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Those of us in the Lighthouse Hockey Power Rankings Situation Room will be taking a break next week, and all one of me is excited to have the time off. Much like certain Isles players this season, I'll be a passenger, traveling from one family house to another. Speaking of passengers, let's get on the Bash the Isles freight train:
Weekly Roundup of Merry ol' Opinion Polls
| Date | Prior | |||
| Site | Published | Ranking | Ranking | Comments |
| CBS | 12/16/2013 | 29 | 29 | Somehow the Isles managed to get a win in San Jose, of all places, but have gone right back to the skids, having lost 12 of 13. January can't come soon enough. |
| ESPN | 12/16/2013 | 30 | 29 | The Isles have one win in 13 games. That's the kind of effort that drops you to the very bottom of the rankings. The question is, where is this team's bottom? |
| TSN | 12/17/2013 | 29 | 28 | It's been more than a month since the Islanders' last regulation win and they've scored more than two goals once in the last 11 games. |
| Fox Sports | 12/11/2013 | 28 | 25 | GOOD NEWS: Top offensive prospect Ryan Strome earned his call-up by tearing up the AHL. BAD NEWS: Pierre-Marc Bouchard’s grim struggle prompted the team to put him on waivers. Not surprisingly, nobody claimed him. BOTTOM LINE: The Islanders went 2-13-2 in their last 17 games and didn’t fire Jack Capuano. That is astounding. |
| Sports Illustrated | 12/17/2013 | 30 | 30 | The Isles snapped a pair of 10-game losing streaks—on the road as well as consecutive—with last Tuesday's 3-2 shootout win over the Sharks, then promptly dropped their next two matches, reassuring everyone that they're still as lousy as ever, thanks largely to an offense that has mustered only 11 goals this month. |
| SB Nation | 12/12/2013 | 29 | 28 | In four games last week the Islanders ran the gauntlet of four road games against St. Louis, then the three Californian teams. For a team struggling as badly as the Islanders are, getting out of that crazy schedule with one win, even in a shootout, should probably be considered positive. Only 9 wins on the season though, ouch. |
| Average | 29.2 | 28.2 | We can write something about San Jose! |
Well, I guess I can put many of the publications on the nice list for even finding something positive to say about the Isles at all. Except for Scrooge McESPN, of course.
LHH's Yuletide Power Rankings
| W | L | OTL | Pts | PWR | ||
| 1 | St. Louis | 22 | 6 | 4 | 48 | 2239 |
| 2 | Colorado | 22 | 9 | 1 | 45 | 2171 |
| 3 | San Jose | 20 | 7 | 6 | 46 | 2132 |
| 4 | Chicago | 24 | 7 | 5 | 53 | 2101 |
| 5 | Anaheim | 23 | 7 | 5 | 51 | 2080 |
| 6 | Los Angeles | 22 | 8 | 4 | 48 | 2050 |
| 7 | Boston | 22 | 9 | 2 | 46 | 1987 |
| 8 | Phoenix | 18 | 9 | 5 | 41 | 1949 |
| 9 | Pittsburgh | 24 | 10 | 1 | 49 | 1940 |
| 10 | Vancouver | 20 | 10 | 5 | 45 | 1849 |
| 11 | Minnesota | 19 | 11 | 5 | 43 | 1828 |
| 12 | Tampa Bay | 19 | 11 | 3 | 41 | 1785 |
| 13 | Montreal | 20 | 12 | 3 | 43 | 1653 |
| 14 | Nashville | 16 | 14 | 3 | 35 | 1635 |
| 15 | Dallas | 15 | 12 | 5 | 35 | 1587 |
| 16 | Washington | 18 | 12 | 3 | 39 | 1562 |
| 17 | Carolina | 14 | 13 | 7 | 35 | 1525 |
| 18 | Detroit | 15 | 11 | 9 | 39 | 1505 |
| 19 | Winnipeg | 15 | 15 | 5 | 35 | 1458 |
| 20 | Toronto | 17 | 15 | 3 | 37 | 1444 |
| 21 | New Jersey | 13 | 15 | 6 | 32 | 1380 |
| 22 | Calgary | 13 | 15 | 5 | 31 | 1363 |
| 23 | Florida | 12 | 17 | 5 | 29 | 1333 |
| 24 | Ottawa | 14 | 15 | 6 | 34 | 1315 |
| 25 | NY Rangers | 16 | 17 | 1 | 33 | 1311 |
| 26 | Columbus | 14 | 16 | 4 | 32 | 1250 |
| 27 | Philadelphia | 14 | 15 | 4 | 32 | 1229 |
| 28 | NY Islanders | 9 | 19 | 6 | 24 | 1064 |
| 29 | Edmonton | 11 | 21 | 3 | 25 | 1019 |
| 30 | Buffalo | 7 | 23 | 3 | 17 | 743 |
That win over the Sharks did quite a bit of good, and keeps the boys off the ultimate naughty list, for now.
Standings' Greetings from an Alternate Universe
| Atlantic | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
| Boston | 18 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 64 |
| Montreal | 17 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 60 |
| Detroit | 14 | 1 | 9 | 11 | 53 |
| Tampa Bay | 12 | 7 | 3 | 11 | 53 |
| Toronto | 11 | 6 | 3 | 15 | 48 |
| Ottawa | 11 | 3 | 6 | 15 | 45 |
| Florida | 8 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 37 |
| Buffalo | 2 | 5 | 3 | 23 | 19 |
| Metropolitan | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
| Pittsburgh | 21 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 70 |
| NY Rangers | 14 | 2 | 1 | 17 | 47 |
| Carolina | 12 | 2 | 7 | 13 | 47 |
| Washington | 8 | 10 | 3 | 12 | 47 |
| Philadelphia | 13 | 1 | 4 | 15 | 45 |
| Columbus | 12 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 44 |
| New Jersey | 9 | 4 | 6 | 15 | 41 |
| NY Islanders | 5 | 4 | 6 | 19 | 29 |
| Central | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
| Chicago | 20 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 73 |
| St. Louis | 18 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 66 |
| Colorado | 17 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 62 |
| Minnesota | 15 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 58 |
| Nashville | 15 | 1 | 3 | 14 | 50 |
| Dallas | 11 | 4 | 5 | 12 | 46 |
| Winnipeg | 9 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 44 |
| Western | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
| Anaheim | 19 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 70 |
| Los Angeles | 14 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 62 |
| San Jose | 15 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 61 |
| Vancouver | 14 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 59 |
| Phoenix | 13 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 54 |
| Calgary | 7 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 38 |
| Edmonton | 7 | 4 | 3 | 21 | 32 |
This one, more than any other gauge above, is what really hits home, despite it being only a "what if" experiment. The Isles would be four regulation wins behind seventh place. I was about to write that it would only be three by the end of tonight (Tuesday night), but the Isles just managed to hand the Lightning a gift with less than four seconds to go in regulation ('tis the season, after all!).
OK that's it for now. Hopefully one more rankings post will happen before the New Year, but just in case that can't happen, please forget about our team for a few days and try to have a happy holidays, OK?
Cheers!
