Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be giving you guys my take on what the Islanders should do with the bevy of free agents they’ll have on their team after the season is officially over.

Here we go:

Tom Poti.

I don’t know how you guys feel about him, but I think he was easily the Islanders best defenseman last season and was extremely under-appreciated and didn’t get nearly as much praise as he should have. However, at the same time, he wasn’t booed every single time he touched the puck when he was on the Rangers. That I think might have been what Poti wanted all along, just to be able to play his game and in the end, his game really benefited from it. Make no mistakes about the guy, Tom Poti was everything the Islanders could have ever asked for this season.

Basically combining the solid defensive play he showed the NHL during his last year with the Rangers and being the consistent offensive defenseman many scouts thought he was eventually going to be during his days in college, Poti was excellent on both sides of puck. In all honesty, he reminds me a lot of Adrian Aucoin [at least when he was on the Isles] because not only can he eat up minutes, but he’s not scared to block shots and take the body when he has to. The only thing I think I’d really change about Poti’s game is that I’d make him take some more shots from the point. He’s got way too good of a shot to be passing to Marc-Andre Bergeron ALL the time.

Poti shooting a bit more would also make Bergeron less on a target on the powerplay and penalty-killing units would have to worry about both of their shots and not just Bergeron’s. At any rate, Poti, if signed, could continue to be a huge contributor to the team.

The only question is, do we keep him?

With Sean Hill’s Islanders career most likely over, I think Poti has to stay. I love Bruno Gervais and Chris Campoli, but I don’t think their ready to be 25-minute a game defenseman yet. In addition, Poti is more adept on the power play than both of them and as we saw in the Islanders playoff series against Buffalo, they don’t have many options at the point when they’re on the man advantage. Radek Martinek coming back healthy and strong will help, but having Poti around as both a leader and a mentor to Gervais, Campoli and whoever else might be around next season will be extremely important for the Islanders and their defense core.

Keep ‘em.

Posted under Offseason 2006-07

Well, it’s over, but it sure was interesting, huh?

While the Isles did maintain a better offensive presence in this game, they weren’t as strong defensively or physical and in the end, that’s what cost them the most.
This may not be the best comparison, but I think that this team has a lot in common with the Islanders team that lost to the Maple Leafs in 2002. Sure, the Leafs that year were a completely different monster than the Sabres, but by the end of that series and the end of this one against Buffalo, I said the same thing to myself, “This team needs to be more physical.”

After the team lost to the Leafs that year, the Islanders parted ways with finesse winger Mariusz Czerkawski and went out and got Arron Asham and Jason Wiemer. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the team tried their hardest to pick up someone else with some “marbles” for next season. Someone like Taylor Pyatt immediately comes to mind.
As well, with Sean Hill no longer an option for next season, the Islanders are going to either give Chris Campoli and Bruno Gervais [who both played very well last night and seem ready to accept more responsibility] a bigger role or count on Radek Martinek to make a solid comeback after another injury-plagued season. With Tom Poti now a free agent as well, the Isles are going to have some serious questions to answer about their defense during the offseason.

Regardless of that however, I still think this team is headed in the right direction and if they can manage to add a few more pieces, they’ll have better luck next year.
Throughout this entire season, the Islanders have been through more emotionally than the teenagers on Dawson Creek, but have always managed to put it together when it counted, thanks in part to some great coaching by Ted Nolan and a career years from Jason Blake and DiPietro. However, against Buffalo, the team just ran out of steam and couldn’t keep up with the uber-talented Sabres.

While being extremely disappointed right now that the team couldn’t keep the Sabres [who played far from a perfect series] on their toes a little bit longer, I’d have to be out of my mind to not be proud of this team. All season long, through injuries to key players such as Rick DiPietro, Alexei Yashin, Shawn Bates, Radek Martinek and the Chris Simon suspension, this team found a way to stay in the thick of things. For a team that was predicted by a myriad of media outlets to finish in last place or extremely close to it, just making the playoffs alone is a huge accomplishment.

Nevertheless, you can’t help but get the feeling that things could have been much different if the team could have stayed healthy and found away to stay away from some of the other drama that managed to engulf them.

Maybe next year will be different.

Well, that closes the book on the 2006-2007 New York Islanders season. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. I know there were plenty of times that had all of our stomach’s in knots, but I also know that there were a ton more that put a smile on all of our faces. I’ve said it numerous times this season, but I feel the urge to say it one last time: this season had more energy than the past five put together and despite being eliminated in the first round, I think that Islander fans and the organization itself have gotten a taste of what Ted Nolan can do when given an opportunity.

That in itself is probably one of the biggest things to happen to this team in a very long time and hopefully next season Nolan doesn’t have to deal with as much adversity and drama and can continue to take this team to the next level.

Let’s go Islanders.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Post Game Rants

It’s not that the Islanders played horribly last night, it’s just that they didn’t play that good.

For the most part, despite the score, they managed to keep things close until the end of the third when Campbell put the game away, but they really never challenged the Sabres or threatened to make a comeback. As well, they couldn’t get any decent forecheck going and didn’t give Dubie the support that he needed in front of the net. It just felt like the Islanders were trying to limit their mistakes against the Sabres and as a result, were extremely tentative.

It wound up costing them the game.

First off, the entire team wasn’t taking the body as much as they should have and the defense wasn’t clearing the front of the net for Dubielewicz, thus giving the Sabres way too many golden opportunities to score. Too often was Dubie forced to look around opposing Buffalo forwards who were standing in front of him. As well, the Islanders had more than a few opportunities to get back into the game via the powerplay and really didn’t execute the way they should have.

I mean, I love the fact that the Isles got Bruno Gervais back in the lineup after missing 24 games with an ankle injury, but the guy does not belong on the power play and why he was taking so many shots with the man advantage is beyond me. I mean, I’d rather see Brendan Witt on the PP then Gervais. However, all jokes aside, I know that the Isles played Bergeron for over 26 minutes and they didn’t want to overplay him late in the game, but why not use Campoli and Gervais a bit more on even strength so you can use Bergeron on the powerplay were he’s his most effective? Giving both Gervais and Campoli as little as three more minutes a piece on even strength would have given the Islanders two offensively gifted defensemen, Tom Poti and Bergeron more gas in the their tanks, enabling them more time on the PP and would have been huge in the team’s ability to stage a comeback.

As well, why were Richard Park and Alexei Yashin sitting on the bench for most of the game? Park only had eight minutes of ice time and Yashin only had 13. Remember guys that earlier in the season, when this team was playing their best hockey, all four lines were getting good chunks of ice-time, with Park playing about 10 minutes a game and the Islanders captain getting about 17. I mean, all Park did was almost single-handedly get this team into the playoffs this weekend and bust his hump all season on both ends of the ice, why wasn’t he given more ice time?

Secondly, Yashin’s play since he came back hasn’t been bad at all, as he has 12 points in his last 16 games [remember also that Yashin got barely an ice time his first few games back] and with the team in the playoffs, he needs to get an opportunity to earn his huge paycheck.

However, despite the myriad of things that didn’t go the Isles way last night, there was one positive the Isles can take into the next game on Saturday… hatred for the Sabres. Towards the end of the game, things started to get really feisty and especially at the end, things looked like they were going to carry over into the next game. It all really started to escalate when Jaroslav Spacek started to throw elbows at Ryan Smyth and Trent Hunter like it was 1995 and he was playing NBA Jam.

Was it me or was the HSBC Arena so loud that Ryan Smyth didn’t hear the offside call late in the third? Why would Spacek then decide to crosscheck Smyth and then hit him with an elbow? I don’t know about you guys, but I thought after that little incident, the Isles started to finish their checks, well at least Arron Asham did. If the Isles can get gritty and revert back to the blue collar game that got them into the playoffs, we could see a much different series. Last night just looked like the Islanders were trying to beat the Sabres at their own game.

With only 21 shots on goal in Game 1, it’s obvious that if the Isles continue down this path then we all know where they’re going to wind up.

At any rate, the Islanders still have to get more pucks at Miller and need to pick up their physical play and defense if they want to hang with the Sabres. However, if they can win on Saturday and can manage to get DP healthy for game three, a series win could still be within their grasp.

For now however, the Islanders are skating on some pretty thin ice. Some will say that it’s only one game, but with only four losses to give in the series, things just got a little easier for the Sabres.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Post Game Rants

That game was something to be thankful for.

Hopefully, just maybe, looking back a few months from now, we can say that this was when the Islanders season really began.

Pure domination, that’s the best way to put it. Every line had their thing going. Asham, Park and Bates were flying all over the ice and the defense was joining the play and not having any problems getting back and stifling the Hurricanes offense.

While the offense of the Hurricanes was held in check last night, the Isles were all over the puck and again, Alexei Yashin and Jason Blake were on fire. Billy Jaffe made a great point by saying that they are both being unselfish with the puck and it’s paying well for them. Also, despite taking a few penalties [one of them was a complete joke as York was getting his stick held by a Hurricane and the back referee made the call for hooking when it was obvious he was getting his stick held], York played a solid game and provided some energy with Kozlov and Hunter.

We were so dominant last night that even Andy Hilbert managed to stick out, managing a season-high six shots on goal.

Simply put, when someone who has no points plays his best game of the year, you have to win. Luckily for the Isles, DP stayed on top of his game despite facing a minimum amount of shots and the rest of the team stuck together and played their best game of the season. Maybe now, the rest of the league will start to take the Isles a little bit more seriously.

BRUNO!

Maybe it was just me, but I’m starting to become a fan of Bruno Gervais. He plays such a solid game on both ends of the ice and it goes almost completely unnoticed. A few times he joined the rush last night and you could see that this kid has some speed. With Campoli in Bridgeport now, it looks like Bruno is here to stay. Originally wanting to see Campoli back in the lineup, I was hesitant of Bruno’s ability, but over the past few games, he’s made me a believer.

POOR MIRO!

I would have never thought that Satan would get himself into a slump like this, even though he’s a streaky scorer. Nevertheless, it’s great that he’s finding ways to score and he really played a great game last night, if anyone deserved that open-netter, it was Miro. If he continues to play this way, I have no doubt that the goals will come.

NEXT GAME…
 
Malkin and the Penguins come to the coliseum on Friday. Crosby missed the last game due to a groin injury, so he’s not likely to be 100% if he plays. This might be exactly what the Islanders need, considering a win against the Pens will put the Isles in sole possession of the last playoff spot in the conference. I know it may be a bit too early to think about the playoffs, but these games against division rivals will end up meaning a lot by the end of the season.

Posted under Isles 2006-07, Post Game Rants