I’ve mentioned more than a few times over the past two years that in my opinion, Newsday’s Greg Logan is one of the best beat-writers in the business today. He gets information that isn’t found anywhere else and gets quotes that no one else can get. The other day, he proved himself again, getting a great quote from Islanders GM Garth Snow about goaltender Wade Dubielewicz who rejected a two-year contract the other day.

“There wasn’t much confidence from our coaching staff to play him,” Snow told Newsday of Dubielewicz. “That’s where we ran into trouble playing Ricky too many nights. We need a backup goalie our coaches will have confidence in from Day 1.”

There aren’t many times when I say something like this, so let me watch how I mix my words.

Are you crazy Mr. Snow?

The reason why DP played in so many games last year was because HE wanted to. Anyone remember the game two seasons ago in Phoenix where he was playing so badly that Ted Nolan wanted to pull him? Anyone remember what happened after that? DP waved him off. He knows this is his team and if he could, he would play in 82 games a season. That’s just how DP rolls. He wants to be the next Martin Brodeur. That is why Dubielewicz played twice in the first 33 games, not because Dubie came into training camp in poor shape [another thing brought up in Logan’s piece] or because the coaching staff had no confidence in him.

If you look at Dubie’s career stats for the Isles [16-13, 2.55 GAA and a .920 Save Percentage], there’s no reason why he still shouldn’t be the backup goaltender of this team or any other team in the NHL. As a matter of fact, I’m sure you could make the argument that Dubielewicz almost single-handedly took this team to the playoffs last year [when his buddy Mike Dunham was stinking up the joint] and kept them in the hunt this year when the defense was as thin as paper and no one was scoring.

To say that the team had no confidence in him is an absolute joke and a tribute to the nonsense players had to put up with when Mike Milbury was GM of this team.

If DP gets injured again next season and Joe MacDonald can’t fill Dubie’s shoes, expect to hear “I told you so,” a lot from yours truly next season.

Aside from that, Logan also got Snow to speak a little bit more about the youth movement. He also spoke about how he believes Miroslav Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko and Josef Vasicek most likely won’t be receiving qualifying offers and how youngsters Sean Bergenheim, Bruno Gervais, Jeff Tambellini, Frans Nielsen and Jeremy Colliton will. While I won’t be having fun playing with rookies on NHL 08 on my Xbox 360 this summer, I’ll be more than happy to see them play this fall and see them play with more passion and dedication than a bunch of second-tier players looking for a big check.

I also don’t expect the team to really go out and pick up too many veterans because of this, from the words of Snow, I think it’s a definite.

“I don’t want to be in a situation where I compromise the ice time of some of our younger players who we’re committed to giving the opportunity to make the team,” Snow told Newsday. “If we start loading up with too many bodies, then that squeezes out some of our young guys. I don’t want to do that.”

Posted under Isles Thoughts 2008