Islanders at Canadiens: Mourning Mike Bossy [Game #74]

The New York Islanders are in Montreal to face the Canadiens tonight, the back end of one of four back-to-backs they have in this compressed month to finish out this crappy season.

I bumped our news roundup this morning as the news of Mike Bossy’s passing came across. Nothing felt appropriate other than to mourn and pay tribute in the thread around Dan’s touching tribute to the greatest sniper of all time.

Maybe it’s fitting that the Isles are in Quebec on this day, with the passing of their Montreal-born legend? No, nothing is fitting about this. Mike Bossy is dead at age 65, three months after Clark Gillies passed and a month after Jean Potvin.

I know they’re all in “that” age range but it still feels wrong. (And if you’ve been touched by cancer, which odds are you probably have, you know the helpless frustration the Bossy family and others must be feeling.) I guess I’m glad these guys got to see the Islanders rebound as a franchise the last few years and give us not-unreasonable dreams of a fifth Cup the last to postseasons.

This season has sucked in so many ways. But hockey marches on, and the Isles are in Montreal to face the Canadiens tonight. Carey Price is expected to make his long-awaited return for the Canadiens. Expect the Isles to use Semyon Varlamov.

Leave First Islanders Goal picks here. Here’s the official site game notes. Some reactions from the Isles below.

Hug your loved ones, and try to take joy from the game like Gillies, Potvin and Bossy did.