Editor's Note: As part of our series covering some lesser known 2011 prospects and/or guys who stand alone among their countrymen, we put a call in to Hanssen to handle some players from the land of his forefathers.

Howdy folks! I've been asked to come out of semi-retirement/hermitage by Dom to write a profile or two on guys from my area of expertise, The Great White North. So let's take a look at one of the prospects you might not have heard of but could wind up being a steal of the draft.

Odds are by the time the Isles get to pick, Adam Larsson, the stud Swedish defenseman and consensus #1 prize in the draft will be long gone. But if Garth Snow is jonesing for a large Swede to patrol the blueline in Nassau in the future, there is another option: Oskar (Or Oscar depending on who you talk to) Klefbom of Farjestad's senior and U18 team.

He's big. He's raw. He could wind up being one of the better defensemen taken in the draft. Or he could be Branislav Mezei 2.0. Lets take a closer look at the other big Swedish defenseman, the one with the name headline writers and commenters will come up with if he ever becomes a heavy hitter and also a built in nickname.

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So as Jesse Joensuu was recently demoted back to Bridgeport, several questions have been raised specifically about his future and what he needs to do to improve. Up front, yes I am a fan of Jesse Joensuu. I have been high on him since the Isles drafted him in the 2nd round of 2006. I have seen him develop over the previous two seasons in Bridgeport and the previous seasons in the SM-Liiga and World Junior Championships. I am a Jesse Joensuu apologist. I am his public defender. There, I said it. Deal with it.

The general feeling is time is running out for the 23 year old to make an impact on the organization. As the local Jesse Joensuu public defender, I've developed what basically has become the basis of this article out of my comments defending Joensuu. More specifically, I want to take a look at why it would be foolish now to give up on a 23 soon to be 24 year old Joensuu.

For this argument I will use a player correlation to Joensuu. I honestly don't like using correlaries for players as I think each individual player bring their own unique twist to the game that does not show up in the box score. I also know that the player I will use are not necessarily the same type of players that Joensuu is. My purpose in using the correlation is to show that there is still time  for Joensuu to develop. So just to be clear, I am not saying he will turn into Frans Nielsen, Ville Leino, Jere Lehtinen or whomever else I use below, he will turn into Jesse Joensuu. Whatever that happens to be.

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Hello, My name is Mr. Hanssen. I'm your substitute teacher for this afternoon's game recap. Mr. Dominik Lighthouse-Hockey is away for the weekend. If you sit down and stay quiet we can get through this together.

Game Sum | Event Sum | H2H | Corsi | Recaps: NHL - ILWT - Isles

Well, let's just start off with that was not a pretty game. The recent trend of slow starts continued today first with Vlad Zharkov's first career NHL goal at 4:25 followed up a minute later by Ilya Kovalchuk's 13 of the year, a slap shot from the point on the power play. In what has been a troubling trend for Kevin Poulin early in his NHL career, he let up two early goals as he did against the Avalanche in his first NHL start and against the Senators in his previous start. three out of his four NHL starts, he has put his team in a deep hole early on. Whether it is rookie nerves, needing time to get comfortable, whatever it is, this is a learning edge that Poulin needs to work on.

As for the rest of the game, follow me after the jump for my thoughts, highlights and other brain droppings on this holiday Monday.

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Well, its a new year. And a new year means a fresh start, a new begining, a blank page even if you're team currently sits 29th out of 30 NHL teams. As we welcome 2011, I thought I would take a look at what current and former Islanders have chosen for their New Years resolutions. So join me after the jump to see what some of our favorites have in store for the coming year! (Note: Everything that follows is sic-ed)

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So I was skimming through the MeiGray Group's Islanders game-word jersey selection the other day. It is pretty interesting, and the best place to pick up that Josh Bailey Game Worn Jersey you've had your eye on. But for every Bailey, Nielsen or Martinek there are a whole bunch of "Who? Who is that and when did he play for the Isles?" Many of these are from Preseason, not the regular season, and therefore many never actually saw time with the Isles. But there are some interesting ones...

Now, if you are interested, we have a decent short term distraction from the mess of the Isles season. So we're going to play "The Price is Right" and see if you can match up the asking price of each jersey.

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