Game 1 Fantasy Report: Devils 2, Islanders 1

Okay, here's how this is going to work (unless I find a need to revise it later): For each game, I will award fantasy stars of the game to five players. The 1st Star will receive five points, the 2nd Star will receive four points, the 3rd Star three points, and so on, for the purpose of tracking fantasy value over the course of the season.

Tonight's Fantasy Stars of the Game:

1st Star: Mark Streit (1 A, 1 PPA, 3 shots, 1 blocked shot, 2 PIMs, 1 hit)
2nd Star: Joey MacDonald (27 saves on 29 shots)
3rd Star: Bill Guerin (1 A, 1 PPA, 4 shots, 1 hit)
4th Star: Doug Weight (1 G, 1 PPG, 2 shots)
5th Star: Trent Hunter (3 shots, 2 hits)

Other notables: Richard Park was 10-3 on faceoffs and Nate Thompson went 6-1.

And just a couple of quick comments on how Scott Gordon used his roster tonight. Ice time was distributed much more evenly than we were used to seeing last year. Only one skater clocked in at under 10:00, and that was Thompson at 9:42. So Gordon was very successful at rolling four lines.

What might distress some was that Kyle Okposo and Jeff Tambellini received virtually no time on the power play (Okposo was out there for nine seconds). It will be interesting to watch how those minutes are doled out over the next couple of games. Tonight Gordon didn't break up his top forward line for the man advantage, which resulted in Guerin, Weight, and Jon Sim getting the lion's share of the power play minutes.