Well, at least they went out in style, right?

See now that was a fun game to watch. The Isles may have been outplayed, but they got great goaltending from Wade Dubielewicz and took advantage of the mistakes the Rangers made in the neutral and offensive zones. Good hockey teams find ways of going that and it’s a shame that they couldn’t have done it more often.

In the end, with guys like Brendan Witt, Mike Sillinger, Andy Hilbert, Chris Campoli, Bruno Gervais and Andy Sutton all going down, the Islanders simply lost their heart. If Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie were second line players, I think we could all agree that they had good seasons. If they were third liners, I would have been thrilled at their production. The bottom line this season though was that solid goaltending doesn’t make up for a lack of offense.

The Islanders need to go into this offseason and say to themselves, “How are we going to be able to put more pucks in the net?” Josef Vasicek may resign, considering he had one of the better years of his career here. While I did my fair share of picking on him this season, Vasicek was decent and could be much better than that if he finds some kind of consistency. Guys like Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedotenko though are most likely gone, due to their lack of consistency and penchant for cash; to that, I say good riddance. This team is going to have the fundage [I think I just made a new word up] to sign a player or two to help in that department. However, I don’t think they should go crazy.

Rather, they have to build around guys like Kyle Okposo, who I think has proven in his nine-game stint in the NHL that he can score enough to be a first line threat. As a matter of fact, I think he could have scored 20 goals this season if he was here all year. His consistency isn’t quite there yet, but he has it, make no mistake about it. Something similar can be said about Sean Bergenheim and Blake Comeau as well. Give these guys more of a role next year, please! The question also remains if the Isles will give Jeremy Colliton, Frans Nielsen and Jeff Tambellini a real shot. At the very least, it will make for a very interesting training camp.

Jack Killen can also be one of those players if the Isles give him a shot. He was quiet in his two games with the Isles, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Good defensemen don’t make many mistakes and Killen did a solid job. Who knows what he can do with more ice-time. Now with Campoli and Gervais [most likely] coming back, the Isles defense just got a heck of a lot younger and faster. As I’ve said before I don’t care if this team make the playoffs or not, I just want to see them building towards something.

We’ll see what starts coming up from the ground in a month or two I guess.

BTW, since the regular season is over, I will now be in offseason mode, which means two posts a week, rather than every day. It was a lot of fun guys, thanks for all the comments, they forced me to keep writing and made me care a lot more about this team than I have in previous years. Times were tough, but we all got through it together. Anyway, no more of sappy stuff, it makes me sick. See you all on Tuesday!

This could have been a fun way for the Islanders to finish an up and down season at home. Attendance is shockingly up this year and the fans deserved a lot more than what they got, especially over the last month and a half. Ineffective play, coupled with injuries has reduced a team that could have snuck into the playoffs and perhaps into a game six or seven to something that can’t even be labeled mediocre.

To me, it’s kind of the same old story over and over with this team. They get good enough goaltending to get by and can’t get the necessary offense to stay in games. In the end, I really feel bad for you guys the most though. Unlike last season, this year, I feel like I’ve been writing the same things over and over. You guys deserve better than that and hopefully next season, this team doesn’t fall flat on its face again and I’m a little more inspired.

What’s even sadder though is even with one game left to play, this team still hasn’t admitted that they stopped playing with everything they had. In the end, it’s just really funny to me.

“We’ve got good people here,” Islanders captain Bill Guerin told the AP after last night’s game. “It’s not an easy time for us to play, but guys are showing up and playing hard. Different people have different motivations, but we’re working hard out there.”

I can go on a 1,000 word rant about this right now, but I don’t think I have to. I think all of you know exactly what I’m thinking.

Aside from all of that though, I have had some fun watching some of these youngsters play this season. Kyle Okposo and Jack Killen and the rest of babies may not have had stellar games tonight, but I know that they are going to get their shots next season, That alone will make me watch this team. This shake up has been long over due in my mind. Sure, signing Ryan Smyth and trying to “go for it” was fun last season, but looking back, it wasn’t exactly realistic. Garth Snow knew this team was pretty much built for one season and he took a gamble. It didn’t work and his master plan for this season didn’t turn out that well either.

But at least he’s trying. He’s not pulling Mike Milbury moves either, as Robert Nilsson, Ryan O’Marra, Denis Grebeshkov or any other youngster he’s traded over the past two seasons will be superstars any time sooner, or ever for that matter. So as long as they keep building, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be more than happy to write about this team every day during the season.

With one more game left, the Isles can go out on a positive note and take down the Rangers for good time sake and make this writer and the fans happy that we put all this time and energy into a team that broke our hearts yet again.

If anything else, we deserve it.

A few days ago, the Islanders signed defenseman Jack Hillen to a two-year contract. A senior at Colorado College this season, Hillen was the leading scorer among defensemen at the Division-1 level. A look at his stats show us as well that he’s starting to come into his own, as the 37 points he has this season are almost more than all of his production offensively over the past three seasons. With Chris Campoli and possibly Bruno Gervais coming back next season, Hillen will have a chance to be a part of a much younger defensive core that will most definitely include Radek Martinek, Brendan Witt and Andy Sutton [looks like Freddy Meyer will have to battle for his spot again this offseason].

While the signing itself shows that Isles GM Garth Snow is dedicated on bringing young talent to the team, I really like the things Hillen had to say on the team’s official website about joining the team. The Isles may have a tough time bringing in dependable veterans but if the things that Hillen are saying are really true and not just opening-day cliché, then they may have a shot at bringing in more quality youngsters.

A few quotes in particular made me feel that this organization isn’t as bad off as many think right now. It seems that Kyle Okposo is playing a part in all of this as well.

“I played against Kyle when he was at the University Minnesota and I was at CC,” Hillen said on the Isles official website. “We had a two-game series against them earlier in the year. I gave him a call and asked him how he liked it. He had great things to say. He said the coaching staff is great and everyone here is great. I asked him about Bridgeport and some other things and he had nothing but good things to say. That affected my decision because I felt really comfortable with what he had to say.”

And one more…

“I liked the way Garth Snow and Islanders management came after me with honesty and a commitment,” Hillen said this afternoon, soon after signing his contract. “They are building a team around a core of exciting young players. I know Kyle Okposo well from playing against him and he had many glowing things to say about how the organization has treated him. The Islanders were the perfect fit for me.”

To me, this quotes show that Okposo wants to be surrounded by quality players and build something here. Good stuff.

Maybe I talked about Joey MacDonald a little too early.

45 saves against a playoff team with the Islanders defense. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Most goalies would have just lied down and died in that situation, but MacDonald was solid. It’s too bad his teammates couldn’t match his intensity.

If the rumors are true that he has a one-way contract for next season, things are going to be extremely interesting this offseason, especially considering how well Dubie has played this year. If MacDonald starts the last two games of the season and plays well, this situation can only get crazier.

While I have already stressed my opinion that I believe Dubie is the man to backup Rick DiPietro, it’s hard to argue how good MacDonald was last night.

The Islanders defense was also solid in the first period, as they cleared the front of the net and kept guys like Zach Parise and Patrik Elias out of the slot, but afterwards, the Devils were in full control. It was like a hockey clinic the rest of the way and the only thing keeping the Isles in that game was MacDonald. Unfortunately, like it has worked out for most of the season, the Islanders goaltending wasn’t enough to keep them in the game and the offense couldn’t punch in a few. The Isles even got a few opportunities to cash in with that man advantage, but again, like they’ve been pretty much all season, they were unable to click and get quality shots on the opposition.

It wasn’t that Martin Brodeur was amazing last night either, Joe Vasicek’s goal was proof of that; the Isles just couldn’t generate any real offensive chances. They weren’t skating very hard and were really struggling to maintain possession in the neutral zone. The toughness and gritty play that a lot of the youngsters were bringing to the ice over the past half dozen games seemingly disappeared. Guys like Matt Keith and Kip Brennan weren’t given much ice-time and other seedlings like Kyle Okposo and Mathew Spiller didn’t play their most spirited games either.

Sean Bergenheim however, played one of his best games as an Islander in my opinion. Aside from drawing an assist on the Vasicek goal, Bergenheim was probably the only player on the team busting his hump on the ice, aside from MacDonald. His skating has gotten progressively better as the season has gone on and it’s going to be fun to watch him continue to develop.

With two games left to go this season, watching the youngsters is pretty much the only reason left to tune in.

Maybe they can step it up against the Rangers and give some of the diehards something to smile about.

Today kind of sums up the entire Islanders season, doesn’t it? It was like a crappy April Fools joke, a whoopee cushion under your seat, an Oreo with toothpaste in it, or even worse, that goddamn fart spray that always seems to find its way on the shelves this time of year. However, despite all the things fans of this team have had to go through this season, this year has been an important one.

It has single-handedly proven that the New York Islanders cannot continue to grow as a team the way they are. They cannot simply snatch up second-rate free agents and mix them with the grinders they have and make the playoffs. Like the Penguins and Blackhawks before them, the Islanders have to build in the draft and through trades that are geared towards building for the future, rather than the present.

Despite how horribly this team has played down the stretch and regardless of how inexperienced they are right now, this team, which consists of more no name players than the Charlestown Chiefs, is working very hard on the ice. Youngsters like Blake Comeau, Sean Bergenheim, Kyle Okposo, Mathew Spiller and Frans Nielsen are ready to play in this league and are done staying behind the spotlight. Maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic here, but I think with some seasoning, all of these guys can be solid players for this team.

I definitely see Comeau in the Trent Hunter mold and I think Bergenheim and Okposo can be 20-30 goal scorers in this league. Spiller seems able to play a ton of minutes and looks capable of holding down a role similar to Andy Sutton. Nielsen has shown as well that he wants to play and can do all the little things like making smart passes in the neutral zone to winning key face-offs. All they need is time. Next season, if the Isles are smart, they dedicate it to making sure they get that time.

And I know that the organization is contempt on building a winner and they want to make the playoffs every year, but I think the fans would be more receptive to this team saying “We need to develop our youngsters so we can maintain a winner,” rather than another huge signing or something else of that nature. Let the Ruslan Fedotenko’s, Miroslav Satan’s and Josef Vasicek’s go and give the youngsters a chance to become those players.

I really wish that this was an April fool’s joke and this team was sitting in the seventh or eighth spot in conference. But even if they were, would they even be able to make it past the first round? I don’t think so. So what is the joke here? A team that hasn’t won a playoff series since 1993 or a team that won’t admit that it needs to rebuild? You be the judge.