If you enjoy watching professional athletes skate into each other with the coordination of a drunk toddler on a frozen pond, this matchup is your Super Bowl. It is a gritty, low-scoring affair designed specifically to test the patience of anyone who paid actual money for a ticket. The Islanders continue their quest to redefine 'offensive struggle' while the Blues seem intent on proving that consistency is just a fancy word for stagnation.

Neither team appears particularly bothered by their own lack of flair, which is almost impressive if you squint hard enough. - Islanders struggle to find the back of the net consistently - Blues defensive coverage remains a suggestion rather than a rule - Goaltending is the only thing keeping these games from ending in a scoreless tie - Both squads lead the league in 'unforced errors' These teams occupy that strange purgatory of professional sports where they are neither good enough to contend for a title nor bad enough to be entertaining disasters. They are the human equivalent of a dial-up modem tone played on a loop for sixty minutes of misery.

The coaching staff on both sides spends the night rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, hoping that a line shuffle will magically fix their collective inability to maintain puck possession. It rarely does, yet we are subjected to the same post-game platitudes about 'working hard' and 'finding our game' every single time. Perhaps the solution is simply to stop watching, but then who would be left to witness these glorious displays of professional stalemate?

Will we ever see a goal that does not involve a puck accidentally bouncing off a defenseman's skate into the net, or are we destined to watch this ice-bound soap opera until the heat death of the universe?