Good Morning, Islanders Country.
I have a friend who is an editor.
He’s in our group chat, and recently, among his favorite pastimes is reviewing this newsletter. With his trained eye, he gleefully hones in on grammatical errors as he would any number of stories that come across his virtual desk each day.
Most readers probably didn’t notice that I called Cory Schneider a “guess host” or that I wrote that the Islanders did something for the first time in history, both at the start and end of the same sentence.
He did, and he let me know about it.
I even published one edition with JG Pageau’s name spelled “Pegea” which I promptly blamed on my two-year-old.
It was a teachable moment.
Mistakes happen, and uncharacteristically bad ones happen to all of us. What can’t happen is allowing preventable mistakes to evolve into bad habits. When they’re pointed out, you need to own them; acknowledge the error, evaluate the cause, and plan what you’re going to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The Islanders have been making their fair share of mistakes, too, and they don’t need a buddy in a group chat to tell them.
Lane Lambert refused to call his team’s recent blown leads a trend after Saturday’s 4-3 OT loss to Carolina. Mathew Barzal said they’d address it, and Anders Lee insisted that they’d be better because of it.
The problem is that the last time wasn’t the first time, and whatever lessons are being taught haven’t yet been learned. The good news is the Isles have an opportunity to use their recent missteps as a way to dial in and focus on what they have to do the next time they’re in a position to close out a game.
Let’s hope it happens tonight and pray I didn’t make any spelling mistakes.
Coming up, Adam Pelech returns to practice, but two others are absent. Plus, a 2023 draft pick leads juniors in scoring; having something in common with the 1990-91 team is never good, and the team’s disco-themed Halloween bash.
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