While the Islanders showed some life at times during the game, they just couldn’t maintain any sort of prolonged energy on the ice, which enabled the Rangers to skate away with a 4-2 win.

Both of these team’s are having their own problems scoring, but when you have the big names the Rangers have, it’s easier to snap out of droughts. Last night, the Rangers got goals from Jaromir Jagr and a few of his pals that weren’t contributing as much as they were before. You can make the argument that the Isles were tired because they had a game the night before, but how valid will an excuse like that be if the team makes the playoffs this season.

However, aside from the Rangers play in the offensive end, the game was pretty give and take in the neutral zone. The Rangers just took advantage of the Isles mistakes and cashed in. Despite that though, you get the feeling that this Rangers team is going through the same thing the Isles are.

Nevertheless, the Isles are a one-dimensional team right now. They feed off of their defense, which are Rick DiPietro, Brendan Witt and Radek Martinek. Over the past few weeks, it feels like when those three players don’t have their best games, the team either doesn’t win or gets something big from someone else. Mike Sillinger stepped up earlier in the week and Richard Park has been playing his heart out, in addition to Josef Vasicek. However, the Islanders need more than that.

People like Trent Hunter, Andy Hilbert Sean Bergenheim and Ruslan Fedotenko need to start finishing and Mike Comrie, Bill Guerin and Miroslav Satan need to start producing more. The way Comrie and Guerin have played over the past 10 games is indicative of how most of the forwards of played, not good enough. They get opportunities with the man advantage and still can’t finish. What happened to the chemistry that was on the powerplay, did it evaporate?

How can chemistry just disappear like that? Here’s an answer. It can’t. These guys just aren’t working as hard on offense as they were earlier in the season and are squeezing their sticks whenever they get a open net to shoot at.

Streakiness only works when players get hot at different times. Having the first line start so hot was great through the first week of the season was great, but now it’s time to find some consistency on offense. Every night, this team plays good defense and gets the saves they need from their goaltenders, now it’s time to do the same thing in the offensive end.

Posted under Post Game Rants

Take away a soft goal and a screen job and I think the Islanders played one of their best defensive games of the season.

Again, while the Islanders defense and goaltending had to carry the majority of the burden, the Islanders offense scored when they had to, with the majority of the offense coming from Josef Vasicek…again. What can I say about his play this season that I haven’t already said yet? Is a 25-season is his cards? What about 30? Let’s slow down a bit before we start making estimations though. All I know is that he’s scored a plethora of big goals this season. For the Islanders sake, let’s hope he keeps it up.

Speaking of big goals, Mike Sillinger played one of his best games so far this season and scored a goal in regulation and one in the shootout. Hopefully, his line starts to produce more and the Islanders can take some of the pressure off the defense. Even though they haven’t been producing offense, that line does produce shots and works hard in the corners, which play a big role in why the third line has been so effective. They get the offensive zone faceoffs and start the forecheck and Miroslav Satan and Vasicek take it from there. Nonetheless, these guys need to start putting points on the board.

The same thing goes for Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie, both of whom had a myriad of opportunities to put the puck in the net. Comrie, however, needs to start hitting the net more. Too many times tonight did he have golden opportunities and he couldn’t even get the puck on net. In order for the Isles to keep themselves in playoff position, Comrie is going to have to start scoring at a point a game pace again. If not, Brendan Witt and the rest of the Islanders defense are going to have a ton of black and blues by the time the season is over.

Close call- Radek Martinek looked like he got his face swiped by a skate in the second period. Luckily he came back and finished the game. Anyone that remembers how well he played last season before he got hurt knows how important he is the team. Losing him down the stretch was almost as big as Rick DiPietro’s concussion problems.

Speaking of DP’s head problems, what exactly was he thinking in overtime running out there like that? For all the maturing he’s done this season, every once in a while he goes and does something like that and I want to chain him into the net so he can’t go anywhere. When is he going to understand that he is completely useless if he suffers a few more concussions? Luckily however, he didn’t hurt himself and turned in another solid game.

With the win, the Islanders are now only one point behind the Rangers with two games in hand. What does that mean exactly? Tomorrow is going to be one heck of a big game.

Posted under Post Game Rants

Hopefully the Islanders can get a couple of goals against a good Ottawa Senators team to make life a little bit easier for Rick DiPietro. I’ve been saying it all season, the guy has been incredibly sharp [forgetting all about that debacle against the Hurricanes a few weeks ago.] and needs to get more support on offense. After a hot start, Ruslan Fedotenko [only 10 shots on goal in his past 12 games] Bill Guerin [10 games without a goal] and Mike Comrie [three points in his last nine games] have gotten ice cold and the powerplay has been even worse.

On top of that, the Islanders defense, which was chipping in a ton of points through the first dozen games, has cooled off as well, making the Islanders the lowest scoring team in the league with no threat of moving out of there for the time being. Guys like Bryan Berard, Chris Campoli and Marc-Andre Bergeron have to start taking more shots especially with the man advantage. Over the past two weeks, it feels like the team as a whole is just clutching their sticks way too tightly.

However, asking DP to play his heart out against a team with such a deep roster will not be easy, but what else can the Islanders do? The defense has been playing very well as of late and like any good hockey team, they have to play to their strengths. If the Isles can someone keep the Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley line off the scoreboard and take the body, all while getting the powerplay going, this could be an interesting game. However, if the Islanders don’t skate and commit lazy penalties, Rick DiPietro is going to be facing a lot of shots and it’s not going to be fun to watch.

While I’ve already mentioned the ineffectiveness of Comrie, Fedotenko and Guerin lately, Mike Sillinger, Trent Hunter and Andy Hilbert, the Isles second line, have only 17 combined points. Coming into today’s game, Spezza has 18 and Heatley has 26. If that doesn’t show how anemic the Islanders offensive attack has been as of late, I don’t know what does.

In all honesty, the only line that has been producing consistent offense this season has been the Islanders third line, as Miroslav Satan and Josef Vasicek have 15 goals between the two of them. If they can get going tonight, that would take some of the pressure of the other lines. Additionally, maybe Fedotenko will start to feed off the hard work of Satan and Vasicek and make that line even stronger than it already is.

We’ll see how things go against Ottawa.

Posted under Pregame Musings

As you all know, Richard Park got a contract extension a month or so ago. And every day since then, he’s proven he’s worth every single penny. However, the past two games, he’s arguably been the Isles best player. Two goals in two games isn’t that big of a deal, but considering the fact that Park doesn’t get powerplay time, plays about a dozen minutes a game and kills penalties, it is a pretty awesome accomplishment.

Last night, Park again proved how valuable he is to the Isles, scoring a shorthanded goal against Marty Turco and Sergei Zubov. If you missed it, it kind of made up for the Islanders loss. Looking more like a younger Rick DiPietro, Turco got caught by the blue line and Park got to the puck and skated around him before avoiding Zubov and depositing a backhand into an empty net.

Aside from that though, the Islanders weren’t able to muster much offense. Dallas was running a 1-4 defense that just shut down the Isles attack and annoyed the hell out of me. Well, not really. I just felt like I was watching the New Jersey Devils circa 1995.

Luckily, the Isles did get a few chances on the powerplay and Miroslav Satan managed to deposit a one-timer past Turco that got the Islanders back in the game. Without that powerplay opportunity, it looked pretty doubtful that the Islanders were going to get past the Star’s trap. However, Bryan Berard and Marc-Andre Bergeron were able to keep the puck in the zone and get penetration, allowing Satan access to the puck and enough room to shoot.

Cooling off after a hot week or two, Satan needs to keep shooting the puck. The same goes for Mike Comrie, who has slowed down offensively over the past week or so. Bill Guerin as well is going through a funk. Last time I checked, the Isles were the lowest scoring team in the league and were somehow in a playoff spot. Words can’t describe how good Rick DiPietro has been this season for the Isles to be anywhere over .500.

But back to the game…

Once the game got into overtime, the Dallas Stars turned up the intensity and it was only a matter of time before they finished the Isles off. Watching a team that can turn up their defensive or offensive play like that was pretty special. The stars do have their problems, but for the most part, they stick to their game plan and play a well-structured and strategic game. Hopefully, one day, the Isles can put it together like that.

Posted under Post Game Rants

Over the past 11 games, the Islanders have played in nine one-goal games. Win or lose, that makes for some interesting hockey. Over the past decade and a half, interesting hockey on Long Island isn’t something that many fans are used to watching. Seeing great young players getting traded before getting a chance to blossom or watching playoff hockey with your head in between your legs like an Indian contortionist, now that’s what being an Islander fan has usually been about.

This season however, has been like something out of an episode of the Honeymooners, with the Islanders playing the part of Ralph Kramden. Remember the episode where Ralph loses his job? The very next episode was like he never lost it, things just somehow went back to normal. Regardless of how bad that corpulent, sarcastic and close-minded bus driver came to losing his wife and apartment in Bensonhurst, he always kept what he had and made it out of every get-rich quick scheme a better person.

While the Islanders would be the last team anyone in the NHL would ever call close-minded, playing a hybrid system designed to get the most out of their offense and defense, they do have their own version of Ralph Kramden. His name is Rick DiPietro. Showing the resiliency of a household cockroach this season and the cockiness and confidence of Brett Michaels, DP has been a force to be reckoned with on the ice.

Additionally, his team also hasn’t let injuries to Bill Guerin, and Bryan Berard and the early season incompetence of Andy Sutton and Marc-Andre Bergeron stop them on the ice. Players like Josef Vasicek, Richard Park, Brendan Witt and Radek Martinek have stepped up and kept this team in the playoff mix, much to chagrin of the matchmakers around the league that had no faith in Islanders owner Charles Wang or General Manager Garth Snow this offseason.

With a 12-8 record through 20 games, the Isles have proved that in spite of losing virtually half their team to free agency last season that they could put a quality team on the ice.

I hear hockey writers all over North America scrumaging through their pockets for Tums as we speak.

However, despite the team’s record so far this season, the finger is still awfully close to the panic button. These Islanders, who would make the playoffs if the season ended today, have a ton of problems. For one, they’ve only scored four or more goals four times this season. Secondly, they haven’t been producing on the powerplay as late either, converting only three times in their last 40 times with the man advantage.

In the new-look Eastern Conference, things can revert back to normal as fast as an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The Islanders need to stay focused and continue to do what’s worked for them so far this season. Through a quarter of the season, that has been staying out of the penalty box and getting good goaltending.

Of the 30 teams in the NHL, the Islanders currently have the 11^th best GAA. Take away two disaster-filled games against Toronto and Carolina, where the team gave up eight goals in each contest, and the Isles would easily have one of the top five goaltending numbers in the league. Say what you will about the 15-year contract of DiPietro, but 11 wins and a 2.28 GAA say more than any sportswriter you pay 50 cents to read everyday can say in a month..

As of today as well, the Islanders have committed the least amount of penalties in the league. Staying out of the penalty box has helped DiPietro face seven less shots a game [last season DiPietro faced a league high 33 shots a game] than he was facing last season. Rocket science is used to launch rockets into space. Common sense tells you that any quality goaltender that faces fewer shots will produce more, regardless of what team he plays on.

While the Islanders have had problems scoring goals as of late, the newly acquired quartet of Vasicek, Mike Comrie, Guerin, Ruslan Fedotenko are the Islanders top four goal scorers. Like last season, Trent Hunter, Mike Sillinger Andy Hilbert and Miroslav Satan have been slow starters offensively. Will they regain their scoring touch as the season goes on? Your guess is as good as mine.

If they don’t, the Islanders will have to continue to do what they’ve been doing all season, rely on DiPietro.

Never before has a goalie in the Isles organization wanted to be the straw that stirs the drink. If things keep up the way they’ve been lately, he may be the straw that stirs his own drink.

Posted under Isles Thoughts 2007

Even though the Islanders are still stuck in an offensive rut, it had to feel great to se two guys like Richard Park and Andy Hilbert get goals in a victory. By my estimation, the Isles should have had at least four goals in that game, as Miroslav Satan and Chris Simon had golden opportunities, but couldn’t finish. However, the Islanders defense was much better today and they peppered the net with shots. By playing the tight defense that they were, the opportunities on offense were present all game long. While they obviously didn’t take advantage of all of them, they ended the game with the win. In the end, you can’t ask for more than that.

Like I said, seeing Hilbert and Park get goals was great. Hilbert, for all the times I’ve gotten on his case over the past year and a half, works his tail off. He just doesn’t have the confidence needed to put more pucks in the net. A repeated 30-goal scorer in the AHL, Hilbert has the wrist shot and hustle needed to be score a dozen goals a year on a third or fourth line, but takes his time getting started every season. He had 28 points last year and to my knowledge, at least 90 percent of those points game after the All-Star break last season.

A lot of people look at Hilbert as a guy that is too good to play in the AHL, but not good enough to play in the NHL. In all honesty, sometimes I agree with them. But every so often, he’ll do something that makes him stand out and I want to see him gain confidence and get over the hump. Ted Nolan has to have a similar mindset on the kid too, because why else would he keep him on the ice when he wasn’t scoring regularly? Why else would he keep him on the second line as well? He’s got to have some kind of faith that Hilbert will blossom. I hope he’s right on this one.

Park on the other hand, is a player that could score three goals all season and I wouldn’t care. He’s just so good defensively and is such a sparkplug that his offense is a bonus. However, I do think he could score a dozen goals a year just because of his hustle and speed. Over the past week and a half, he’s been playing some of the best hockey I’ve ever seen him play and if he keeps it up, he may get bumped up to the third line on a more permanent basis.

We’ll see what happens in the next game against Dallas though before I start making crazy predictions.

Posted under Post Game Rants

Yesterday’s game to me was a wake up call. This team has the talent to win, but when they stray from their game plan, they run into trouble. They were obviously the more physical team on the ice, as Bryan Berard landed another big hit and Chris Campoli continued to assert himself on the ice, but that wasn’t enough.

Overall, it just felt like the Isles were holding their sticks too tight. On top of all of that, Tim Thomas just played a really strong game and made the Islanders work for any offense they were going to get. Add in the fact that the Islanders consistently made mistakes on defense that gave the Bruins opportunities on the powerplay and it was a formula for a game they had no chance in winning.

What can they do to fix these problems on the ice? To me, it’s simple. Play smarter and skate. Stop using the stick to stop defenders and use your legs and play their game. The Isles have the talent on defense, with players like Richard Park, Mike Sillinger, Brendan Witt and Radek Martinek, that they have to take the play to the opposition. If they stay on task and don’t get lazy, the tight defense they’re capable of playing will open up chances in the offensive end.

Prior to the seven one-goal games over the past two and a half weeks, that was what was happening. Now, the team finds themselves searching for offense because they’re not working as hard as they were in the corners and making the little plays on defense that they have to.

These little things, like making the smart pass out of the defensive zone, forcing the opposition to make cross ice passes, clogging up the front of the oppositions net, usually go unnoticed by the average fan and when a team starts losing all of a sudden, it’s easy to get shell shocked about it. The Islanders coaching staff is well aware of this because if you caught the post-game show yesterday, Ted Nolan said basically the same thing I’m saying now and said that players like Andy Hilbert, who do a bunch of different things on the ice and aren’t there solely to provide offense, need to finish.

As I’ve said before, good teams find ways to pick up the slack and if the Isles are going to make it out of this offensive slump, players besides Josef Vasicek, Miroslav Satan and Mike Comrie are going to have to start producing more. With another game against the Bruins today, there’s not a better time to start than now.

Posted under Isles Thoughts 2007

If the Islanders could have done two things consistently today, staying out of the penalty box and avoid turning the puck over in the offensive zone, they would have cakewalked their way past the Bruins. However, they weren’t able to and that’s why they lost 2-1.

All season, the Islanders have won games because they worked hard in the corners and cycled the puck in the offensive zone. Committing costly penalties all game long didn’t allow them to set up a forecheck. Turning the puck over in the offensive end forced them to rush from one end of the ice to the other, rather than set up a cycle, to get started on offense.

However, just like the Islanders had a few opportunities to get started against Montreal. They had a great opportunity to get back into the game, but couldn’t even get a shot on with a five on three advantage to start the third period. Andy Hilbert would then have two great chances to get the Isles on the scoreboard and would come up empty on both occasions.

I know the guy took his time getting started offensively last season and really turned it up towards the all-star break, but that was last season. This team needs him to start finishing a little bit more. How many other teams in the NHL have a winger on the second line with no points? No one, that’s who. Anyone who plays more than a dozen minutes a game on a second line in the NHL should have at least eight points at this point in the season and I’m being totally generous. That would put him and anyone else in his situation on pace for about 40 points, which would be pretty crappy for a second line player. It would be better than 0 though.

With Hilbert and the rest of the Islanders still unable to finish in the third, Glen Metropolit scored on a shot that looked like it went in between the legs of Bruno Gervais and gave the Bruins a two-goal lead with just over six minutes left in the game. Gervais would make up for his mistake on defense by sending a crisp cross-ice shot/pass towards another player the Isles need to get going offensively, Mike Sillinger, who deflected it past Tim Thomas.

All of a sudden, the game started to open up, with both teams getting opportunities to either end the game or get back into it. Aside from a few nice hits, Bryan Berard wasn’t too sharp on the powerplay today, but he made up for it for drawing a penalty with 2:05 left. Unfortunately, the powerplay was awful. I found myself screaming at the TV a couple of times, asking who the hell they were passing to, as a few passes wound up going to imaginary players. Making matters worse, they weren’t shooting either. Last time I checked, in order to score on the powerplay or in any situation, one has to shoot the rubber.

That didn’t happen and that’s why the Isles lost.

Posted under Post Game Rants

After the first minute of last night’s game, it was almost obvious. The Canadiens wanted it more. It wasn’t like the Islanders didn’t have chances though. A crossbar here and a few flubbed passes there and the Isles lost the game 4-1.

The line of Bill Guerin, Mike Comrie and Ruslan Fedotenko was pretty sloppy in their own end as well and didn’t get an opportunity to generate the offense the team needed to stay in the game. As a matter of fact, I think all four lines generally lacked the luster on both ends of the ice and couldn’t really keep up with the Canadiens.

However, speed was only one part of the problem. For one, the Islanders weren’t their usually strong self in the corners and on the boards. Montreal just looked like a more prepared team and was focused on keeping the puck out of the Islanders hands. What followed was a game that wasn’t a lot of fun to watch for Isles fans.

I did like that Comrie was able to get a goal last night and keep up his point a game clip though. If he starts shooting even more, he could score even more than that. Some of my other writer friends think that I’m crazy to think that Comrie scores more than 65 points this season, but I really think he could score 80, especially if Guerin and Fedotenko get going.

But back to the team…

Luckily, the Isles still have a few games in hand on the rest of the conference and can make up for last night’s sub-par effort with a good game against an up and coming Bruins team. A little different than the speedy Habs, the Bruins are a defensive oriented team that plays it simple in both ends. However, in my eyes, I think the Bruins have a few more weapons offensively.

Nothing against Alexei Kovalev or Saku Koivu, but Marc Savard is an extremely dynamic player that will be amongst the league leaders in assists and points for the next five seasons. If the Isles aren’t careful, Savard or Zdeno Chara another dynamic player that can hurt you either with his huge shot from the point or massive frame.

But enough about what could happen. This team hasn’t gone on a long losing streak all season because they learn from their mistakes on the ice. After their thanksgiving nap today, they’ll get on the bus to Boston and have a long talk about what they need to do against the Bruins. The fact that they play them again on Saturday will give them even more of a reason to get back on the right foot as soon as possible.

Posted under Post Game Rants

Watching seven one-goal games in a row is a tough job for any hardcore NHL fan, or journalist, but imagine how the Islanders have been feeling lately. It’s almost as if the playoffs started two weeks ago and the team is getting ready to embark on a memorable stretch run. Ok, maybe I’m stretching a little bit, but this team, despite its problems on defense and scoring at times, has managed to play well enough to win.

Like I’ve said before, good teams find ways to win. Make no mistakes about it, this team is good. However, it’s still impossible to know just how good they will be because anything can happen at this point in the season.

Despite that though, you can imagine the smile on my face when I checked out Ross McKeon’s power rankings on Yahoo Sports today and saw that the Islanders are in the number five spot. Respect is a tough thing to earn for any professional sports team playing in a small market, but somehow the Islanders are starting to slowly show the rest of the NHL that they’re no joke.

Later, I even managed to quickly read an article in USA today about the job Garth Snow has done as GM, picking up quality players for less money than the players that were here last season. It’s till funny to me how the media ripped about Snow when he became GM. Now, it seems that he too is starting to gain the respect that he deserves. Aside from giving up Robert Nilsson and Ryan O’Marra for a player that that didn’t sign with the team in the offseason [Ryan Smyth, duh] Snow has done a great job as GM.

As a matter of fact, I probably would have made that deal myself as well. The Isles needed something and O’Marra and Nilsson weren’t ready yet and there were plenty of doubters that never thought they’d develop into the players the Isles thought they’d be. You got to give up something to get something in the business and those prospects were what Edmonton wanted for Smyth.

Done deal.

Anyway, Snow could had laid down and threw up a white flag when Tom Poti, Viktor Kozlov and everyone else ran out of Dodge this summer. He didn’t though and the team now has a solid core of players that want to win. That has everything to do with the hard work Snow and his staff put in this summer.

Anyway, the Isles have another big test tonight against the Canadiens, another team that came into this season with a lot to prove. They’ve gotten good goaltending from both Cristobal Huet and Carey Price this season and have gotten balanced scoring from guys like Alexei Kovalev, Saku Koivu, Chris Higgins and Tomas Plekanek. Actually, on paper, they remind me a lot of the Isles, despite the fact that they have a two-goaltender system. They work hard on both ends of ice and force the opposition to make mistakes. However, the Islanders, in my opinion, are a better team physically and can cycle puck better on offense.

The Canadiens however, have more speed and player better defense and force the opposition to make long passes and take risks to get into the offensive end. In order for the Islanders to be successful tonight, we’re going to have to see the continued grit of players like Sean Bergenheim, Richard Park, Chris Simon and Trent Hunter, with plenty of second chance opportunities in front of the net and some big hits in the corners.

As well, I’d like to see Mike Comrie start to shoot the puck a little bit more. Over the past few games, he’s been looking pass too much. He’s got a great shot and needs to start using it more. That will open the door for guys like Ruslan Fedotenko and Bill Guerin to nab a few garbage goals and will get that line rolling the way they were earlier in the year. The way the other lines have played, the Isles have gotten by with just enough offense. If that first line starts playing the way they were through the first three games, this team will be dangerous.

We’ll see what happens tonight.

Posted under Pregame Musings