Canada just won the World Junior Championships, just as we all knew they would. Congrats to the Canadian team for their victory. There are two Islanders-related points to be made here.
First, should the Islanders end up with the first overall pick, they'll clearly be selecting John Tavares, and if they don't, I don't know if I can follow them anymore. If they somehow talk themselves out of taking this kid, they're worse off than we all think. Remember, Tavares probably would have been the first overall pick last year, only he just barely missed the cutoff for the Draft and couldn't be selected. Tavares is just toying with the people at his level. He probably could step right into the NHL and play pretty well; given the Islanders' attendance problems, that's exactly what will happen.
Second, in response to the controversy over whether Josh Bailey should have played in this tournament... well, he probably should have. That's big-game experience in a big-time environment, and even if that experience won't be drawn upon for a couple of years, it's nice for your first-round pick to have that kind of background. Still, he scored his first goal while the tournament was going on, so it's hard to argue with that. You can look at it either way, but players only get to play in the World Juniors once. They can score their first NHL goal anytime. Not saying Garth Snow made a bad decision, but there's an intangible trait acquired from a tournament such as this that isn't learned losing night after night on the road.
Anyway, the Isles are already up 2-0 in Edmonton in another West Coast game. Zach likes these West Coast games, as he stated a few weeks back. Me, I can't stand them. I end up staying up too late and hating myself for it in the morning. But huge kudos go to MSG Plus for broadcasting these games in HD when they could easily choose to leave the HD equipment back at home. It makes watching these games a lot more bearable.
Oh, and Edmonton fans? Mike Comrie left the team six years ago. Get over it.
