Isles Talk

Passionate Conversation About Long Island's Professional Hockey Club

Isles Talk - Passionate Conversation About Long Island's Professional Hockey Club

Off Season Plans for Isles Talk

Well – the news gets less and less from Islander Country as the playoffs drag on.  Now – it is the task of rating the boys, as well as determining the direction of the team for the future.

Over the next few weeks, we will begin to review every player that donned a blue and orange sweater this season.  All four of the writers will add a grade, this way, we can compare and contrast.

What we will do, is one of us will do the leg work on each player, and give a grade.  Then the others will add their commentary and grade the player.  At the end, we will do the coaches and management, and then start to look at the players that we think will be available to the team when the Isles draft (around 15-18).

We will begin mid week with Mark Streit, and end with John Tavares; obviously, in numeric order.

Stay tuned…

 

Way to go, Matty!

Congratulations to Matt Moulson, for being nominated for the second straight year for the Lady Byng trophy.  Patrick Kane and Martin St. Louis are nominated for the award which will be announced during the Stanley Cup Finals.

He only had four penalty minutes in 47 games this season.  The least among the top 50 scores in the NHL this season.

Hopefully, the silverware will be heading to New York for #26. 

Great stuff!

 

Hockey from the Blind Side, a Book Recommendation

I am not sure if this was written about here, and I apologize to Gary if he did bring it up, but I just finished a book that I’d like to strongly recommend any Islander fan read. It might be a little tough right after having lost to the Penguins and now being out of the playoffs, yet it also might also help you feel better as an Islander fan and really ignore that sense of pride in the organization.

The book was written by, Greg Prato and came out last fall. It’s called, “Dynasty –the Oral History of the New York Islanders – 1972-1984″. It contains interviews with many players and people surrounding the early years of the team going back to its creation and recounting the championship years up to the end of the “drive for five” season of 1983-1984.

I had bought the book back when it had come out when I had read about it on Islanders Point Blank, but I hadn’t had the chance to read it until recently. It was rather ironic that I ended up reading the bulk of the book just as the April run had taken the current Islanders to the playoffs and literally finished reading it on Saturday. I know people often describe really good books as something you can’t put down, and I hate to use such a description, but I really couldn’t stop reading it once I started to read it. Continue reading →

Future Bright for Isles and this Author too

forecatLife is returning to normal – after the great playoff run and series against Pittsburgh.  The loss is still hard to take, but the pain is gone.  Life is slowing returning to its normal routine.

Well – sort of.

As for me – I started a new journey today.  This morning, I began a liquid diet in advance of bariatric surgery that I am having two weeks from today.  It is journey that will help me lose a great deal of weight, and allow me to live a healthier life. 

As I approach my 50th birthday in six months, I no longer wanted to be overweight, unhealthy, diabetic, and unable to do the things that a man of my age can do.  This surgery, called a gastric sleevectomy, will remove 70% of my stomach.  This will allow me to eat only the amount of food necessary for a normal lifestyle.  I anticipate that a year after this surgery, I will have lost over 100 pounds.  At that time, I should be healthier than I have been in over 30 years.

As I am making changes in my life, the Islanders have gone through a series of changes in the last few years under the watch of General Manager Garth Snow.  He has been limited to certain moves, due to the fact that players did not want to come to a team that is in a state of disarray, due to an aging building, and inability to put the revenue necessary to build a winning team.  Despite those drawbacks, Snow has assembled a team that is working hard, and moving in the right direction.  This playoff run has made the rest of the league notice, that the Islanders are not a “Mickey Mouse” team; that they have a purpose, and with the right people and the right character, they are a team that can potentially succeed and compete with the NHL elite.

John Tavares has not become a good player; he has become an elite player.  Not using my Long Island bias, but without this player, the Islanders would not even be a shadow of themselves. 

If that is NOT the definition of an MVP player, then I do not know who is?

Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are great players, but do their teams fall off if they are not in the lineup? 

The Caps maybe a little, but we all saw how good the Pens did with Sidney out of the lineup.  They did not miss a beat.  To me, that is not an MVP.  That is a great player (Ted Lindsay award – would more suit to him).

Other players had seasons to show that they BELONG with this team.  Colin MacDonald, signed a a fill-in for Bridgeport not only stepped up and was the Captain of the Sound Tigers, but made the big club, and made significant contributions to the team.

Another was Casey Cizikas.  Another player that not only made the team, but impacted so much when the stretch run was happening.  He has seemed to reach cult hero status (getting near Webb like responses).

There are so many outstanding role players that have made their mark on this hockey club.  And not only do they do it on the ice, but are outstanding character players as well.  Garth Snow has said all along that he was players of strong character, and he has not missed the mark on any of them.

However, the GM has some big decisions coming up.  He has key unrestricted free agents to deal with (Streit, Nabokov, Boyes, among others).  Many a decision to make before July.

Speaking of July, what does he do on the market?  Does he go out and get the stud player?  With the fact of the impending move to Brooklyn in 24 months, players may look to that as a positive move.  They can deal with the old barn, and know that greener pastures lie ahead.  That can bring the type of player that the team may need.

But to some, including the boss, there may not be a need to stockpile the team with veteran talent.  There are many players coming in the system, that may be ready to step up sooner rather than later.  Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson, Nino Niederreiter and potentially, Griffin Rhienhart come to mind.  There is talent there, and it is exciting to think of the potential fire power that this team has in its arsenal.

When was the last time that you really wished that September and training camp could happen as early as tomorrow?  It has been too long.  So we have to deal with the playoffs, and watching others be where we wanted to be. (Go Bruins!)  But the crystal ball is seeing a lot of good things coming our way.

With the Islanders for all of us, and for the upcoming surgery for me, there is so much to look forward to.  We can all be proud of what is coming up for these guys.  Get on the Islander train, it is speeding away from the station and moving on to bigger and better things.

Hockey from the Blind Side, Respect and Islander Pride

Let me first congratulate the Penguin fans, our friends at PenguinPoop, and the Penguin organization. It was a great, entertaining series. It wasn’t, of course, how I would have wanted it to turn out, but as a hockey fan, I understand that good teams find ways to win, and as Al Arbour once said, you have to lose to learn how to win.

Overall, though, I cannot describe how proud I am of the New York Islanders. I can recall how stunned and dejected I was when the Isles were eliminated in 2002 by the Leafs and almost equally so in 2007 after Buffalo won that first round series. I am disappointed, for sure, but I feel a true sense of pride and accomplishment for this team and organization. No one gave the Islanders a chance, and they were supposed to be nothing more than a minor inconvenience for the Pens.

Realistically, the Islanders could have just as easily won the series in 6 with the right bounces, absent of a crappy holding call in the overtime of game 3 and whistle happy officials last night who inexplicably stopped play twice with live pucks the Islanders could have buried. This is not griping or sour grapes either. My point is if you are a Penguin fan, you can’t come away from this series feeling like you dominated and schooled the upstart Islanders. Continue reading →

Disappointed, but EXTREMELY PROUD

pit nyi 6It was a tough loss tonight.  The Isles had their chances, but were not able to finish the job.

In my mind, as overtime came, I thought to myself that if we did not score in the first three minutes, it would be tough to pull it off.

And so an unlikely scorer did the job, as Brooks Orpik got the puck off the post and past Evgeni Nabokov.

We can talk about the bad things, and what we need to do next year later in the weeks and months ahead.  Right now, it is time to be proud of this team, and the work that they have done to potentially move into the next step.

John Tavares is the MVP  - to me – there is NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!

This team proved without a shadow of a doubt, that they are for real.  NO one thought that this team had a chance, and they nearly brought the Pens to a 7th game.

In a word, RESPECT!

Keep your head up Islanders nation, we showed the NHL that we a force in the future.

To the folks at PenguinPoop.com, congrats on the win, and best of luck in the rest of the playoffs.

 

Hockey from the Blind Side, It is Best of 7, Not 5

This is a best of 7 series. Let me start off by pointing that out. There are still two potential games that can be played tomorrow and Sunday.

Enough has been written about last night’s game. Unfortunately, circumstances made me unable to catch any of it, so I cannot write about specifics. This might actually be a good thing.. though. From what I read, I do not lime, but since I didn’t hear it with my own ears, I am not going to delve on specifics.

The bottom line is it is like having lost game 1 5-0. Yes, the Isles have the pressure on them and, yes, a win by the Penguins will eliminate the Islanders. However, a win by the home team tomorrow will send the series back to the Steel City and, therefore, put the pressure back on the Penguins.

I’m not worried about what happened last night. That is done and forgotten. That’s why it is a best of 7 series. There is little room in the playoffs for errors, but all is not lost for the Islanders. Continue reading →

The Word of the Day is RESILIENT

Tough pill to swallow.

Tough pill to swallow.

According to Merriam-Webster, this is the official definition of RESILIENT:

Definition of RESILIENT

: characterized or marked by resilience: as

 

a: capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture

 

b: tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

This Islander team has been doing this ALL SEASON LONG.  It will not surprise me one iota, if they do it again tomorrow.  They have ‘bounced back’ from adversity all season long, and in this upcoming biggest game in most of these young player’s careers, it will need to be displayed.
 
Last night was just a tough one to swallow.  Let’s put it simply.  Evgeni Nabokov has not had a good series.  Yes, the other goaltender not named Vokoun has played bad too, but it has been a statement for his career that when it comes to playoff time, #20 has not been his usual self.  He NEEDS to be better tomorrow.
 
Would Kyle Okposo please return to the forefront?
 
Pittsburgh did a great job of holding down the top guys.  Despite 34 shots on net, the Islanders were just non-existent offensively.  The ‘battle level’ that Coach Capuano uses in his press conference talks, was running on empty.
 
Better this game happened in 5 as opposed to 6.
 
A day to clear the rust, and get back to the form that makes tham formidible opponents.  It is time to show the resiliency that I know they have in them.  All year, especially in the last 6 weeks of the season, this team has been just that; RESILIENT!
 
I still believe more now than I did a week ago.  Do you?
 
#beLIeve