The Isles are in need of win and Tampa Bay be just the team to get it from.

It’s funny how a team could add players like Ryan Malone, Andrej Meszaros, Gary Roberts, Mark Recchi, Radim Vrbata and Matt Carle and still have problems. You see, the Lightning never really had a problem scoring goals, so why they added so much more firepower is a bit alarming if you ask me.

Well did you?

Anyway, while Carle is a solid offensive defenseman, he is no where near as proven a commodity on both ends of the ice as former Tampa Bay defenseman Dan Boyle. The same goes for Meszaros, who the Senators gave away this summer for a bag of pucks and ownership of a small bodega in Brooklyn, known infamously for it’s cockfights. After that, the Lightning have the steady, yet void of flash Lukas Krajicek, former Islander Jamie Heward [who didn't even play a game in the NHL last season] alongside rookie Janne Niskala and stay at home youngster Mike Lundin, all supporting youngster Mike “I look like Ashton Kutcher” Smith and the aging Olaf Kolzig in net.

So what does this diatribe mean for the Islanders exactly?

It means that even without the supporting cast of Mike Sillinger and Chris Campoli helping out on offense and the lack of a true first line, this team can score goals against the Lightning if they work hard enough.

Simply put, if this team gives an effort similar to that of the second game of the season against the Blues, meaning they play solid defense and take advantage of turnovers, this team is going to be in great shape tonight.

However, if they decide to take penalties, Tampa Bay will eat them alive on the powerplay faster than a zombie in Dawn of the Dead [the first one, I love the old, dumb zombies. The new, fast ones scare the crap out of me more than the time Ziggy Palffy made out with Travis Green after a goal]. Remember, this team still has Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis and with guys like Jussi Jokinen and first rounder Steve Stamkos, this team has the potential to outscore anyone in the NHL. However, if the Islanders can play tight defense and take advantage of Tampa Bay’s ineffective and inexperienced blue line, they’ll have a very good chance at coming out of Dodge with two points.

On another note, it seems like Isles goaltender Rick DiPietro will get the start on Saturday after Rotowire quoted Islanders head coach Scott Gordon yesterday saying “It will all depend on how Wednesday, Thursday and Friday go…We’re not going to force him. If we think he needs more time, we’ll talk about it and do what’s best.”

So with that being said, it looks like Joey McDonald will get at least one more start. If he can learn to hug the post and the team can play solid defense in front of him, the Isles should be able to at least hold their own until DP is ready to go. Whenever that will be…

Lastly, according to the AP, Radek Martinek will be out four to six weeks with an “Upper Body Injury” [got to love the new rules on reporting injuries to the media, eh? Makes you feel like the NHL has Ted Baxter and Mary Tyler Moore reporting to the masses ]. As well, Blake Comeau will spend the foreseeable future in Bridgeport. Makes you wonder if the Islanders are serious about a youth movement. Or maybe Andy Hilbert or Nate Thompson have pictures of the coaching staff in precarious predicaments during Mardi Gras.

On the message boards all over the Internet, many hockey fans are already counting the Islanders out this season. In spite of that, I still think this team has a lot of potential. Injuries have already begun to take its toll on the team and because of that, the team hasn’t been able to implement many of the things they need to in order to succeed.

Like I’ve said a few times already this season, the Islanders need to be able to roll four lines and have solid defense in order to sneak into the playoffs. Already missing key players, the first 20 games this season are going to be tough, but once they get who they need back, they should be able to hold their own.

As a matter of fact, if those players get hot, this team may surprise more than a few people.

A lot of people that cover the NHL and fans have short memories when it comes to the Islanders; so short that it’s kind of nauseating at times. Last season, before injuries took their toll, this team was in the middle of the playoff race. This season, they have a few other things going on, as guys like Kyle Okposo, Jeff Tambellini and Frans Neilsen have to be able to contribute on both ends of the ice, but in the end, the story is very similar.

Missing Mike Sillinger, Andy Sutton and Chris Campoli, the Islanders are missing a great faceoff man that can contribute on both ends of the ice, a shutdown d-man that will stick up for his teammates and Chris Campoli, a kid that I believe can be a guy that can provide a physical edge and score 40 points a season. Add these players into the mix and I feel that this is a very different team. Nevertheless, there is one more player that can take this team and take them from zeros to a playoff contender.

Rick DiPietro.

I don’t think that anyone that roots for another team in this league truly understands how much DP means to the team. Without him in the lineup, it’s nearly impossible to see this team make the playoffs. Despite my comments about his attitude and his consistency over the years, saying that he was anything less than the franchise’s biggest asset would be a gross understatement.

So before you guys go out and pack up your bags, wait for the sheriff to come back and clean up this town.

Through the first three games of the season, it appears that Islanders center Mike Comrie is struggling mightily to find some sort of consistency on the ice. On opening night, Comrie looked horrible on defense and was the main factor in one of the Devils goals that night. In game two, he scored a garbage goal and played a role in the Isles win. Yesterday, he committed a costly penalty and despite four shots on goal, wasn’t as sharp as you’d expect him to be.

So what exactly does Comrie have to do to get back on track?

1-Make decisions with the puck

Just like a bad driver, Comrie is at his worst when he isn’t aggressive. When he’s forced to hold on to the puck and do something with it, he often reverts to his toe-drag [I'll get to that some more later] to get around and often gets stripped of the puck. If that doesn’t happen, Comrie was resort to dumping the puck into the zone and often times that will be the end of the play. He doesn’t have the smarts of a guy like Mike Sillinger or the play-making ability of Doug Weight, but he does have good speed. If he uses his legs, he’ll get more scoring opportunities and will draw penalties.

2- Don’t get lazy

When Comrie isn’t on his game, he gets so lazy with the puck that he won’t hesitate for second to bring a guy down with a hook. The same thing goes for him on offense, as cross-ice passes aren’t out of the ordinary. Much like Rick DiPietro, when Comrie is on, he can be a dominant player. When he’s off however, he can really his team. In order to counteract this, Comrie needs to keep his legs moving and fully embrace Scott Gordon’s overspeed system. If he does, it could transform him into a different player.

3- No more toe drags!

I’ve said it a thousand times on this site and I’ll continue to say it until Comrie tries to become a more eclectic player. The toe drag works in moderation. Not every single game. Notice that after the first few weeks of the season last year, Comrie didn’t score with the move again until a late season game with the San Jose Sharks and again against the Sabres, the same team he used it against the first week of the season.

If he wants to be a player this team can depend on, he’ll have to devote himself to asking for more out of his game. Being more aggressive, using his speed and using other moves besides the toe drag can get him there.

When I first read what Greg Logan reported in his blog about a certain former Islanders captain, I literally spit the soda I was drinking out of my mouth onto my two-year old cat.

“No way,” I thought to myself. No way could this team possibly be thinking about bringing back a player that never did what everyone expected him to do. No way would this team pay a man to play for them that they are already paying NOT to play for them.

It’s the kind of logic that could kill a Vulcan.

While Alexei Yashin is probably still a sure-fire 60 point a year player in the NHL if he’s healthy, he is the complete opposite of what this team needs now. Rather than AGAIN try and find a band aid for the gaping wound on the heart and soul of this team, the Islanders need to develop the youngsters they have and let a scab form over their identity, before it heals completely.

I don’t know how the rest of Islanders country feels about this, but I feel like the team still hasn’t healed from the Yashin’s time on the Island. Sure the team made the playoffs a couple of years when he was here, but he was never the player the Islanders needed him to be. Never once did he break 90 points or be the bona fide offensive dynamo they needed. Instead, when he first got here, guys like Mark Parrish, Mike Peca and Shawn Bates developed into solid players and Adrian Aucoin became a Norris Trophy candidate. Those players were the real reason this team managed to change the hockey motif on the Island, not Yashin.

After the lockout, Miroslav Satan was brought in to finally silence the critics that said 79 needed a legitimate scorer to play with. That didn’t work either and while Satan scored a solid 35 goals, Yashin still wasn’t what the team needed. A year with Ted Nolan seemed to change Yashin at first, but injuries and a late season slump sealed his fate with the team.

Even though the Isles offense was anemic this season, bringing in Yashin will do much more harm than good. Notice that I’m not even talking about the fact that the Islanders are paying Mike Comrie four million bucks to play center next season. I mean seriously, how much could Yashin want? It has to be more than what Comrie’s making, especially given the fact that he finally learned to play in playoffs in Russia this offseason. Given that, it doesn’t make sense financially for this team to take a chance on him. With the cap space this team has and the amount of youth present, they could bring in the right people and build what could be a legitimate cup contender, given they have the patience and common sense need to do so.

Please say you do. Please.

In his rookie season, Chris Campoli was a heck of a lot of fun to watch. He took risks on offense and had enough speed to cover up for them on defense. Considering how bad the Isles were that year, he was one of the only real reasons to watch the team in my opinion. Truth be told, I saw a lot of a young Bryan Berard in his game that year and I thought that with a little more seasoning, he’d be ready to be a top-pairing d-man on this team.

However, his second season with the blue and orange was a middling one, void of the offense prowess he had shown a season before. In Ted Nolan’s dog house most of the season, Campoli had to fight to get his job back and in the process, showed that he had the skills to be much more than a “good” offensive defenseman. On numerous occasions that year, it seemed he was, again, just a short stride away from being the kind of defenseman this team really needed him to be.

This season, Campoli was well on his way to being both a more than respectable physical presence and a powerplay quarterback for the Islanders. Rumor has it though his shoulder problems were much worse than the team led on during the season and that it had popped out of place on numerous occasions during the season. I don’t know when it happened, but after about his 30th game, I saw a huge drop off in his play. He wasn’t chipping the puck into the zone as much and wasn’t as eager to play physically. Those to me are the signs of an injured player. Nevertheless, 18 points in 46 games put him on pace for about 32, which would have been more than any other Islanders defenseman this season. Now, again, don’t forget he was probably playing injured through most of the year. To me, that means that if this kid can stay healthy, he can and will be the well-rounded defenseman this team is in desperate need of.

Nothing against Brendan Witt, Andy Sutton, Radek Martinek and Freddy Meyer, but none of them have the skating ability [maybe Martinek did a few seasons ago] Campoli has and none of them have the offensive upside. One may make the argument that Bruno Gervais is a better skater, but he has yet to translate solid offensive numbers in the AHL and QMJHL to the NHL. Campoli on the other hand has and with more confidence from the coaching staff, could be someone to help turn this team around next season.

Some of this may be old news, but considering I spoke about the Snow and Dubie situation on Tuesday, I figured I’d handle this stuff today.

Isles resign Jackman- For all intensive purposes, Tim Jackman isn’t someone who means much to the success of this team. However, he worked hard when he was up here and was willing to drop the gloves whenever he had to. I still think he has a lot more offensive potential than people give him credit for and think he could pot 10 goals a season if he got significant playing time. At 26 years old, he’s still young enough to give a two-way contract and provide depth at the NHL level, but old enough to set a good example for some of the babies in Bridgeport. Overall, I think it was a good signing. The guy played like he wanted to stay here and never looked out of place while he was on the ice. Add in the fact that he had 36 points in 44 games in Bridgeport and this was practically a no-brainer.

Milbury calls Tiger Woods what? Tiger Woods should have thought twice before he said no one watches hockey anymore. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Well no, I’m going to say much more than that actually. For a golfer to say no one watches hockey is like the owner of TAB saying that Mr. Pibb sucks. Let’s be honest here, we’re not talking about Baseball and the NFL, we’re talking about two cult sports that have loyal fan bases. Watching golf is the essentially like a being a Trekkie/Trekker, while watching hockey puts you more in the Dungeons & Dragons realm of consciousness. Either way, you’re looked down upon by most other sports fans. I personally grew up enjoying both sports and do enjoy hitting off the tee from time to time, but overall, hockey is a much-more rewarding sport to play and watch in my opinion.

As well, the ideals presented in golf are those of the purely individualistic kind. There are no playoff beards or five minute fighting penalties in golf. It’s because of that Woods’ ignorant comments don’t surprise me. Because in actuality, golfers live in a world where the only thing that matters is themselves. Hockey players however, as I have said numerous times on this site, are the greatest athletes in the world and are the friendliest to the media that I have ever encountered. They stick up for each other and care about the general welfare of the sport. That’s why “Mad Mike” said what he did. And for the record, there aren’t many times when I’d stick up for the guy, but in this case, he nailed it right on the head.

Tiger Woods is a Meathead.

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.”