The way the “Free Agent Line” of Ruslan Fedotenko, Mike Comrie and Bill Guerin started the season, the powerplay looked like it was going to be one of the only things the Islanders didn’t have to worry too much about. However, by the All-Star break, it was obvious that the powerplay needed serious help.

It didn’t help matters either that Radek Martinek wasn’t as promising an offensive threat as the team gave him credit for over the past few years, but inconsistency from the top unit and players like Miroslav Satan, Trent Hunter and Marc-Andre Bergeron, as well as injuries to players such as Chris Campoli and Mike Sillinger killed any chance the powerplay had at being successful. For most of the last half of the season, it seemed that teams could get away with committing penalties against the Isles because their powerplay was flaccid at best.

After a while, it seemed that players that should have been getting chances with the man advantage, guys like Sean Bergenheim and Blake Comeau, where getting stiffed in favor of players like Andy Hilbert and Richard Park. Nothing against Park and Hilbert [especially Park, who had his best season in the NHL this year], but guys like Bergenheim and Comeau are the future of this team and need to get as much of an opportunity as possible. While Park and Hilbert work hard on every shift, they aren’t going to develop with experience like the youngsters can. Next season, I expect to see those two players on the PP much more than before and imagine that other youngsters like Kyle Okposo and Jeff Tambellini will get a chance as well.

However, that doesn’t solve the problem of not having a powerplay quarterback. Bergeron was so bad defensively that he became a liability on the powerplay and even though Andy Sutton was used at times, he’s not the answer. Using Satan didn’t work at the point and Bryan Berard was never given a real shot to anchor a unit. With that being said, the Islanders will either be searching for a legitimate offensive defenseman or will ask youngsters like Campoli, Jack Hillen and Bruno Gervais [if he’s resigned] to produce. The Isles will also have an opportunity to draft a defenseman this year, which could potentially solve the problem.

Regardless of this though, players like Guerin and Comrie will have to establish themselves with the man advantage and set an example for the rest of the team to follow. If that doesn’t work, youngsters like Okposo, Comeau and Tambellini will be forced to progress much faster than expected.

Heart and soul. That’s what Brendan Witt means to the New York Islanders.

Sure, he doesn’t score goals and isn’t the best player on the team on paper, but as far as representing what this team is all about, Witt is the undisputed champion of grittiness. If blocking shots, pissing off the opposition and taking the body could make someone a superstar, then Witt would be a bigger star than Sidney Crosby in this league.

When he was in the lineup this season, the Islanders were a different team. They played with more passion, more determination and they rarely lacked focus. You hear all these stories in the news how important a guy like Sean Avery is to the Rangers, but I think Witt may be an even bigger piece to the puzzle for the Islanders. This guy not only draws penalties, he eliminates guys from plays by using his body and rarely takes a bad penalty. If the rest of the team played with as much resolve, they’d be in the Stanley Cup finals right now.

Not an amazing skater, Witt is fueled by pure will and never gives up on a play. Anyone who has seen Witt play against the likes of Evgeni Malkin over the past two years could totally attest to that. He just seems to own the guy. He’s hit the guy so much since he came to the NHL that you could make a highlight film on it if you really wanted to. However, Malkin isn’t the only player in the league that don’t like to play the Islanders because of him. Simply put, Witt is the Islanders cavalry. He’s their first and last line of defense against the best players in the league. Again, without him, you’d have a much different team out there.

Combined with Radek Martinek, the Islanders have one of the best defensive tandems in the league. Without them, this team would have been lucky to win 30 games. However, considering their lack of offensive luster, they’ll never be regarded as a top-tier pair. For that reason, I really believe the Islanders would consider giving guys like Chris Campoli, Bruno Gervais and Jack Hillen more playing time, so they can develop into the defense of the future.

Nevertheless, a guy like Witt should and will get the majority of the playing time against the best players in the league. He’s too damn good defensively to be played anywhere else and considering how much younger the Isles will be next year, they really can’t afford to not play him in crunch time situations. That means that if he’s healthy, Witt should be making funny faces at refs and getting sucker punched all season.

If you don’t know by now, now you know. That’s great news for the Islanders.

When the Isles originally signed Ruslan Fedotenko, I thought that there was an honest to god shot that he would be able to net 25 goals. Years of playing second fiddle to players like Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis can light a fire under a player’s dairy-air, especially one with the feisty on-ice persona of Fedotenko. However, despite a few hot streaks during the course of the season, Fedotenko proved why the Flyers gave up on him and Tampa Bay let him leave via free agency. He’s not a first line player and at this point in his career, he’s is a depth signing: a player that can be depended on 15-20 goals and 35 points… nothing less, nothing more.

It’s sad that the Islanders had to spend nearly three million dollars this season to find that out. Unlike Josef Vasicek, who the Islanders didn’t spend much money on [and who had a much better season than “Tank”], Fedotenko got first star treatment with the Islanders. He was at the pres conference where guys like Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie promised a rejuvenated team that was sick of being mediocre. However, after the first dozen games or so of the season, Fedotenko virtually disappeared.

Over his first 14 games with the team, he had five goals and 11 points. That basically put him on pace for a career year, netting a solid 25-30 goals and adding close to 35 assists. If that would have been the case I would have been extremely pleased. However, the total opposite happened.

Over the next 36 games he played in, he only had three goals and 13 points. Talk about invisible. I know he was playing injured for some of that time, but still, this guy was brought in to score goals and that simply wasn’t happening. After he came back from a few games missed due to injury, he did get better, but again, at that point, the Isles were already finished and it was too little, too late.

Sure, Fedotenko netted seven goals and nine points over his last 17 games of the season, but that’s what happens when you realize you only have a one-year contract and you want to play another year in the NHL. With that sense of desperation, Fedotenko was a more than serviceable player. However, getting him to play at that kind of level is nearly impossible for a coach. He has to be the one to motivate himself and get going at more of a consistent basis. He has the nose for the puck and hands where he could be a consistent 20-goal scorer in this league.

It remains to be seen if that will ever happen though.

When Bill Guerin signed with the Islanders, I was expecting him to add another 30-goal season to his resume. I was expecting him to score in the neighborhood of 55-65 points and be a leader on this team. A team that needed much more than an injection of blood and sweat, rather, it needed a bona fide leader. Unfortunately, while he was able to be the leader the team needed in the locker room, his performance this season proved that he is no longer a first line talent and is instead winding down a successful NHL career on Long Island.

Or did it?

This guy has me so confused. There were so many times when I thought he was going to break out and be the leader on the ice that the team needed. However, for a variety of reasons, that just never happened. It’s not all his fault though. I think some of it has to do with the inconsistency of Ruslan Fedotenko and Mike Comrie. If he was playing with players who were a little more consistent, I think he would have had a better season.

Despite that though, it’s kind of hard to argue against 227 shots and only 23 goals. The season before when he lit the lamp 36 times, he only had 225 shots. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that either he was off his game or he was peppering the net with shots to make up for not getting where he could have been if he had better linemates. Because of this, for the life of me, I don’t know what to make out of him.

However, if the Islanders continue the youth movement as planned, I expect a guy like Guerin to have another 20-25 goal season next year. He’s not a guy that takes over games and needs to be surrounded by players that give him space in order to be truly effective. Nothing against Comrie or Kyle Okposo, but they’re not those guys. And in the case of Okposo, he’s not that player, yet. All Guerin can do in this situation is pad his career stats and be the leader these young kids need him to be. If he can do that, then I could forgive him for scoring 25 goals a season at 35 goals a year money.

But if the Islanders go out and decide to get a number one center, rather than develop one, I think that Guerin will probably benefit the most. I still think that he’s a more than capable winger who can score 30 goals a season, but like I said, he needs to have the right pieces around him.

At this point of the offseason though, it remains to be seen who that could be, prompting me to think that he’ll be.

From the first time a puck was dropped on a sheet of ice in North America, hockey players have earnestly felt the need to defend themselves and their teammates through physicality. During most of this time, it appeared that hockey and fisticuffs were wed. However, over the past five years, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other high-profile league officials have sought to put a halt to the violence, much of which has been enjoyed for almost 100 years.

Though the league has attempted, ardently, to eliminate fighting from the sport, pockets of fans and media have felt that in doing so, the NHL was stripping the sport of its essence.

For many, fighting is a necessary evil and one that helps maintain the game’s classic norms of passion, courage and grit. Without it, many contend, the game becomes more about scoring and less about teamwork and toughness.

“Hockey is the only one of the four major sports with confines [where] a player can’t run out of bounds to avoid a hit,” said Hall of Fame broadcaster Jiggs McDonald, who has called over 3,200 NHL games over 45 years. “Some of those hits, the ones of questionable intent, lead to fights… But the more obvious is that hockey is the only sport to equip every player with a weapon – if they were to chose to use it that way.”

In the late 1970s, the NHL had an influx of European players and the league underwent changes.

The European players, for the most part, were better skaters than the North Americans who had long dominated the league and, as a result, offensive production skyrocketed. However, with fighting being illegal in European leagues, incidents of dirty plays
such as high-sticking, cross checking and tripping became more frequent. While most of the new players were reluctant to fight after committing the penalties, their North American teammates, who had grown accustomed to the league’s rough and tumble style, were more than willing to drop the gloves.

As the years went on, the frequency of questionable stick play increased, engulfing players of all backgrounds. The dirty plays, McDonald asserted, is the cause of the fighting and is what needs to be stopped, rather than the fighting itself.

But in spite of those beliefs, which are widespread, the league has continued to make it a goal to penalize fighting. In addition, the league has begun to call more penalties in an effort to produce as much offense as possible, because according to their studies, it’s what the fans want to see. That, McDonald believes, is a big mistake and one the league will pay for in the future.

“Fighting is the one thing that sets the sport apart and makes hockey unique,” he said. “If you watch two great fighters go toe to toe, you can’t help but get the feeling that it’s an art. These guys are extremely tough customers and they definitely serve a purpose out there. I’m not talking about the bench-clearing brawls, even though they are entertaining at times. I’m talking about the one-on-one fight. It changes the entire complexion of the game if done right; it gets an entire team and the fans going all at the same time.”

Knowing this, McDonald doesn’t really understand why the NHL would attempt to rob the game of one of it’s most entertaining elements.

“Over the years, the league has tried to take that element out of the game because they think the fans don’t like it. Well, they do. That was the thing that filled up buildings in Boston and Philadelphia,” he added. “You couldn’t buy a ticket back then to see the big bad Bruins or the Broad Street Bullies. Sure, they had players like Bobby Orr that the fans loved, but they also had players that were aggressive and would defend each other. That was what the fans came to see.”

Former NHL enforcer Bob Probert, who racked up 3,300 penalty minutes in a stellar 17-year career feels the same way. Despite scoring 163 goals and being a player who was quite capable of making it in the league without dropping the gloves, Probert is still infamous for the thrashings he has delivered on the ice. To him, fighting will always have a place in hockey, regardless of who’s playing and what the league tries to do to stop it.

“I think that fighting will always be a part of the game. It’s a part of the game that belongs there,” Probert, who scored 29 goals in the 1987-88 season, said. “It keeps players honest and keeps the cheap shots down. People think twice when they know someone will come after you if you get too physical.”

While McDonald and Probert accept and understand that fighting is a part of the game, Minnesota hockey writer Ross Bernstein dedicated a year of his life to finding out exactly why. In the process of interviewing dozens of players during the NHL lockout in 2005, he consistently came across the word “code.” It was during the writing of his book, “The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,” that he began to understand what it was. The unspoken, unwritten rules that most hockey players abide by. “The Code,” as Bernstein put it in his book, is a system devised to protect talented players and ensure every player is responsible for their actions on the ice. While the majority of the athletes on the ice follow “The Code,” there are exceptions, which of course, lead to fisticuffs.

“It’s all about respect,” Bernstein said. “You have to always be accountable for your actions. When you decide to play like a jerk and hit people from behind or take liberties with someone and be disrespectful, you have to be held accountable. In hockey, there are serious consequences for actions like that. Hockey is very unique in the fact that it is allowed to police itself.”

The players doing the policing, known as enforcers, try to make sure that “The Code” isn’t broken. These are the players that have inspired the creation of websites like HockeyFights.com and HockeyFighters.com in recent years that attract thousands of fans every day. According to Bernstein, enforcers are often the most loved players on their teams. Some hockey enthusiasts believe enforcers play much of a role in their teams’ success, but Bernstein disagrees.

“Fighters, in my opinion, are like kickers and punters in the NFL,” he said. “They’re specialists and without them, you can’t win. Just like the kickers, they don’t get the same amount of respect, because they usually can’t skate as well as the other players. Nevertheless, they’re very important pieces to a championship team.”

However, while many have voiced their beliefs that there is indeed a place in the game for fighting, citing the nostalgia and history it has, Bernstein also believes that having enforcers to protect teammates makes the game safer.

“Many people don’t understand that in hockey, there are a series of checks and balances,” he said. “If you’re a player that likes to play dirty, your teammates won’t even want you around after a while. The way the code works is if someone isn’t held accountable for their actions and doesn’t ‘show up’ afterwards, his teammates won’t want him on the bench. As barbaric as it may seem, fighting cleans up the game.

“Where I live, the Minnesota Wild have Derek Boogaard as their enforcer. He’s 6-foot-7 and 270 pounds. He’s an animal. Without his presence, you wouldn’t see Marian Gaborik, Brian Rolston or Pavol Demitra scoring goals. If the opposition knows they can take liberties with those guys, they can’t win. Boogaard on your team gives them confidence and lets them get in front of the net and skate without fear of getting whacked.”

Probert too thinks things would be quite different on the ice if he and his fellow tough guys weren’t around in one way or another.

“There were times when players were going after Steve Yzerman and I had to go after them,” he said. “Sometimes though, there are just times when you look at someone the wrong way and you go at. There’s also the motivation factor, a big hit or a fight can definitely motivate your team and change the game. That’s what my job was.”

However, many of the leagues top tough guys like Chris Simon and Darren McCarty have had problems keeping up with some of the more talented players over the past few years, leading to an unusual amount of suspensions by the very people who were expected to police the game, many think their existence in the league may be running it’s course.

“What I think is happening is because of the new rule changes, a-la getting rid of the red line, the cutting down on obstructions and the salary cap, the way of the enforcer is slowly, but surely going the way of the dinosaur,” Bernstein said. “I don’t know if a Tony Twist would make it in today’s game. Even Tie Domi also retired very quietly. Guys like that are always the most popular players amongst their teammates, but they’re kind of a luxury that you can’t afford to keep.”

With the role of the enforcer changing and the league continuing to take steps to eliminate fighting from the game, Bernstein still doesn’t think fighting will stop altogether. Nevertheless, he feels a new kind of player will emerge and take its place.

“I think the agitators are the new wave,” Bernstein said. “In New York, you have a guy like Sean Avery. He’s a perfect example; he can play, he can hit, he’ll fight, he’ll turtle and he’ll draw penalties. He’s the new hybrid. He’s not a big lumbering Snuffaluffagus. He’s not going to take up space and come on the ice like a nuclear bomb when his buttons are pushed and beat the crap out of somebody. I think guys today have to take a regular shift and contribute, kill penalties and even be able to take a penalty shot at the end of a game if they had to.”

Although Bernstein is a fan of the rough stuff, he feels that the game will continue to have plenty of action even if the enforcers do become extinct.

“I like fighting and I think it serves a purpose, but I’m not a fan of gratuitous fighting you see when a team is down 5-1 and is trying to change the momentum of a meaningless game to sell tickets,” Bernstein said. “I like it when Jarome Ignila drops the gloves in the playoffs when it means something or when a player runs into a goaltender and you have to go. I love seeing the kind of emotion on the ice when you see two non-traditional fighters go.”

This type of responsibility, which forces hockey players to be accountable for their actions and for a select few to play peace keeper, is what Bernstein believes sets hockey apart from the rest of the sports world and preaches the ultimate team dichotomy and an end result that can’t be found anywhere else.

“Hockey is all about the team, sticking up for each other and growing a playoff beard,” he said. “You aren’t going to find that anywhere else.”

Despite the thoughts of people like Bernstein, McDonald wonders what will happen if the game continues to be censored the way it has been over the past five years.

“Referee Andy Van Hellemond was once quoted saying, ‘If we take fighting out of the game and the arenas are empty, how do we put them back in?” McDonald said. “I think a lot of cities are at the point where the game isn’t as entertaining as it used to be. If it’s not entertaining to the thousands in the arena and thousands more at home watching, it’s not entertaining. There were many nights at the end of my career when I was driving home where I wondered if it was just me, or was this sport really not entertaining any more?”

I’ve been working on an article about fighting in the NHL for a few weeks now and I figured I’d share something really special I got a few days ago. Enjoy!

For 17 seasons, Bob Probert was one of the toughest men in the NHL. However, he was much more than an enforcer, as the 6’3, 225 pound forward scored 163 goals over the course of his career, including two 20-goal seasons in 1988 and 1992. Chatting with TheDriveForFive.com, Probert talks about his career and the league that has changed so much since he left six seasons ago.

The Drive for Five: Over the past few years, the NHL has taken serious steps to eliminate fighting from the game. What do you think of that?

Bob Probert: I think that fighting will always be a part of the game regardless of what the leagues tries to do to cut down on it. It’s a part of the game that should always be there. It belongs in the game and keeps people honest; it also limits the amounts of cheap shots. Guys think twice about sticking someone if they know someone on the other team is going to come after them if they get too physical.

TDFF: Some people that watched you over the years have said that watching you fight was like poetry or art in motion. How does that make you feel?

Probert: It makes me feel great. I did it for many years and it’s something that I took as my job. I was also able to play hockey during that time, it just that I got very good at fighting. I guess I enjoyed it too to a certain extent.

TDFF: Aside from the fighting, what was your favorite part of playing hockey in the NHL?

Probert: I had an opportunity to play with Steve Yzerman one year and I had 29 goals. I was told by the coaches, “Hey Probie, don’t be fighting, stay out on the ice.” I also got 398 penalty minutes that year, so I didn’t really listen to the coaches that much. That’s just the way I played the game and that year, everything really came together for me. I got a chance to play my rough style, but also got a chance on the powerplay and to play with some great players. That was my favorite part of playing in the NHL.

TDFF: That year you had 29 goals [87-88], you also had a huge playoff series as well. What do you attribute to that?

Probert: I believe that was the year Stevie [Yzerman] got hurt, so I got a chance to play on the top line with guys like Petr Klima, John Chabot and Joe Murphy. Because Stevie was hurt, I got to play that much more and show everyone what I could do. I had a great playoffs that year and it was really fun. It’s fun when you can put some points on the board and be one of the key players on a team.

TDFF: I’ve heard stories over the years about what a good passer John Chabot was. Can you tell us a little about his game?

Probert: He was a great passer and playmaker. He was very similar to Adam Oates, but he was a bigger player and as far as hands go, they were great too. That’s why it’s easy to compare him to a guy like Oates. He was an absolute pleasure to play with.

TDFF: Your highlights on YouTube are quite extensive. Are there any ones that you are particularly proud of?

Probert: I think the couple I had with Tie Domi and the rematch with Troy Crowder still stick out in my mind, because they were widely publicized. I really wowed them there.

TDFF: Can you tell the people who don’t watch hockey why players fight?

Probert: There are plenty of reasons. There were times when players were going after Steve Yzerman and I had to go after them. There were also times when guys would come after me and give me a cheap shot and I would have to stick up for myself. Sometimes though, there are just times when you look at someone the wrong way and you go at it. Sometimes you knew before the game that this was someone you were going to have to fight and you figured why not get it over with. There are a lot of different reasons. There’s also the motivation factor, a big hit or a fight can definetly motivate your team and change the game. That’s what my job was.

TDFF: There aren’t many big time enforcers in the league anymore. Back when you played, there was at least one person on every team who was a lock for 200 penalty minutes. That just doesn’t happen anymore. With that being said, if you could fight one person in the NHL today, who would it be and why?

Probert: Probably Sean Avery. That’s a guy I would probably go after [laughing]. He gets under my skin just watching him play, so I’m sure if I was still playing he’s definitely someone I’d like to go with.

TDFF: For the fans that prefer a high-octane offensive game, how would you convince them that fighting still has a place in the game?

Probert: A lot of people growing up now didn’t have a chance to see the game in the ‘80s and didn’t get to see the sport the way I and so many people played it. Nowadays, the game is so much quicker and sometimes there aren’t even many hits. However, the team that won the Stanley Cup last season [Anaheim Ducks] was the most physical and if you ask me, that’s the reason why they won. In the end, it’s not really about fighting. It’s about being physical and team justice. Like I said before, you get a big hit and it can change the game. If you get an entire team playing physically, you can go places in the league.

Through the first 25 games of the season, I really thought Joe Vasicek was turning the corner in his career. Playing with more desire and passion than I’ve ever seen before, it looked like big Joe finally shook off a career-long case of OlegKavashitis. However, by the end of the season, I realized that despite putting up decent numbers, this guy just doesn’t have the overall consistency to be a top six forward and because of his inconsistency, he’s more suited to be a third or fourth line player.

This year’s team was all about taking chances on guys. Mike Comrie was given an opportunity to be a number one center and Vasicek was given more ice time than ever before in an effort to see where he really stands. Now we know. Aside from being a very good penalty killer, Vasicek can pot a few here and there, especially when he gets in front of the net, but when he’s not skating, he’s barely noticeable on the ice, which in effect limits the space his teammates have on the ice and plays a huge part in making his linemates less effective.

On a good team, Vasicek is a fourth liner, whose offensive upside and good penalty killing ability would be a great depth booster. If he played 12 minutes a game all season and ended up with 35 points, I don’t think any logical hockey fan would be too disappointed. However, like I said, there came a point, especially after Mike Sillinger’s injury, where all of these guys who were playing well in their roles, players like Comrie, Fedotenko and Vasicek, were exposed and were put in a situation to step up. They didn’t and that’s one the reasons why this team ended up not making the playoffs.

Now, I know Garth Snow has stated on the record that he’s sick of being average, so if Vasicek is resigned for next season, I don’t expect him to have the same type of role. If the Isles were smart about this, they’d throw him on the fourth line with someone like Richard Park and Blake Comeau, which in my mind would not only force Vasicek to skate every night, it would be a fourth line that plenty of teams in the NHL would love to have. Anyway, with the playoffs still going on, the Isles will have to wait a few more weeks until they start to decide what to do with him.

While he wasn’t horrible for the Isles, it’s clear he can’t be what the team needs him to be. With that being said, he may be forced into another role if resigned or let go all together. My guess is on the later.