Saturday Preview: Busy Night For Battle Teams

October 17, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

As I sip my fave French Vanilla cappachino on another dreary cold mid-October day with Game Two of the ALCS supposed to go off before 8 between the Yankees and Rally Monkeys, it feels more like late November with Winter on the cusp.

How could they play ball in this? Well, it certainly wasn’t a problem for CC (Cash Cow) Sabathia, who mowed down the Angels who resembled the Mets. Perhaps classic East coast weather can do that to a California team. I’m hoping the Yanks will make it two straight if the rain holds off.

Enough October baseball talk. So, it’s also another busy hockey Saturday with all four Battle teams in action. On a night that my favorite player Alex Kovalev makes his return to Montreal in the odd Sen jersey, we’ll certainly be glued towards how the Devils, Islanders, Rangers and Sabres fare tonight. There are a lucky 13 games to choose from depending on where you are. If you live here and want to catch Buffalo, you’re probably out of luck due to Dolan. Here being Staten Island and Cablevision. Man, I hate that man.

Be that as it may, let’s take a closer look at the Battle games that all start in less than half an hour:

Canes-Devils- Nothing beats a first round rematch between these close rivals. We don’t have to remind Kool Aid drinkers how the Spring went. So, the Devils have plenty of incentive to exact a measure of revenge against the Candy Canes for how they broke their hearts. Plus there’s that odd home/road thing in which they’ve yet to win at The Rock. Something tells me MB30 will lead the team to a big win following last night’s stinker.

Rangers-Leafs- Tort shouldn’t need to remind his team that the Leafs are still winless with this game the only one in the schedule for them to change that. They’ll be out for blood against the surprising Rangers, who lead the league in offense. On paper, it looks like a mismatch but the road club wasn’t sharp until the third earlier this week against a team that ran King Henrik. We’ll see if they come out ready.

Sharks-Islanders- The Islanders will need to be at their best against a more rested San Jose club that dropped the first of a five-game road trip in D.C. The Sharks are a weird team given all the talent that now includes Dany Heatley. Yet they’re .500 having scored one goal the past two games including an OT shutout loss to the Coyotes. You have to figure they’ll be firing from every angle against Martin Biron, who should get the call following Dwayne Roloson’s clunker last night. John Tavares has played well but his line needs help if they want to crack the win department.

Thrashers-Sabres- Buffalo puts their 4-0-1 mark on the line against the surprising Thrashers (3-1), who enter fresh off a 4-2 win at Newark. Funny enough but the key contributors were Rich Peverley and Ondrej Pavelec along with sparkling rookie Evander Kane. That’s probably bad news for the Sabres, who never seem to be able to slow down Ilya Kovalchuk. They’ll also see a familiar face in Maxim Afinogenov, who you know will want to have a big night. Patrick Lalime gets the call. Not surprisingly, our Buffalo contingent has guaranteed an Atlanta win. Can Lalime keep it going? We’d love to see it just for Bri’s reaction.