To Rick DiPietro, it was simply a matter of “the intensity being ratcheted up against the Rangers, no matter where or when we play them.”
To Al Montoya, it was simply a matter of, “basically not really having a choice, but sticking up for my teammates even though I’d rather have been in the [game] to showcase my talents.”
Six of one, half-dozen of the other, but there were the starting goaltenders engaged in fisticuffs with one another at 8:11 of the second period of last night’s exhibition at the Coliseum that the Islanders rallied to win 5-4 in overtime.
The episode began with Chris Simon charging Ryan Hollweg from behind, after two previous skirmishes in which Hollweg came up high on Simon in their first meeting since the Mar. 8 stick-swinging incident in which the Islander enforcer’s two-hander caught the Ranger winger across the jaw. When Hollweg went down this time, everyone on the ice squared off in the Islander zone.
When DiPietro joined in to give the Islanders a man advantage in the scrum, Montoya ventured down the ice, whereupon he was immediately challenged by the goaltender.
“It was all in the spirit of the game,” said DiPietro. “Actually, I thought Al did pretty well for himself.”
Montoya allowed one goal before receiving the same game misconduct assessed DiPietro, who will likely be in nets on Friday when the Islanders come to the Garden.
*
If it was only a matter of time before the Rangers placed Darius Kasparaitis and his $2.989M salary on waivers, that time came yesterday.
“I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but by the way Darius handled the news when I talked to him about it in the morning, it isn’t inappropriate to suggest that he saw it coming,” Tom Renney said last night. “He handled it extremely well, which is consistent with the approach he’s had all training camp.
“I wanted to give Darius a fair shot, and I think the organization did that. But with our depth on defense and the combination of his contract situation under the cap and his play, it just wasn’t going to happen for him.
“Once we determined that, we wanted to give Darius his best shot at being picked up by another organization, which is why we put him on waivers now instead of waiting until the end of the pre-season.”