Sorry it had to be against the 2nd-best team in the league.) MacDonald's play this year has looked a little better than I ever saw Dubie play. Ontario, Atlanta, St. Louis: y'all are fighting for lottery seconds, now.

Item: The Islanders will play a preseason game in Darth Anschutz's unoccupied Kansas City arena next season.
Comment: This is a PR move of convenience -- might the Islanders also hold part of training camp out west next year instead of Moncton? (Perhaps in Saskatoon, the host of the 2010 WJC?) -- but there is no major needle-moving meat or leverage in this.

It plays well locally, and unfortunately reinforces the Isles' existing rep nationally, but ultimately the complex issues on which the Lighthouse Project's fate resides are as much bureaucratic and procedural as they are political. This is a shot for the political side, but other things (environmental review) currently in process are also necessary hurdles. Like a lot of these examples, it's messy, it will probably get done -- it's a matter of how much one political obstacle in particular slows things down.

Regardless, AEG always wants someone to play in K.C. -- even if only preseason. Their "interests have aligned." Win-win, Islanders-Kings.