Considering that I gave you guys some pre-game analysis yesterday, I think today would be the perfect occasion to share my memories of another Islander great with you all. 

While I was too young to remember Brent Sutter and Denis Potvin as Islander captains, I do remember Patrick Flatley’s tenure quite vividly. While not the physical type of player future Islander captains would be [Bryan McCabe and Michael Peca immediately come to mind], Flats was the type of player [when healthy] that every team in the NHL would want on their team because he worked harder than everyone else and led by example. 

I can’t tell you how many times during the 93 and 94 seasons that I saw Flatley fight off of checks in the corners and manage to get the puck free to players and turn a useless dump in into a scoring opportunity. Sometimes it was amazing how “The Chairman of the Boards” could squeeze his way through two or three opposing players and use his feet to kick the puck to a teammate or how well he saw the ice and could make such accurate blind passes in the corners. 

It was this type of hustle and grit that made up for the fact that Flatley never blossomed into the scoring machine that the Islanders thought he and Pat Lafontaine would become. However, when the Islanders decided to change the entire makeup of their team, trading away fan favorites like Brent Sutter, Randy Wood and Lafontaine in a matter of weeks, they kept Flatley and made him the new captain. In keeping Flatley on the team, the Islanders showed their fans that they still cared about the legacy the team had and felt Flats was one of the players the new team could look to for leadership. 

And what a solid leader he was, as the Islanders managed to make the playoffs during both seasons Flatley managed to play more than 60 games in, proving just how valuable he was to the team. As a matter of fact, I think Flatley’s presence on the ice alone played a huge part in the eventual development of players like Marty McInnis, Todd Bertuzzi, Travis Green and Zigmund Palffy because he got accustomed to the NHL playing alongside the Islander greats that no one will ever forget and showed those players what it took to be consistent. That alone makes up for the fact that he never scored more than 20 goals in any season during his career with the Isles. 

The only dark spot in Flatley’s career I believe was that one year he played for the Rangers and wasn’t used the way a player with his ability could have been used. Nevertheless, he did manage to score 10 goals and a dozen helpers playing on a fourth line. The only positive was that Flats got the opportunity to play in the playoffs again. 

Regardless, one year with the Broadway Blue shirts could never tarnish a solid career with the Isles. Not to mention the entertainment value of the “Heals and Flats” show, Flats will always be remembered as one of the most underrated team captains in Islanders history.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Isles Memories

Considering I got my pre-game rant out of the way yesterday, I think it’s time again for me to share another Islanders moment with you all.
 
As I have mentioned to you guys before, I was a huge Pierre Turgeon fan growing up and the day he was traded to Montreal was like hearing that I or someone I loved had cancer. It totally broke my heart [like I’ve mentioned before as well, this team has a habit of doing that].Luckily, there was another player in the wings that managed to draw my attention, his name was Zigmund Palffy.
 
I know you guys are all thinking about that time he kissed a teammate after he scored a goal, please stop, it still sends shivers up my spine.
 
BACK TO ZIGGY…  
 
Despite the fact that the Islanders finished miserably that 95 season, I couldn’t wait to see how much Ziggy would develop and watched every last game of that dreadful season, anxiously waiting to see him play in more than 30 some odd games. Despite the fact that the Islanders missed the playoffs again the next season, Ziggy was all over the place and managed to put together a 40-plus-goal season while playing with forwards that weren’t nearly as talented as he was.
 
For instance, when one thinks of players like Marty McInnis and Travis Green, they don’t think of really good offensive players, they think more along the lines of solid defensive players and penalty killers. However, Green managed to score a career high 69 points playing on a line with Palffy [64 the next year, despite being moved to the second line once Robert Reichel arrived on the Island] while McInnis scored 20 goals and formed a very successful short-handed threat with him as well.
 
But, like most good things on the Island after the Dynasty, they didn’t last long. Soon enough, McInnis was traded to Calgary for Robert Reichel [whom I’ve mentioned before is dating Jonas Hogland, according to Wikipedia], which forced Green to the second line and after only a year a half, the line was broken up.
 
Fortunately, that wouldn’t matter for Ziggy as he would go on to average a point a game for the Islanders during the next three seasons, somehow establishing himself on a cellar dwelling team. You would think that the Islanders would have done anything in their power to keep Palffy, but instead, they traded him to the LA Kings in a package for Olli Jokinen in cost cutting measures.
 
If the Islanders think about who we got eventually got for Ziggy, it shades in comparison to what the Isles could have had if they stuck with him. The same goes for some of the other players that played with him or after he was traded like Bryan McCabe, Todd Bertuzzi and Roberto Luongo. 
 
I really like the team we have right now, but when I see the Islanders trying to build from within all of a sudden and giving people 15 year contracts, I say to myself, “Why didn’t they do the same thing for those players?”
 
The answer is Charles Wang. 
 
Despite the fact that some of his moves have been questionable during his tenure [like why Mike Milbury still has a job] he’s stuck with this team even when he hasn’t made money with it and that says he really cares [to me anyway]. That says to me that mistakes like dumping Turgeon and Palffy aren’t going to happen again while he’s around; that makes this old soul sleep well at night.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Isles Memories

I know the Islanders have a game tonight, but considering that I already spent some time in my last column talking about the Flyers, I figured I’d just share some of my favorite Islander memories with you all. If it’s well received, I’ll continue to do them every once in a while.

To this day, I still remember the 1992-93 season like it was yesterday. Maybe because it was the first year I actively watched hockey, or maybe it was because it was the best season I’ve ever seen the team have, I don’t know. Nevertheless, there was so much magic on that team that I can’t resist the opportunity to talk about them. Looking back, I really feel that they should have taken it all that year.

Simply put, that team had it all. They had three centers that could play on the first line on half the teams in the NHL in Pierre Turgeon [still my favorite player of all time, but more on that later], Ray Ferraro and Benoit Hogue. If that wasn’t enough, they had wingers in Steve Thomas and Derek King that seemed to come alive playing with Turgeon. They were good players before, but I think that anyone could see they had their best years when paired with Pierre.

I think the same thing could be said with Patrick Flatley and Ray Ferraro. Jason Blake reminds me a lot of Ray in the sense that he’s quick and he’s always around the puck, with Flatley being the god in the corners that he was, it made things so much easier for Ray, who definitely wasn’t the biggest player on the ice by any means.

Then, there was the kid line, ahh, the kid line. I vividly remember as a nine year old, Jiggs McDonald and Eddie Westfall always talking about Travis Green and who he was going to be matched up against during the pre-game show. Travis would routinely be matched up against players like Jeremy Roenick, Doug Gilmour, Thomas Steen, even Mario Lemieux and handled it all with no problem.

Flanking him on the wings was the speedy Marty McInnis, who the islanders traded just as he was starting to develop for Robert Reichel [who according to wikipedia, is dating Jonas Hogland, I’m not going to touch that] and the hard hitting Brad Dalgarno, forming a line that really gave the Islanders some spunk.

On defense, they had depth and balance that I think only the LA Kings that year could compare to. They had the toughness of Darius Kasparaitis and Rich Pilon, the all-around play of Scott Lachance and Uwe Krupp [not to be confused with that horrible Hollywood director Uwe Boll, who made that crappy Blood Rayne flick] and the pure offensive ability of Tom Kurvers, Vladimir Malakov and Jeff Norton, that formed a solid defensive core that protected the best Islander goaltending tandem of my time in Glenn Healy and Mark Fitzpatrick [Osgood and Snow are a close second].

Despite all the great players on that team, the thing I thing that separated them from other Islander teams in later years was that they had a great coach and the players all really respected each other and looked out for one another. I can’t tell you how many times Mick Vukota had to be summoned out on the ice by Arbour to take care of someone that was messing with Turgeon or one of the smaller players. No teams do that anymore. In the end, it’s a shame because Hockey is a team sport and players need to stick up for one another. If this Islanders team did some of that, I think we’d see a better team on the ice.

I PROMISED I’D GET BACK TO MR. TURGEON BEFORE I FINISHED…

The picture for today’s column is a scan of a card I received when I wrote Pierre during the 92-93 season. I still have it to do this day. In my den, I also have an 8.5 x 11 glossy that my father got from Pierre when he met him in sunrise mall about a month before he got traded. That day was when I grew up and understood that hockey was as much a business as much as a sport. Unfortunately, after Pierre got traded, things just got worse for me and the millions of other Islander fans. However, years after that horrible trade, I have never forgotten how much 77 meant to this team.

Despite these memories that are the foundation of my love for hockey, I just wish that one day they’ll be replaced by something else. I really hope that one day I can look back and talk about a new Islander team with such warm and devoted memories, but only time will tell.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Isles Memories