SBNation.com User Blog: mikb

May Hockey?! New York Islanders by the Calendar

mikb — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:51:39 -0000

So hey you guys – MAY HOCKEY!

It’s been twenty long years since the New York Islanders were able to treat their fans to meaningful hockey games in May. You might quibble that this is in part due to the compressed schedule; maybe, but after the cruddy lockout – of which Washington’s Brooks Laich said, "I feel like we punched our sport in the face" – they owe us.

Besides, good things tend to happen in the Coliseum in May.

Since the calendar is looking our way for the first time in a while, I decided to look to the calendar for inspiration: specifically, the New York Islanders 2013 Team Calendar, officially licensed product of the NH of L and their Players’ Association. (Who’da thunk they could agree on anything?) It promises a "Bonus STATS Page," "Exciting NHL Trivia," and "more," so this could be the most exciting calendar since the Mayans stopped chiseling.

Hum the opening theme to NHL ’94 and come along with me.

The Bonus Page

They give you the bonus right up front, just like in a real NHL Standard Player Contract, but you don’t get to spread the extra time out over the duration of the calendar. It has the top ten in the boxcar stats, games played, and wins and shutouts; kind of depressing from an Isles fan’s perspective. The only Islanders representative there comes with a big asterisk.

The "Regular Season Leaders" section for last season is quite dumb. This time they skip shutout and games played in order to give us the save percentage and GAA leaders, but they neglected to screen out non-qualifiers. That’s how you get Mike Murphy, Peter Mannino, and Shawn Hunwick all leading the league in GAA… Hunwick doing so without facing a single shot in his three minutes of action. It’s obvious the intern at the calendar outfit just went to Google, found hockey-reference.com, and copied the list off the "goalie register" section instead of looking up the qualified leaders.

The Stanley Cup stuff is cool, though; composite standings and a list of historical winners. The Isles, with four out of five finals won, are the most successful franchise (by percentage) of any that has been to more than two finals. And the yearly history includes pre-NHL results back to 1918 – they miss Seattle’s 1917 victory but include the Marooons, the Vancouver Millionaires (oh-for-five, not including this year’s cameo wipeout - bummer), and the times that three teams all played in the challenge round.

Four Extra Months

The bottom of the Bonus Page is September, October, November, and December of 2012, lest you forget that there was exactly zero NHL hockey happening then. Fittingly, the two Islanders chosen to represent the lost half-year are Nino Niederreiter and Marty Reasoner. They are at least good pictures. Reasoner’s in particular is fun: he has the puck and a wide-eyed look of surprise on his face, like a mite player: look, I got it! Mom! Mom! Did you see, I had the puck! This is so fun!

January

Someone at the calendar company has a sense of humor, or we have a lurker: January’s poster Islander is Josh Bailey. HE WUZ EVEN RUSHD ON TEH CALENDER!!!eleven!

February

The fastest month is adorned with the fastest Islander, Michael Grabner, who once finished February on January 28^th so he could really enjoy Presidents Day when it caught up to him.

March

In like a mighty bearded lion, out like a wounded lamb: it’s Rick DiPietro, who usually doesn't get this far into a season. One hopes for better in the future, despite logic, history, medical science, and the cruel blind whims of Fate.

April

STOP – Hammer time! It's Travis Hamonic, wearing the None More Black, hunting down a puck whilst pursued by a dastardly Penguin – in this case the dastardly #14, Chris Kunitz. Given the opponent and the jersey, it’s not hard at all to pin down the actual game shown: Dec 10, 2011, a 6-3 loss in which the Isles blew an early 2-0 lead, re-took the lead in the second (with a Hamonic assist on the play), and then unraveled when Hammer was assessed a phantom five-and-eject for elbowing. I think we're being trolled by the calendar now.

So what super-inspirational picture kicks off MAY HOCKEY at NASSAU COLISEUM?

May

Andrew MacDonald firing a pass out of his own end. Nobody else is in the frame so I’m guessing this was a random dump-and-change by the other guys. Eh, I’ll take it. Did I mention the MAY HOCKEY OMG HOCKEY IN MAY WHARRRGARRBL

June

Now we’re talking, friends. Matty Ice himself, Matt Moulson, is our June pin-up. He’s head-up, flow flying, looking for the puck on the breakout – I can see the Isles’ backup keeper in this shot – and there is a red Capitals jersey in the crowd. This would be either January 17, 2012 (a 3-0 Isles win) or February 28, 2012 (a 3-2 OT loss). My money’s on the loss, since the calendar is trolling us and the February game featured the Isles blowing a 2-0 lead in the last 3:29 of regulation.

July

It’s the Patron Saint of Pain, Matt Martin, #17… except that the picture is quite clearly #47, Andrew MacDonald. Really, Calendar?

August

Yes, really. August belongs to Nino Niederreiter. It’s the same picture from the Bonus Page. This would annoy me more, except that we have a better shot of the boards – this is Tampa, and Nino only played one game in Tampa last season, a 4-3 loss on March 24^th.

Incidentally, the Evil Trolling Calendar has been giving us "ON THIS DATE" facts each month, and monthly trivia. To this point, not a single one of these facts has had anything to do with the New York Islanders, in their own team calendar. We have the momentous occasion of Pittsburgh’s May 16, 2011 signing of forward Zach Sill – but nothing at all about the Islanders in any way. History Will Be ~~Made~~ Ignored.

September

Kyle Okposo, amazingly not toe-dragging, on the puck in the neutral zone against Ottawa. He’s in black. Guess what, it’s another dispiriting Islanders loss! Seriously, GFY Calendar.

October

Marty Reasoner gets his closeup. I can barely make out a Rangers jersey in the background, but Reasoner’s in the None More Black, and the Isles didn’t play the Rangers in their third jerseys at any time during this season. This is very puzzling to me. Why, Calendar?

November

It’s the captain, Mark Streit, along with a bonus 38% of Evgeni Nabokov in the background. It’s not clear who they’re playing here. There is a bit of a Verizon ad on the back boards, but it doesn't look like Washington. No red at all in the crowd. I think it also says UMC next to the Verizon ad, but the U is mostly hidden by the Captain.

December

Well, the Calendar comes through at the end. Considering the performance up until now, I wasn’t sure they could even get this obvious thing correct, but the Franchise has arrived, Mr. John Tavares, taking it behind the net and away from the defense. No visible opponent. On the bottom, it says "Happy Holidays," and that much, at least, the Calendar has right. Every day we get to see John Tavares in an Islanders uniform is Christmas Day.

ALSO

MAY PLAYOFF HOCKEY, FOR SERIOUS.

via 25.media.tumblr.com

Jets 5, Islanders 4 (OT) Game Recap - from the heights to the depths

mikb — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 02:51:28 -0000

Yes sir, yes sir, three points full.

The Islanders seem to be making a habit of getting off to a slow start in games. Tonight was more of the same, as penalties (some of them possibly even deserved) left the club back on their heels, even after David Ullström had given them a 1-0 lead.

GS | ES | Faceoffs | TOI (Islanders) TOI (Jets) | Recaps: nhl.com

From that point, the Winnipeg Jets got every shot in the period until one went in - Alexei Ponikarovsky tied it - and though the Isles scraped a tie out of the period, the sense was that the Isles had been lucky up until then. The luck ended when Bryan Little finished a pretty passing play across the paint against a helpless Evgeni Nabokov.

Nabokov was the best player on the ice for the Isles during those forty minutes; the next ten belonged Mr. John Tavares: a goal after being sprung by a nifty chip pass from Kyle Okposo, a primary assist when Matt Moulson tipped his point shot, and a secondary assist on the power play.

The go-ahead goal was particularly welcome, because the Isles maintained offensive pressure five-on-five: a smart pinch by Travis Hamonic held the puck near the hashes along the near boards, and Tavares picked up the puck from there, walked the blue line, and kept his shot low, timed to arrive at the same time as Moulson came across the shooting lane.

Of course, there are some ways the Isles aren't quite ripe yet. The Jets tied it, taking advantage of one of those possible penalties to finally crack the perfect season record of the Islanders' PK unit. And while there's not much one can do about a Dustin Byfuglien screamer from the point, every Islander probably wants the tying goal back: Alexander Burmistrov corralled a puck that ought to have been cleared, dawdled around with it a while, and then snapped a riser that Nabokov let tick off the tip of his glove and into the top of the net.

The roller coaster finally came to a stop in disheartening fashion, after a breakdown in the offensive end. Evander Kane simply beat the Islanders' backcheckers into the zone, and got the rebound of Olli Jokinen's shot juuuuuust over the goal line to end it.

And to add insult to injury, MSG decided to punish the faithful by airing the well-scorned "SOMEBODY LEFT THE GATE OPEN" commerical afterward. Sure, kick us while we're down, broadcasters.

HIGHLIGHTS

~~Soon. Not that we're in the biggest hurry this time, consarnit.~~ (EDIT - OK, here they are. You have been warned.)

NOTES

Those of you who read the Three Q's post with Arctic Ice Hockey's Trevor Maughan will see that pretty much everything he talked about came to pass tonight - 1, the Jets are not playing Mark Scheifele that much (he was scratched again tonight); 2, Olli Jokinen is more than just a gif machine, but a "breath of fresh air" for a young team that needed a veteran center who won draws and plays a two-way game; 3, the MTS Centre is a hell of a place for the home crowd - when the Jets went on that momentum-swinging power-play, the place was buzzing, and when Buff's shot rang the iron and went in, the place was bedlam, and stayed that way for the remainder of the game. Our thanks to Trevor for an insightful look at the distinguished opposition.

Speaking of exiled ex-Isles, the Jets gave the start to El Cubano Grande, Al Montoya, who looked frankly shaky when the Islanders really pushed, but didn't have to keep looking that way for long. Kane, who would eventually get the winner for Cubano, was asked about the huge collision that concussed Montoya early last season... and according to Kane, he smoothed it out with Montoya by essentially agreeing that it was all Milan Jurcina's fault. (Video there courtesy of your own Keith Quinn.)

Matty Ice's deflection was his 100th goal as an Islander.

Thomas Hickey made his Islanders debut, to many a huzzah, and played 12:22 tonight (including a smidge more than a minute on the PK). He took three shots on goal, and looked as smart as advertised moving the puck and making decisions. Alas, he was also caught up ice when Keith Aucoin's misfeed led to the deflection to the counterattack to the game-deciding goal.

How the Bettminch Stole Hockey

mikb — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 19:13:56 -0000

All the Fans down in Fanville loved hockey a lot
But the BETTMINCH, who came from Basketballburgh, DID NOT.
The Bettminch hated hockey, it just didn't please him -
Nobody knows why, but he'd killed prior seasons.
It could be, he claimed, that teams lost too much money;
Or perhaps that arenas were wasted on hockey.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
Was the fact that his brain was three sizes too small

But whatever the reason, his brain or his money
He looked at the CBA and hated ice hockey.
He stared from his office with that weaselly frown
At the happy Fans waiting for pucks to drop down.
And he knew, with each signing and practice and trade
That the games were getting closer to being played.

"And they're buying their tickets!" he whined with a sneer.
"Opening Day is practically here!"
Then he growled, with his adding machine nervously adding,
"I MUST find a way to keep hockey from happening!"
For, soon, he knew...
...All the Fans, blue and pink,
Would wake up bright and early. They'd rush for the rink!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the cheering and noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! CHEERFUL NOISE!
All the Fans, young and old, would sit down to a game.
They'd cheer! They'd boo! Goal horns would proclaim!
They would feast on nachos, and hot dogs, and beer
Which was something the Bettminch could never hold dear!

And THEN, they'd do something he liked least of all!
After months of contests, and teams bravely striving,
They'd line up for handshakes, with confetti spinning.
And the last team rewarded the Stanley Cup for winning.
They'd cheer! And they'd cheer! And they'd have a parade!
And the more Bettminch thought of the games to be played
The more that he thought, "I must stop this charade!
Why, for twenty-odd years I've put up with it now!
I must finally kill the whole NHL! ... but how?

Then he got an idea...
An AWFUL idea!
The Bettminch had a wonderful, AWFUL idea!

"I know just what to do!" With a gleam in his eye,
He put on his Commissioner's suit and tie
And he chuckled and clucked, "What a dirty little trick!
I'll chase off the Fans with a lockout, right quick!
All I need is a reason..." He looked all around,
But since hockey was awesome, there were none to be found.
Did that stop Bettminch? You've got to be kidding.
"I'll just get the owners to do my bidding!"
He gathered his owners, and spoke to them sternly
"You see how your teams all struggle financially!
Three-point-three billion in sales is quite paltry -
We must cut the players' share very sharply."
They called a press conference and gathered reporters
And Bettminch announced, "Our sport's out of order!
We're all losing money, and it never will do
So we want a much greater share of revenue."

All arenas went dark. All employees sent home.
All the Fans who had suffered so much gave a groan.
And the players couldn't even get Bettminch on the phone.
"This is step number one," said the Bettminchy fool
And he slashed the entire preseason schedule.
He sent off the players. Some went overseas.
The younger ones went down to juniors for free.
Some went to the minor league affiliates
And some were just stuck sitting home eating donuts.

The Fans yelled at the Bettminch. "Commissioner, why?
Why can't we watch NHL hockey? WHY?"
Well, you know, that Bettminch was such a snot
That he thought up a lie, right there on the spot.
"My dear sweet Fans," the old Bettminch lied,
"The revenue's pushed far too much to one side!
When have a new CBA, all will be clear.
We'll bring back the players to play their games here."
The lie fooled nobody the least little bit,
The Fans were quite sure he was full of ... baloney.
But nothing the Fans could say or do mattered,
They couldn't be rid of the lying old phony.

So the Bettminch kept going. His cuts became drastic.
He cut out the All-Star Game and Winter Classic.
Nobody bought tickets. Nobody bought jerseys.
The season was dying; Bettminch didn't hurry.
The owners and players both wanted to play
They asked mediators to show them the way
And just when the Fans thought there was an agreement
Bettminch left a voice mail that said, "I didn't mean it."

'Twas a quarter till January. No games were planned.
The lockout was officially out of hand.
Bettminch was finally close to success,
Another full season spent hockey-less.
"Pooh-pooh to the Fans!" he was Bettminchly humming
"They finally realize no hockey is coming!
The players can de-certify away,
But they know it's too late for the league to be saved.
We'll go ahead and find players to sue,
And the miserable Fans! I know just what they'll do!
They're mouths will hang open a moment or two
Then all Fans will go find something better to do!"
"That's a sight," Bettminch said, "that I simply must see!"
So he paused... and he flipped on his big-screen TV...

And what happens next? Well, there's no way to say.
They may try a half-season, and come back and play,
Some Fans are fed up, and will just stay away,
And for plenty of others, it won't be the same.
It makes little sense from the Fans perspective
To destroy the NHL in order to save it.
The players will always find leagues where they're welcome,
If the US and Canada no longer have one.

If you want to make money by playing ice hockey,
Then you have to have games. All else is a mockery.
So Bettminch, if this isn't what you enjoy -
For Bossy's sake, find something else to destroy!

TSN puts Tavares in Top 16 Under 25

mikb — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:45:51 -0000

TSN puts Tavares in Top 16 Under 25

Good news, everyone! According to TSN, JT is Top 26 uh, 16 in the NHL under 25 years old!

They're having a mini-bracket to pick the best U25 in the league. JT's on it, which is pretty darned cool. Sadly, his first-round matchup is Steven Stamkos, who is also pretty good at ice hockey.

They must have had a hell of a time narrowing it down to sixteen players. What do you all think of their choices?

Wait, what? Patrick Kane might be available?

mikb — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:03:27 -0000

Wait, what? Patrick Kane might be available?

I thought that Dale Tallon left town years ago, but apparently there's still some pruning in mind. According to the article (link in title), Chicago isn't happy that Kane went AWOL on the ice during their first-round playoff exit, only to be present and accounted for at hot parties around town.

The thing is, if you are trying to deal a guy, why would you let it be known that the reason was that he was an unreliable performer? How does that help you get a fair deal on him? If you were trying to interest, oh, let's say the Islanders, who are probably losing their own first-line RW to free agency and have great draft position and a deep prospect pool. Would you say, "Hey Garth, we're sick of this party boy and his undisciplined ways and lousy work ethic, it's starting to hurt him on the ice - he can be yours for the fourth overall and Ryan Strome!" Lemme think for about nine seconds.... NO.

That being said, if he goes at a discount, then what would be a fair offer?

Is Garth Snow actually drafting well, or are we all just prjct*ng again?

mikb — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:10:32 -0000

There's been a lot of debate about how strong Garth Snow's draft record actually is, five drafts into his tenure as the New York Islanders general manager. The comment here is a good example - I'm going to quote it for ease of discussion.

I hear ya, but how many picks have we had since 2007?... I can almost guarantee that we have had the highest of quality of opportunity in those drafts. ie How many first rounders, 2nd rounders, etc? JT was a gimme. Are you happy with Bailey? or deHaan? I get that it’s still early and these guys are young, but all things considered, I’m surprised we haven’t hit pay dirt on at least one other player drafted since 2007, given our opportunity.

Please note - I'm not trying to single out anyone. I'm moving this to a Fan Post because it's worth going over how the Isles got here and where they hope to be going, and how they mean to get there. There's a lot to go over in just this short comment: quality and quantity of picks, how other teams did, how the Isles have done in the past. And since the quoted comment was left in reply to something I wrote, it falls to me. Please bear with it.

I hear ya, but how many picks have we had since 2007?... I can almost guarantee that we have had the highest of quality of opportunity in those drafts. ie How many first rounders, 2nd rounders, etc? JT was a gimme. Are you happy with Bailey? or deHaan? I get that it’s still early and these guys are young, but all things considered, I’m surprised we haven’t hit pay dirt on at least one other player drafted since 2007, given our opportunity.

First, there's an excellent reply from CaptDallas (your 2011-12 FIG co-champion!) that I encourage you to read here. Money quote: "A case can be made that the reason the Islanders haven’t improved quickly enough (in some fans’ minds) is because they actually haven’t been as bad as they needed to be."

He makes it well, using the Pittsburgh Penguins, who chose first overall and second overall twice each in a four-year stretch, and got two franchise players, a legit first-line center playing THIRD line at times, and a reasonable starting goalkeeper. Well, go 2-1-2-1 over the past four years, and you get Drew Doughty, John Tavares, Tyler Seguin, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. As much as I like Ryan Strome, Travis Hamonic, and Josh Bailey, I think I can fairly concede that those three guys aren't in the Seguin-Doughty-RNH conversation.

That leads naturally to an examination of who's picking when. Have the Isles, in fact, had better picks over the past five years than the average? What's Garth working with?

The answer is, he's gotten good position, but not as well as some others. Most notably, Edmonton will be picking first overall for the third straight year. That's only happened once before: 1989-1991, when the Quebec Nordiques parlayed Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan, and Eric Lindros into the foundation of a two-time Cup winner. (And the year before and after, they added a #3 and #4 overall pick!) Others with better first-round position recently: Pittsburgh from '03-'06, we've seen, of course, but there's also Atlanta/Winnipeg, who have picked 3-29-4-8-7 over the past four drafts; Columbus, with a top-ten pick in 10 of their first 11 years (this year will make it 11 out of 13); and Tampa, picking 1-2-6 in consecutive drafts (and adding 29th and 27th picks).

Still, it's pretty good, especially with seven second-rounders in five years. So it becomes a matter of hitting on these picks. After all, not everyone becomes Pittsburgh or Colorado... sometimes you become, well, Winnipeg or Columbus.

The short answer, given elsewhere, is that it's still very early to tell if these drafts launch the Isles or stall them. Tavares and Travis Hamonic are the best picks he's made thus far, but the depth of these drafts have proven to really help the team grow from within. And there may yet be other stars-in-training who haven't made immediate impact. Those guys are rare, and to expect one out of every draft isn't necessarily realistic.

Case in point -

Mike Milbury had SIX top-five picks from 1996-2000 and the Isles have a ceramic goalkeeper to show for it; period, full stop. In Milbury's first six drafts (1996-2001), he found exactly four players who were ever useful (even marginally) for the Isles: Mattias Weinhandl, Radek Martinek, Rick DiPietro, and the first two seasons of Tim Connolly. That's FOUR out of a total of 62 selections. Every other productive player from those drafts was dealt early,* usually for piffle. Heck, Milbury did better from 02-05 with lower slots in each round... Bergenheim, Frans, Gervais, COZO, and Campoli.

* For what it's worth, Milbury did find a fair number of productive players in those years, including two likely Hall of Famers... but for too many painful reasons, we will not be rehashing the names.

Curiously, Milbury did better with worse picks from 2002-2004: Sean Bergenheim, Frans Neilsen, Bruno Gervais, Blake Comeau, and Chris Campoli all were Isles successes, none taken earlier than 22nd overall. (Then of course he went 0-7 in 2005, but eh.)

Now, I get that this is a bar low enough for an arthritic sloth to jump over. But Big Deal Neil's only draft got the Isles Okposo and MacDonald, and maybe Rakhshani still fills a role for the Isles. Even Joensuu could be a capable player (the Isles have his rights yet) - that would be one single draft that was as good as Milbury's first six seasons, and considering Okposo's and AMac's importance to the team, you could argue that Neil Smith's 40 days were better for the Isles than six solid seasons of Mad Mike.

So that's the background.

Snow has had three top-five picks, possibly four next month. JT, obviously, is a big hit. Nino and Strome, it is honestly too soon to tell. Bailey at nine was maybe a reach, but he has been productive. He suffers some from people thinking that he should be a mini-Tavares; honestly, if he becomes a consistent 50-60 point guy for the next five seasons, that pick is solid - better than anything Milbury ever came up with besides Frans (in accord with the prophecies).

Verdict? Honestly, it's mixed, in that the Isles are still scuffling. Their improvements in such things as limiting shots (3 fewer per game this year), power-play (8th this season), and possession time and faceoffs, have yet to translate into enough wins. Optimism isn't unwarranted, but pessimism is absolutely understandable. At this point, either side could be right. A lot of how we can judge Snow's drafting will come with the next two or three seasons. Early returns are promising, with Josh Bailey and Matt Martin as regular contributors and Casey Cizikas and David Ullstrom looking likely to join them next season; at least one of Kevin Poulin or Anders Nilsson is likely to back up regularly in goal, and both have looked good as pros so far; Matt Donovan, Calvin de Haan, and Aaron Ness will get their chances to be good players on the blueline. But a bunch of singles will not put the Isles over the top, and they need Ryan Strome and Nino Niederreiter to be at least doubles. It would also help to get a lot out of Brock Nelson. And even then, it may be three years before guys like Pedan and Mayfield and Theoret are around.

Oh... and if you really want to hurt your brain, think about this - a lot of how the Isles' drafts will be judged actually depend on Garth's skill in other player acquisitions. Every team needs to find guys like Mark Streit, P.A. Parenteau, Matt Moulson, and Michael Grabner. A draft record always looks better attached to a winner, and Snow may need to find another gem or two on the open market to get the team into the playoffs and make a run. People will think differently of his picks if they're playing May hockey next year, and that may have as much to do with signing the right guy in July, as it does with what Garth's done the past few Junes.

Bruins 6, Islanders 3 - Tied After Two magic evaporates along with playoff chances

mikb — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:40:02 -0000

The Islanders had a sterling record this season when level after two periods: 13-4-1 going into today's matinee. After 40 minutes against the Boston Bruins, the Isles were again level, getting goals from Kyle Okposo (career-best 21st) and P.A. Parenteau (17th). They were also on the power play, with Shawn Thornton in the unfamiliar position of serving someone else's penalty - Marty Turco tripped Okposo driving wide on him with about a minute remaining in the second.

Sadly, that was as good as it got for the team in black.

GS | ES | H2H | Shifts | Corsi | Zones | Recaps: NHL | Isles | SBN

Highlights and some thoughts follow after the jump.

Game Highlights

Good things

For the first two periods, there were plenty of good things to go around. The FnBO line (or BON line, or whatever cleverness strikes your fancy) continued to create wonderful chances for the Islanders. The first Isles goal came when Frans Nielsen caught ex-Isle Brian Rolston flat-footed in the neutral ice to start a breakout, with the play finished by Okposo's wrister over Turco's glove. They also had a number of other shifts where they bottled the Bruins in their own end and forced them to work hard on defense.

This got the first line some space to finally find the scoresheet again. Hard work down low and another dirty feed from John Tavares created the second goal. Matt Moulson took Tavares' pass and slid it across to P.A. Parenteau crashing the net, and he tucked the puck past Turco to tie the game at two.

This unit would strike again in the third, getting the Isles back to within a goal with five minutes left. It was the last hurrah for the home side this night, however.

Teh Gritz

Micheal Haley was in for Casey CIzikas, scratched with the fearsome Islanders Upper Body, and tussled with Greg Campbell, risking eternal suspension from every activity remotely associated with hockey. Each got their shots in, but Haley's forced Campbell to cover up. Eventually Haley just pulled him down, to general applause all around.

Haley got 8:59, with 30 seconds of that on the penalty kill, and generally held his own.

Teh Rookiez

It was a mixed bag for Nino Niederreiter, who had a number of good moments and was credited with five hits, but who would wind up minus-2. Boston's Tyler Seguin, a second-year player put back into this year's Calder Trophy race by Butch Goring, had a goal and two assists, all in the horrible, no-good, very-bad third period.

Wheels on the Scapewagon

The steering wheel of this afternoon's collapse was Al Montoya, who looked shaky at several moments during the game - cleanly beaten on at least two shots that hit posts, and lucky a third time when Seguin missed high on a two-on-one. And though he made some strong saves, particularly on a Patrice Bergeron breakaway, Montoya also gave up back-to-back daggers in the third to break the 2-2 tie: a goal through the five-hole when he was trying to go paddle-down on Brad Marchand, followed later by a harmless-looking Seguin shot that coasted over his glove as he went down. That last may have just nicked the glove of Travis Hamonic going for the block, but it's one that I'm sure Montoya feels like he should have stopped.

Rolston was exploited for the first two Isles goals, and gave up a third golden chance during the Boston power play, but Michael Grabner couldn't quite get the handle on the puck as he tried to pass across, and the play broke down.

This was a recurring theme for Grabner today. Several good feeds on the tape simply bounced away from him. This isn't a matter of his skating being affected any more... it was a rough night for the Gremlin.

Capuano's take on the game:

Next Up

The Islanders have the Ottawa Senators, fresh off a shootout win in Philadelphia, in town tomorrow at 3:00 pm. Rick DiPietro will buy the first 5000 fans in attendance a hot dog and beverage, as per the Islanders' website. It's a fine gesture from a guy whose lengthy contract, and lengthier injury list, make him an easy target for media jabs. We do our share too, of course, but this is a classy response, and a reminder that, whatever happens, RDP is a true Islander and a credit to the organization. He handles himself very well indeed, all things considered.

The man of the hour may well be John Grahame, however. With Nabokov out and the Sound Tigers playing their third-in-three, no chance to see Kevin Poulin up to the Island. It looks like the Isles will use a sixth goalkeeper for the second straight season.

The playoffs have officially gone over the horizon for the Islanders this season. As Chris Botta snarked on Twitter, that means "One more week of celebrating individual "feats" and garbage time career highs of a club deep in last place. #Isles #countryclub." That sounds a lot like the bitterness of a guy not welcome in that country club right now, and frankly that's a shame. The man is a good reporter. He stood up for the Islanders when few others in the media would, and Islanders Point Blank, under his stewardship, became an essential daily stop for fans to keep up with the doings of the franchise. Zinging them uselessly now is counterproductive. It's not like the Islanders should just quit four games early, should they? Why not push for Parenteau, Nielsen, and Grabner to net 20 goals? Tavares is one point off a point-per-game pace, a level only the elite few reach on a consistent basis in the NHL... it would be great to see him officially join those ranks. And no professional hockey player ever wants to be disgraced in a game. Let's enjoy these last games and see some good hockey.

Big market, big delusion

mikb — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:51:32 -0000

Big market, big delusion

Puck Daddy shared this at the end of their latest "What We Learned" roundup... a modest HFBoards trade proposal:

From NYR - Stepan, Del Zotto, McIlrath
From NYI - John Tavares

My favorite part has to be three or four comments down, though, where the proposal is denounced as delusional:

"Add Kreider, McDonaugh, Erixon and Callahan. JT is a franchise player that likes the Isles. he is untouchable. If he's goin anywhere its Toronto."

Yup.... he's going to the Leafs. Mmmmmmm-hm.

Fun with letters - The curious case of hyphenation (UPDATED with answers and some fascinating historical stuff)

mikb — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:45:04 -0000

The discussion about hyphenated names in the Isles-Leafs recap thread made me think a bit, and I've cooked up a small trivia question for all y'all.

The Rangers employ a young forward of some promise named Mats Zuccarello. His full last name is actually Zuccarello-Aasen, but he shortened it for professional purposes. (And his given name is Mats André, giving him the completely wonderful nickname "MAZA." He's like his own COZO.)

As it turns out, Mats' name holds a unique place in National Hockey League history. In an alphabetical list of all skaters in NHL history, he is both second from the top (Aasen) AND second from the bottom (Zuccarello).

So - your challenge is... without looking it up, can you name the two NHL players who come first and last alphabetically, beating out MAZA? Hints below the jump, if you want to peek, along with the correct answer when it happens.

The discussion about hyphenated names in the Isles-Leafs recap thread made me think a bit, and I've cooked up a small trivia question for all y'all.

OK - here is hint the first: neither player is currently active.

...

Hint the second - with three more points, MAZA will pass one of these players in career scoring.

...

Hint the third - both the other guys debuted in the same season.

...

Fourth and final hint - these guys broke the top and bottom marks held previously by George Abbott (a one-game emergency goalie for Boston in 1944) and Dainius Zubrus (the still-active forward currently with New Jersey).

UPDATE- PGI was first with the last alphabetical name, Andrei Zyuzin, a defenseman who played 496 career games with six teams, debuting in the 1997-98 season. And, with that plus the third hint, it's simpler to then track down the answer that nobody got.

To be fair, nobody could be expected to have gotten this. Antti Aalto of Anaheim (heh) played 151 career games over four seasons; it's his 28 points that Zuccarello-Aasen is soon to pass, though he's got a little while to catch Zyuzin's 120.

But to be totally and truthfully fair, I screwed this up from the get-go. As it happens, MAZA is not second-to-last alphabetically. In fact, there are two other playersbetween him and Zyuzin. One of them, Mike Zuke, even played more pro games than Zyuzin if you include his WHA experience. He was a pre-Gretzky Edmonton Oiler (and a teammate of Dave Langevin!) for the 1977-78 season, scoring 23 goals and 57 points before moving to the NHL for five years with - the St. Louis Blues. (@ Really, Dom, you couldn't bail me out on this one? @) He was then claimed off waivers by the Hartford Whalers and added three more years, retiring in 1986.*

* That Whalers team was quite interesting, actually. Miracle on Ice hero Mark Johnson had been traded (oddly, to St. Louis) and Marty Howe had retired, but they still had Hall of Famer Ron Francis, a startlingly-young Ray Ferraro, and FOUR future NHL head coaches: Kevin Dineen, Joel Quenneville, Dave Tippett, and Brad Shaw.

But the true second-to-last is the late Rudy Zunich , who like George Abbott was a war-time fill-in. He got two games in 1943 for the Red Wings at age 33, after playing eight seasons in the amateur Michigan-Ontario Hockey League. (I think his team, the Detroit Holzbaugh-Fords, were loosely affiliated with the Wings, but there's scant info on the Web about it.) The MOHL folded after 1941-42, and Zunich spent the next several months in the military before his cup of coffee in the bigs.

It's funny - Zuke was probably the easier guy to catch, but I find I'm more upset about missing Zunich. Eight seasons in the MOHL almost certainly means a day job during the Depression, even if his team was an amateur affiliate. After punching out for the day, he'd have slogged through the Michigan winters to play hockey. It was a successful team that won their league a few times, and also won a US Senior National Championship. Then, at age 37, he put in another year with Detroit's team in the new IHL. I know they didn't have a Masterton Trophy back then, but I think that shows admirable perseverance and dedication to the sport of hockey.

Fun with numbers: Any time is a good time for π

mikb — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:27:34 -0000

But especially March 14th, National Pi Day.*

*In Europe, the convention is day-month-year, so this would be 14/03/12, and there would be no pi, since they have the same twelve months we do and thus no 3/14 anywhere in sight. They would have to settle for the highly-inaccurate July 22nd, aka "22/7", which was sometimes used as a quick-and-dirty estimate in the dark days with no calculators permitted on math tests. And in England, that would be called "maths" because "mathematics," being a plural, ought to have a plural abbreviation. But in any country, this is all a pointless digression.

It was a thing over at High Heat Stats to find all the pitchers with π as an earned-run average, a task taken to heart by the redoubtable Joe Posnanski. He found out some great stuff, too.

Those of us on the hockey side of things have an equivalent in GAA, goals-against average for goalies. There is, however, one problem - for much of the league's history, a 3.14 GAA is just not so hot. As a result, there aren't that many examples to choose from.* Nobody gets to be that mediocre for that long to keep a 3.14 GAA. In baseball, 3.14 has ranged from respectable to quite good, and only very rarely has been considered openly bad; there are plenty of guys to chose from.

*Out of the 160 goalies to play 250 or more games in their career, fully 105 have a GAA lower than 3.14. And one man, Richard Brodeur, met the 250 game standard in both the WHA and NHL. As you can guess, his career ran exactly in the absolute roughest historical time for goalies, 1972-1988. His combined GAA for both leagues, 3.76, is 153rd of the 160 - and he finished his career over .500 (296-289-74).

Hockey, however, did have a brief time where 3.14 was acceptable, even admirable: starting with the NHL's huge expansions in the late 60's and early 70's (along with the addition of the WHA teams), until approximately the first labor stoppage following the 1994 playoffs. Scoring went way up in those years from historical norms, and shortly afterward, dropped to historical lows, the so-called Dead Puck Era. Those are where we're going to find our masked men. (Some of them will likely be excellent goalies.)

On top of that, baseball has an offensive equivalent to π - batting .314 - that does not exist for hockey. (Though I suppose a team scoring 314 goals in a season would count.) It's just much easier to find pi-friendly baseballers than pi-friendly hockey players. But that also means that it's easier to give you the few examples after the jump.

First off - there is no goalie with a 3.14 career GAA, so that much is simple. Andy Moog finished at 3.134, and Bob Essensa finished at 3.147 - neither of them can get to the Greek (letter) even by rounding off. One goalie, however, did post a career 3.14 GAA in the playoffs: former Ranger and Red Wing Glen Hanlon. He won't be the only Ranger-Red Wing goalie you see in this post, so stick around.

*He caught right-handed; the hockey term for that is "silly-sider."

A search at Hockey Reference returns 13 different goalies who finished an individual season with a 3.14 GAA, ten of them reaching the necessary 25 games to qualify for end-of-year honors. This is where things get interesting. For one thing, all of them happened after the 1967 expansion from six to twelve teams. The last Original Six season, two of the six teams averaged three goals per game; in 1968-69, half the teams did it - all the Original Six teams, as it happens, with the expansion half-dozen still struggling to keep up. And that brings us to Denis DeJordy of the Chicago Blackhawks, who permitted 156 goals in 2981 minutes, checking in as near to 3.14 as I can imagine without going over: 3.1398859, to carry it way out there.

DeJordy, incidentally, came painfully close to pulling the trick for his career overall. He wound up just ahead of Moog, at 3.132 GAA for his career: merely one extra goal over the 316 games he played would have dropped him to 3.135, which would round up to π.

Our next math-friendly goalie is Kings star Rogatien Vachon,* like DeJordy a native of Quebec. His 1975-76 campaign ended at 3.137 - to give you an idea of the challenge of tending goal in those days, consider that he was ninth in the league among qualifiers, and his five shutouts trailed only Hall of Famer Ken Dryden and All-Star Chico Resch. Today, that GA would rank 45th.

*Rogie's son, Nicholas, is responsible for one of the best YouTube vids ever made.

Our third goalie actually didn't qualify in this season, but deserved mention anyway, because he is the only Hall of Famer in the bunch - longtime Ranger keeper Eddie Giacomin, who posted a 3.14 in his final season, 1977-78, over nine games for the Red Wings.

Earning another special consideration is Kelly Hrudey,* the only keeper to appear twice in this list. He posted a 3.14 as a rookie with the Islanders in 1983-84 - in fact, 3.1402, as close to actual π as we've seen yet. He only played nine games that year for the then-four-time Stanley Cup champs; his next visit to Mathmagic Land was the truncated 1995 season. He played 35 games (of a 48-game schedule) in Los Angeles, following in the skate ruts of Rogie Vachon. His GAA was 3.136 that year, but is more numerically-quirky because he made exactly one-thousand saves that year.

*And of course, that's Hrudey in this priceless clip, showing LeVar Burton the tricks of the trade. NOBODY does it that way anymore, and it was only 25 years ago. The butterfly has pretty much made those leg saves a true rarity. And yet, it was good enough to win the Easter Epic that year.

Our third non-qualifier on the list is also our third LA King - Frederic Chabot put up a 3.1408 in his twelve games. And you can already see the tide turning as far as offense is concerned. Vachon in '76 was a top goalie with that GAA, and played 795 career games; Hrudey in '95 was still a viable starter, and played 677 career games. Chabot in 1998 was an afterthought whose NHL career would end the next year at 32 total games.

The other names on the list include young, promising 80's goalies (Bob Froese, Daren Puppa) and one-time phenoms on the downside (Andrew Raycroft, Byron Dafoe). Dafoe's presence is notable because he is one of the very few NHL players from the U.K., being born in Sussex, England. This earned him one of the great hockey nicknames, Lord Byron, after two tremendous years in Boston (the same two years, in fact, that Chabot was playing himself out of the league and off to Germany). And yes, he was also a Los Angeles King for a while, though he posted his π year in his final season, in Atlanta, which no longer even has a team.

One final note - twelve NHLers were born on March 14th, and get birthday π - none of them are particularly well-known. One, Mattias Ritola, is active (playing for Tampa Bay), and one, the wonderfully-named Darcy Wakaluk, is a goalie. His career GAA was 3.22. Sooooooo close.

cross-posted over at Blog of the Nightfly

Senators Many, Islanders Nil - the Trainwreck Recap

mikb — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:30:08 -0000

In the last two weekends, the Islanders have hosted a matinee against a team they needed two points against, and started it off with some pregame fun. Last weekend, it was Marvel superheroes; this afternoon it was a Mount Rushmore's worth of Presidents.

Unfortunately, neither superheroes nor great statesmen have been of any help once the puck dropped. The Florida Panthers shook off a quick goal to bury the Isles 4-1, and today... well... ugh.

GS | ES | H2H | Shifts | Corsi | Zones | Recaps: NHL | Isles | SBN

Game Highlights

The Isles were never in this one. Twenty seconds in the Senators had a golden rebound chance off the post. The very next rush, while the MSG feed was still showing the Islanders scratches, Eric Karlsson picked off a telegraphed breakout pass from Matt Martin, took the puck below the goal line, and then flung it creaseward, where it squibbed off Kevin Poulin and into the net. And not thirty seconds after that, on a delayed penalty, Jason Spezza ended Poulin's night with a one-timer. (Capuano could be seen snapping "GO" to Al Montoya on the bench.)

In just 1:35, that was the end of the hopefulness of the pregame chat about the Isles' 12-8-4 run from December 29 to today. Butch Goring said that he though the Isles would have to go 16-8 the rest of the way; now it's 16-7.

Along the way, there was a lot of melting down among the Islanders. Matt Martin had a fight, and got his five minutes' worth with some good shots on Zack Smith. But PA Parenteau was the worst offender. His slash killed the end of an Isles power play, and Karlsson potted his second just three seconds after he got out of the box. Shortly after, PAP said something untoward and earned two-and-ten for misconduct. Finally, in the third, with the game well beyond retrieval, Brian Lee scored for Ottawa, and Parenteau got the heave-ho for some strident complaining after an unpenalized exchange in front of the Ottawa net had left his stick broken. End result - the ninth whitewash the Isles have suffered this season.

The postgame can be summed up very easily.

Just picture those kids after every goal, and you've got the idea. But Capuano (who is NOT the same guy as in the above) was just as grumpy afterward. Someone (it sounded like Stan Fischler) asked what Cappy said after the first period and he grimly replied, "I don't think you want to hear all of what I told them."

There's no rest for the weary. The battered Isles have alternated wins and losses for the last ten games, and need to rebound from the latest downer. The Buffalo Sabres await them tomorrow night.

Update: Just an aside here, but the Islanders are now 1-5-2 with their Alternate Universe third jerseys. With four scheduled games left with them, it may be time to scrap the black completely.

Islanders vs. Senators Preview and Gameday Thread

mikb — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:12:29 -0000

The Islanders host the Senators for a 1 p.m. Presidents Day start.

Next Game

Ottawa Senators
@ New York Islanders

Monday, Feb 20, 2012, 1:00 PM EST
Nassau [gloriously unsponsored] Veterans Memorial Coliseum

FIG Picks: Senators @ Isles, Feb. 20, 1 p.m.

Complete Coverage >

This is a Gigantor-sized contest, as the Senators are one of the teams the Isles must catch to continue to dream their impossible playoff dream. Ottawa sits in seventh place, with four points' cushion over the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have a game in hand. The Isles have a game in hand on Toronto, and trail them by six points. That home-and-home sweep by the Leafs is a huge difference-maker right now - the Leafs outpointed the Isles 4-1 in those games. Flip that around and both teams are sitting at 61 points in the standings, and Washington would be eighth with their 63. The Islanders can't afford to let that sort of thing happen any more.

Updated:

Poulin in net, Okposo in lineup vs. Sens. Nabokov (flu) not skating, not traveling to Buffalo. Hamonic skating today at IceWorks.
%20

Capitals and a "Playoffs or Bust" sequence in mid-March: consecutive games against the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Lightning, and Panthers, all on the road. That's the place for a four-game winning streak.

This thread is going to stay open and serve as our gameday thread as well as a preview. A full recap will be up a little later than usual, thanks to the quirks of the moderator schedules: Dom's earning his Wilderness Living badge, Mark is playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, I'm trying to figure out why I haven't leaped, and Kevin needs lawyers, guns, and money. (Looooong story, that.)

Updated: Arthur Staple appearance on XM Home Ice [Nabokov, current team, Doug Weight, and more]

Further Update: also via Staple (on Twitter): "Poulin in net, Okposo in lineup vs. Sens. Nabokov (flu) not skating, not traveling to Buffalo. Hamonic skating today at IceWorks. #Isles"

Slow and steady rebuild is paying first dividends

mikb — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:00:36 -0000

This item ran on the Backhand Shelf blog yesterday while we were busily grousing about Evander "Freight Train" Kane laying tracks through Al Montoya's crease last night: top improvements and declines in the standings from last year to this.

As it turns out, the Islanders are +8 points over their 30-game pace last year; 10-14-6 instead of 6-18-6. This is tied with the Maple Leafs for the fifth-best jump in the NHL so far.

This is good news. Three was no Woevember swoon, no 1-17-3 nightmare, no sacked coach, and thus far the Isles have handled injury setbacks with aplomb. Despite being thin on the blue line, painfully young in many other places, and distressingly old in a few key locations, this is still a more resiliant and skilled team than it was a year ago, and in the stress we feel over lost opportunities for wins in the first third of the year, there is still a lot to be hopeful for. The Isles are four full wins better over their first 30 games this year - real wins, moved out of the middle "nothing to show for it" column and into the "everybody can have two points!" column.

How much more hopeful can we be, moving forward? Lets look at a few scenarios.

As it turns out, the Islanders are +8 points over their 30-game pace last year; 10-14-6 instead of 6-18-6. This is tied with the Maple Leafs for the fifth-best jump in the NHL so far.

How much more hopeful can we be, moving forward? Lets look at a few scenarios.

Scenario One: DOOOOOOOOM - otherwise known as Teh Narrative, as best outlined last year by Adam Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch. The Blue Jackets have imploded to such an extent that he has handed off Teh Narrative to ESPN.com, who have been not-so-helpfully snarking the Isles' progress. Case in point - we have hurt goalies and are last in our division for the "umpteenth straight year" according to their most recent poll. Apparently, "umpteen" means "five" since the Isles made the 2007 playoffs, and at the 2008 All-Star break, had a durable, promising starting goalkeeper.

Well, let's say that Burnside turns out to have stumbled into something here. Another disastrous stretch would sink the Isles utterly out of sight, and they could finish worse than last season's 30-39-13 overall record.

Scenario Two: Same ol' same ol' - this is where the Isles just sort of hobble along, suffering their growing pains, and play something like .500-ish hockey the rest of the way. They would finish within a point or two of the same +8 they have now, say at 33-38-11.

From here Garth Snow would face some major questions. Would they make a big push for a big-ticket free agent, or cash in some of their propsect chips for something other than a stopgap veteran? Despite current appearances, Moulsons, Grabners, Montoyas, and Nabokovs don't fall from the heavens regularly. It's a great advantage to have gotten four strong assets for sofa-cushion change (total cost: one sixth-round pick)... it's not going to get the whole job done by itself. So another middling result would put a lot of pressure on the Islanders to accelerate their rebuild somewhat.

Scenario Three: Keeping up the Pace - This is where the Isles match their four-win improvement over the rest of the season... and remember that they were much improved over the rest of last season as well. That would boost them from 24-21-7 to finish last year, to 28-17-7 to finish this one. That is very good hockey, a full-year pace of 99 points; here it would give the Isles a hypothetical record of 38-31-13, good for 89 points. In the past four seasons, that total would be good for anything from 20th to 17th overall in the league; in 2010, it would have given the Isles the seventh playoff seed in the East.

If the Islanders were doing something like this, then the pressure would be even greater on Snow to make a move to get the Isles those extra five points that would move their playoff odds from "distant" to "reasonable."

Scenario Four: The Leap - doe-eyed optimists, of the sort that had the Isles pegged as acontender for a bottom-seed this season (::cough like me cough:::), are probably skipping down to the end and smiling at this thought right now. Everything would have to break well in this unlikely situation: first, the Isles' play after Woevember last season as a baseline; second, the improvement of this season coming on top of that, instead of their current PPG pace; third, their improvement from last year to this continuing at the same pace for the whole year. Four wins in 30 games works to roughly seven wins in 52, so the Isles would gain a total of 22 points over last season's total... they'd finish out 31-14-7 (that's one more win than they had all of last season) to end the year at 41-28-13, which is 95 points and pretty much a guaranteed playoff berth.

Now, making this sort of leap might make Snow LESS likely to make a move, not more, since it would be coming primarily from internal improvement and they could stand pat more plausibly. Further, the pieces the Isles would probably want to move - Rolston and Nabokov - would be going to contenders and the return would probably be futures, not present help. And considering the state of the blue line, this is admittedly a hugely unlikey scenario anyway.

But that's why they play the games. A few of the advangages the current Isles have over last season are already apparent: John Tavares is better, Kyle Okposo looks full-recovered, Matt Moulson and P.A. Parenteau are keeping their pace, Travis Hamonic is turning into a really good defenseman, and the goaltending is better (if no less varied). Mark Streit, despite not being the same as he was two seasons ago, is actually playing instead of on season-long IR, so his contributions are already a net gain. The only real disappointments thus far have been the imported Isles - Blake Comeau, now COZOing in Calgary, was the lone returning Islander who really regressed.

For all the frustration of the year thus far, it is getting better. Holding onto those escaped points the rest of the way will make a huge difference - perhaps the difference between draft lottery speculation and playoff hockey at the Nassau Coliseum.

Kyle Turris deal immanent?

mikb — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:12:33 -0000

Possibly, maybe, sort of... at least, that's the impression I get following the Twitter feed of TSN's Darren Dreger, who is trying to get details.

These are his four most current tweets as of about 11:45 am (EST):

1 hour ago: Things are heating up on the Kyle Turris trade front. Sources indicate a deal could come down today.
1 hour ago: Told the Calgary Flames are out of the Turris hunt. Ottawa still has interest. Wpg isn't in. Toronto is in its freeze (lol)...
47 min ago: @StevenEllisNHL. Calgary is not a frontrunner. Not in it anymore. Leafs are in a roster freeze. Don't attach your info to mine. [Ed note: heheheheheh]
10 min ago: @TheFourthPeriod. My pleasure. It will be interesting to see where Turris lands and the return the Yotes get for him.

Turris is a young forward of some considerable promise, a former third-overall draft pick, but with some baggage thanks to his holdout this season. Is that baggage the Islanders would overlook? And if so, what could be on the table in exchange for him? Some useless speculation below the jump.

Possibly, maybe, sort of... at least, that's the impression I get following the Twitter feed of TSN's Darren Dreger, who is trying to get details.

These are his four most current tweets as of about 11:45 am (EST):

1 hour ago: Things are heating up on the Kyle Turris trade front. Sources indicate a deal could come down today.
1 hour ago: Told the Calgary Flames are out of the Turris hunt. Ottawa still has interest. Wpg isn't in. Toronto is in its freeze (lol)...
47 min ago: @StevenEllisNHL. Calgary is not a frontrunner. Not in it anymore. Leafs are in a roster freeze. Don't attach your info to mine. [Ed note: heheheheheh]
10 min ago: @TheFourthPeriod. My pleasure. It will be interesting to see where Turris lands and the return the Yotes get for him.

Josh Bailey. Playing very well lately, which may be the sort of impetus the club would need to "sell high." Pro - the Isles could always use high-end potential at wing, especially someone ready to contribute at NHL level. Con - the Isles can use high-end potential everywhere, and Bailey really does have that kind of potential. He looks like maturing into that very good second-line center who can threaten other teams enough that they can't constantly key on John Tavares' line all the time. Besides which, Turris is also a center and has been less productive than Bailey thus far in his career. Verdict: I'd wouldn't do it.

Prospect package. Here, you can fill in the blanks with the not-yet-here players you would least mind seeing elsewhere. Pro - This offers both sides more flexibility to come to terms, and in exchange the Isles get a kid who is 22 and already has 137 (and counting) NHL games. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush leagues. Con - the Isles' not-yet-here players seem, as a group, to have a lot more potential than Turris, at least in his current enigmatic status. Verdict: This is where the debate really lies. What Garth Snow is likely to offer is probably not nearly as appealing as what Don MAloney hopes for, given his insistance earlier in the year that Turris was completely untouchable and not for trading.

Veteran package. Phoenix is currently siting at 35 points after 31 games played - the NHL average is currently 34 in 31 games (thanks bonus points! MWAH). They are painfully, miserably thin at center right now - they have about eight different pivots, the best of whom is probably Martin Hanzal. They could use the help to keep their playoff hopes alive. Pro - the Isles could unburden themselves of some unproductive players blocking the progress of young prospects. Con - Turris cap hit ($1.4 million this year and next) might not be sufficient to keep the Isles over the floor. Also, it's harder to find the parts that would fit the Coyotes' needs. The man most likely to depart in this situation is Frans Nielsen. Verdict: Probably not a match.

This begins to look dicey for the Isles, so what say you all? Where will Turris go, if not Long Island?

Recap - Stars (on 45) 3, Islanders 2: Can Games Be Only Forty Minutes?

mikb — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:42:41 -0000

Well, that was undistinguished.

The Islanders started very poorly and found themselves in a 1-0 hole when Loui Eriksson was left all by his lonesome in front of young Kevin Poulin. Then they fought back with one each in the first (Grabner off a strong pass from Okposo) and second (Okposo directly) to hold the lead... ahhh, a lead... ahhh, but then came the cursed third period, where for the third consecutive game, the Isles gave up an easy goal to a poorly-covered forward to start things off.

Game Highlights

The game thread featured a lot of angst as things came unraveled... and Jack Capuano was not much happier in his postgame comments. One of the very first things he mentioned was the breakdown on the tying goal by Brenden Morrow - "The strongside defender was too high" or words to that effect - and the next thing was the breakdown on the third goal, where a poorly-chosen moment to pinch led to a 3-on-1 breakout and a short-side wrister by Jamie Benn for the deciding goal.

"I don't like to mention names," Capuano added, but the name on both of those plays was the captain, Mark Streit, who has been struggling badly in the past week or so. On the tying goal, he found himself wandering and covering nobody, leaving Travis Hamonic alone in front. When the puck went low, Matt Martin realized that he was closest to the slot and broke off his point to help, but was a step too late. And Streit was the pincher on the firewagon breakout.

Oy, the growing pains, they are painful.

Still, there were positives. Kyle Okposo is still in beast mode, creating both Isles tallies with strong puck possesion and getting shots to the net. Calvin de Haan debuted slow but steady, with his shifts limited in the first two periods before Cappy turned him (relatively) loose in the final stanza - de Haan saw PK and PP time, looked good moving the puck, and was solid in his own end, not looking overmatched by physical play. And the final goal notwithstanding, Poulin was generally sharp, especially on a wicked redirect in the second that he tracked and blockered off. He left noticeably fewer rebounds than his Dallas counterpart, Richard Bachman. In the common parlance of the hockey fan, he gave his team a good chance to win. Dallas, however, seemed to have a stick on every puck the Isles passed or shot... and as the game went on, a stick on every Islander as well, with scrums and chippiness trying to wear down the home team. With Brian Rolston sidelined after the first with a concussion, Capuano was forced to run three lines, with Tim Wallace and David Ullstrom getting cycled in as best as could be.

They get to try it all over again on Saturday, moving from hosting the former Minnesotan hockey club to visiting the new one, the Wild. With their ~~cap mules~~ veterans falling one-by-one to Islanders Malady, play will have to be carried by that growing group of youngsters that Garth Snow is assembling..

A quick note on the salary cap floor

mikb — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:59:56 -0000

Apparently, there was a game of sorts last night. Funny how I don't remember much except the wailing headache and the mysterious desk imprint on my forehead. Hm. But anyway, in the comments about "last night's game" is a perennial discussion here in Islanders Country about the Cap Floor. To wit, suggestions by several of us to remove certain well-paid gentlemen from the active roster have been met with cries of "It will put us below the Cap Floor!" These cries are countered with, "So what? Don't they just make you pay out the difference to everyone?"

It's time to see if we can figure this stuff out, and to do that, we're forced to face an opponent more fearsome than Sauron and Gargamel combined: the NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Normally any discussion of the salary cap involves the ceiling, not the floor. For example, if you want to add a guy who would put you over, you have to subtract salary FIRST and only then will you be permitted to add that guy. Within the CBA, one can find many examples and illustrations of what a club can or cannot do when they're right at that upper boundary - but precious few of what happens down in the Baltic-and-Mediterranean end of town, where the Isles currently sit, hoping someone will land on their Marriott and owe them a money.

The CBA calls the Cap Floor the "Lower Limit." (Do not attempt to adjust your browser!) The entirety of their warning to clubs wandering near this uncharted land is in Article 50.5 c (i):

Lower Limit. No Club shall, after commencement of the regular season, be permitted to have an Averaged Club Salary that falls below the Lower Limit for that League Year.

Elsewhere, the CBA spells out exactly what goes into the Averaged Club Salary, which is calculated daily at 5:00 pm. (It really says this.) The upshot is, a club's ACS includes total of salaries already paid and salaries remaining for current roster members, along with bailouts and bonuses and etc. This must remain above the salary floor number at all times during the season. Or else... ?

For that we consult ~~Ezekiel 25:17~~ Article 50.12 c (iii), which reads thus:

Non-Compliance Provisions. In addition to the provisions of Article 26 of this Agreement, the NHL shall discipline Clubs for material and intentional non-compliance with these provisions, provided, however, that a Club's first offense shall carry a mandatory fine in the amount of any revenue discrepancy plus $1,000,000, plus the loss of a first-round draft choice; and a Club's second and any subsequent offense shall carry a mandatory fine in the amount of twice any revenue discrepancy plus $5,000,000, plus the loss of three (3) first-round draft choices.

For example, this means that if the Isles had dipped below the floor in 2007, then their first pick in 2008, Josh Bailey, would never have happened. In addition, they would have owed the league a cool million plus whatever amount they fell under the floor. If they had then gone ahead and fallen under the lower limit again, that's John Tavares, Nino Niederreiter, and Ryan Strome all gone to other clubs, and Charles Wang lighter by five million bucks at the minimum.

Even Rick DiPietro's most ardent detractors have to admit, that's a mite steep.

The provisions outlined under Article 26 (and mentioned above) have more to do with active attempts to circumvent the Upper Limit while trying to sign players. Article 26.13 c outlines all the furious vengeance the Commissioner can lay upon thee in the event such a contravention is attempted, much of it similar to the quoted penalty above. The Devils were punished under 26.13 for their attempt to monkeyshine the Upper Limit in the Ilya Kovalchuk contract, for example. And though this is purely speculation on my part, I believe that the NHL repeats the penalties in both these articles to make it clear that the Member Clubs face these penalties for violations involving player compensation, not just for violations in reporting their revenues for escrow accounting purposes. (Article 50 goes into that in some detail, immediately followed by the "Non-Compliance Provisions," so it's a reasonable precaution.)

For further information, one can always weed through Articles 9 through 11, which govern Entry-Level Contracts, Free Agency, and the Standard Player's Contract. Articles 12-14 govern waivers and other player assignments, all of which would affect the Islanders' decisions on personnel movement (and the salary cap consequences).

Hope that helps.

Rangers 4 (EN) (again) Islanders 2 - Maximum Effort, Minimum Results

mikb — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:24:21 -0000

The archrival Rangers took that $89 taxi ride down the Hempstead Turnpike to wrangle with the Islanders, with more at stake than the usual bragging rights, even this early into the season.

For one thing, the Isles had taken the first game of the season series last month. For another, their two paths diverged in the wood that day, and the Isles, sadly, took the road they've been too familiar with: 1-6-3 in their past 11 games, with frustrations and pressures mounting. Any hope at a playoff push revolved around the Islanders not digging themselves into a hole early, such as in last year's lamentable Woevember run that got Scott Gordon sacked.

So with the Rangers hot (six straight wins) it was a perfect opportunity to get things pointed in the proper direction... and for the first time in a good long while, the Islanders rose to the challenge, playing one of their strongest games of the season. The problem is, they had nothing to show for it but another gut-shot loss, fuled by an exasperating unforced turnover.

GS | ES | H2H | Shifts | Corsi | Zones | Recaps: NHL | Isles | LHH+/- | SBN

Believe it or not, there are actually a lot of highlights from the Islanders' point of view, and that's below the jump.

Game Highlights

And that's the real uncalled high stick in the chops (metaphorically speaking)... the Islanders did a thousand things right tonight, better than they have maybe for the entire season. John Tavares was a beast. Nino Niederreiter was as advertised. Frans Nielsen had his most complete game of the year (with a sweet Forehand of Justice on a 2-on-1, to boot). Even Mike Mottau, who's been flogged like a plowhorse in these parts, turned in a spirited effort. They only really did three things wrong - and each time, the puck was sent past Evgeni Nabokov. That plus the usual otherworldly manuevers of Henrik Lundqvist was enough to turn the game the visitors' way.

So they now have a seven-game win streak, and the Son of Woevember grows to 1-7-3. The young season is not really so young anymore. Your thoughts and reactions below - and please, as tinfoil-chewingly-awful as this latest result is... let's try to be temperate with our fellow longsuffering Isles fans.

Capuano Post-Game

"But they had no pressure on them!"

mikb — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:08:36 -0000

"But they had no pressure on them!"

The brilliant Joe Posnanski deals with this question, in the context of the MVP races in baseball. The next time you hear someone yammer about how little pressure there was on Long Island after Woevember, this article is your one-stop ammo depot for firing back.

So, trying to break a 1-20 streak and prove to your city, your fans, your opponents, your league, and your sport's media voices that you are a professional and viable NHL franchise, not a punchline or doormat = no pressure! Riiiiiiiight.

The NHL's nationally-broadcast games, 1993 - present

mikb — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:33:27 -0000

The NHL's nationally-broadcast games, 1993 - present

These only cover free TV, not ESPN or Vs. And you'll be shocked - shocked! - the Rangers have four appearances in the top ten most frequent matchups.

Out of 298 different games, 75 have featured the Rangers. Philly's at 65, Pittsburgh at 58, Boston has 43, and New Jersey all the way down at 11. One thing those other four guys have in common? All of them have been more successful than the Rangers over that time.

The Isles? Eight games, all against the Rangers. FLORIDA has been shown more often.

Fun Islanders trivia - can you name our Masterton trophy guys?

mikb — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:47:37 -0000

Mark Fitzpatrick popped up in the comments thread of the LaFontaine to Okposo post.

To recap it briefly: Fitzpatrick was the young, promising goalie prospect the Islanders got back from Los Angeles for Kelly Hrudey. He posted three shutouts as a 21-year old in 1989-90; his .898 sv% that year might look horrible to us Dead-Puck refugees, but it was good for fifth in the whole NHL among qualifying goalkeepers. The future looked bright.

Unfortunately, Fitzpatrick contracted a new, dangerous neurological disease called Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome, and missed most of the 1990-1991 season. He returned to play two games that season, losing to the St Louis Blues, 3-2, on March 23rd of 1991, and then beating the Boston Bruins 5-3 a week later.

But EMS, though treatable, has no known cure, and causes symptoms that are often mistaken for things like Lupus: muscle pain and weakness, swollen joints, shortness of breath, and excessive fatigue plagued Fitzpatrick whenever the illness flared up. He fought through and appeared in 30 games in 1991-92, going 11-13-5 with a .902 sv% and 3.20 GAA. And again, his sv% was fifth among qualifying goalies. The NHL recognized Fitzpatrick with the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 1992, honoring him for his perserverance and decication to hockey.

Mark Fitzpatrick popped up in the comments thread of the LaFontaine to Okposo post.

This led me to wonder, aloud, about the other winners, and I said that six other players who had Islanders ties were also honored with the Masterton - but only one of them was an Islander at the time.

Turns out that this was a Trivia Fail on my part. The actual number of those players is EIGHT, not six. I had left one off on purpose, because he hadn't played for the Islanders yet (so you get a hint on him); but entirely overlooked another guy. Shame on me.

Anyway - this is the Official Corrected Islanders Masterton Trophy Trivia List and Contest, Ltd. Enter your guesses in the comments below (and scout's honor, no looking it up!), and I'll update with the correct answers later. No money, but you will receive kudos and admiration from your peers here at Lighthouse Hockey, and I'll try to get a retweet of your accomplishments from Grabs or Matty Mo. Have fun!

UPDATE - High Praise to the following for hitting some of our answers:

The Blogfather, Dominik, got Jason Blake, who won in 2008 with Toronto.
Pretty Good Idiot got Bryan Berard, who won in 2004 with (surprise!) Chicago.
The Magus and JW1970 both got Ed Westfall, who won it with the Isles in 1977.

So... there are still five names left for all y'all. For added fun, try to also get the teams these players were playing for at the time.

Isles Pride and Campbell Prejudice - what punishment on the Gillies-go-round?

mikb — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:21:39 -0000

It is a truth universally recognized, that a hockey player who is just coming off a lengthy suspension for a dirty hit, must be in want of another one.

Hm. Maybe Jane Austen wouldn't be much of a hockey fan. If she were, however, I'm sure that she would be shaking her head primly at the impropriety of Trevor Gillies.

Since I spent last night visiting those two guys under a rock in the Geico commercial, I'm coming into this late. I flipped on the morning replay of The Final Score, saw Okposo's goal as the teaser, and got a kick out of the announcer calling poor Kyle "OCK-paso." I had no idea that after that highlight, I'd be treated to Trevor 2.0.

After seeing it, I felt certain that there would be froth; and lo, it came to pass. Mike Milbury - apparently not at all the same guy who recently frothed at Andrew Ference for calling out his teammate, Daniel Paille, for a bad hit - was immediately calling out Gillies for the bad hit. That he and his "Big Bad Bruins" were well-known for coming to each other's defense, as Gillies was doing for Justin DiBenedetto, seems to have been overlooked in his eagerness to condemn. He also blamed the islanders as an organization, which almost makes me think he's Colin Campbell in an ill-fitting Mike Milbury body-suit. (I'm expecting another Sad Mario is Sad letter, too, as he further laments the state of hockey from his private estate in the Kingdom of Wounded Nobility.)

But then a funny thing happened... there wasn't much else besides Milbury and Jones. Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshinski, predictably, thought it was evil.

Sticking up for teammate Justin DiBenedetto after a boarding penalty on Cal Clutterbuck, Gillies charged the Wild forward and crushed his head against the glass. He was given a 5-minute checking from behind penalty and was ejected from the game. ...
Again, it's a different situation that the Penguins game, which seemed to exist for the Islanders to administer cheap-shot comeuppance for previous acts by Pittsburgh. This was a heat-of-the-moment, tactless hit in defense of a teammate that's inexcusable after serving a 9-game ban.

But even Wysh noticed that Clutterbuck had just thrown an identical hit on DiBenedetto. He knows that Gillies was coming to DiBo's defense. He concedes that it was different than the Pittsburgh melee that earned Gillies his nine-game ban. Oddly, he still calls it inexcusable. I'm with WebBard on that one... huh? If there's no excuse for Gillies, what about Clutterbuck starting trouble with a rookie in a 3-0 game?

In fact, the lights of reason seem to be shining through the typical media storm, such as TSN's Bob McKenzie, who took to Twitter around midnight Eastern time with his take (below the jump).

(The link in the first sentence is to the tweet in question - you can scroll up from there, they're all in a row. I'm putting them in paragraph form below for legibility's sake.)

How many games for Gillies? Good question. Forget for moment it's repeat offender Gillies. If some generic player did it, how many? My personal opinion is it should be (for non Gillies player) 2 to 4 games. Payback hit. No puck there. Shot to head. But...
In today's NHL, I venture a non-Gillies player would only get fined or maybe get a 1 game suspension if no injury on that play. But since it was Gillies and was minutes off returning from 9-game susp, he's going to get more than what any other generic NHLer would get. Just a guess: 4 or 5 games and, yes, I know many will call for double digits or life. Clutterbuck's health will be the x factor too.

Incidentally, not that it really matters, but it wasn't a hit from behind. Boarding or charging or perhap elbow (forearm), for sure. Only 1 camera angle - last one shown on game broadcast - clearly shows arm making direct contact with the head.

If you scroll up from there, it looks as if some folks took umbrage to this. Aaaaaah! A rational response! BURN THE WITCH! And here's the thing - I don't blame them, per se. It DOES look bad. And fans are going to be upset anyway, especially the Minnesota fans. It's expected. Every team is nothing but innocent little angels, except where they aren't - but that's different! And honestly? Isles fans are the same. People defend Trevor Gillies' presence on the Isles roster as a necessary precaution against the bevy of cheap shots taken against Okposo (Phaneuf), John Tavares (Pronger and others), Frans Neilsen (Mike Mottau), Blake Comeau (Talbot), and Rick DiPietro (Cooke).

These people, sad to say, have a point.

That gets us to the underlying problem here. Gillies is an enforcer - he's designed to keep dirty play from happening. So, when Clutterbuck boards DiBenedetto, Gillies comes around and lets Clutterbuck know that this sort of thing comes with a cost. Gillies is not going to turn Clutterbuck around and pummel him unless he does something really out of line. Gillies' hit was meant to be equal to what Clutterbuck did to DiBo. (And lest we forget, DiBo's a rookie playing his second-ever NHL game - it looks a lot like Clutterbuck was picking on the new guy, another long-standing NHL tradition.) Last year, Clutterbuck gets two for boarding, Gillies gets two for charging, and nobody would have batted an eye.

Since the lockout, however, the league is trying to tame the frontier justice. The problem is that their solution - the ill-named "instigator" penalty - actually punishes the enforcer and NOT the instigator, the guy running around and stirring the pot. Not surprisingly, those guys are stirring harder and faster than ever, with no end in sight.

Rule 48 - ostensibly to protect players from concussion - is in its own way just making things worse, because again the NHL is not addressing the problem, only the appearance. Not that the rule iteslf is bad, mind you... in theory. But it didn't keep Marc Savard safe. It didn't keep Sidney Crosby safe. It didn't keep Comeau safe. NONE OF THOSE HITS WERE PENALIZED IN ANY WAY. And an accidental contact with the head is an automatic ejection - the refs are given no discretion at all to give two, or give five without an ejection. And frankly, they need that discretion, because hockey players are not only the fastest-moving athletes, they're shifty and elusive and a guy trying to separate a player from the puck with a clean hit may catch him awkwardly and hurt him without any intent - or make contact with someone's head because he ducked his shoulder a split-second before contact.

As far as Gillies is concerned, McKenzie's correct, and he's gonna get at least five games. Certain media who have been using the Isles' struggles during their rebuild as a hook to hang lazy columns off of will now have another lazy hook - the Isles can't compete so they're gooning it up. I mean, you've seen Slap Shot! Amirite? You hear me, Columbus Dispatch fans! And they're not going to notice or much care that the Isles have played good hockey after Woe-vember, that they have a lot of good young players (and more on the way - Neiderreiter, de Haan, Cizikas, Lee). They're going to take the lazy way out. It's a perfect, ready-made excuse to pile on; all the better that they may have a point about Gillies, who offers just about zero hockey value beyond the protection of his teammates and esprit de corps.

Honestly, it's tiresome to have to go over this ground again. It distracts from the real turnaround happening on Long Island. Mock the small crowds and the poor record, but this team is getting much better. They are definitely in the mix next season for a playoff berth.

As for Rule 48... it's time for a little sense and sensibility. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the rule needs a major overhaul, because it doesn't do what it was meant to do, protect the players. Quite the reverse, I'm afraid - I'm forced to conclude that the NHL is only trying to cover its collective fundament, so it doesn't get sued by players whose careers have been impaired or ruined, like Savard, like LaFontaine before him, like others to come if this doesn't get seriously addressed. But the rules already provide for tossing guys out when they aim to injure, who have no reason for their hitting, who aren't trying to prevent goals but knock opponents out of the game. You could look it up - and I've reffed my share of rec league games, so I have - boarding, charging, elbowing, high-sticking, and many others can result in majors. Use THOSE tools that are already in place to discipline the actual instigators. Fine them. Fine their franchises. Don't just hold your nose and look the other way until the enforcer gets your attention for doing what you ought to have done in the first place - hold the initiators responsible. You will soon have far fewer of them.

Beyond that, the league and its fans have to recognize one thing - even proper rules enforcement won't stop the agitators and the dirty players. That's what makes them dirty. So what it's against the rules? I'm gonna smack that guy face-first into the boards two seconds after the puck's gone! It will happen anyway. Matt Cooke's breed of play has a lineage going back through Claude Lemeiux and Ken Linseman, back to before the NHL existed. You can take care of the casual offender and he will not repeat it; the incorrigible we shall always have with us. Because of that, the enforcer is still required to deal out a Moustache Ride in response.

The current "fighting has no place in our game" moralizing from the league is complete hogwash, frankly. It's self-serving, and allows Bettman and Campbell to sound correct while actually doing things that are the exact oposite of helpful. The goon who does nothing but fight is bad for the game, they say; well, what about the goon who does nothing but endanger other guys' health and careers? The enforcer would be far less necessary if you cracked down on the behavior he's there to punish! Heck - enforcers might even need to be able to carry their weight for 8-10 minutes a night. Wonder of wonders, if you curtail dirty play, you might just improve the quality of the hockey being played. Once you get past the tribal instinct of "my team good, all others suq lulz !!!one!!1!" the fans get that; they know punishing the enforcer more than the troublemaker serves, in practice, to protect the troublemaker. That's the real reason why dirty play is on the rise.

The late Bob Probert (rest in peace) and Dave Schultz could play plenty well when they weren't throwing down. Clark Gillies was so good at both aspects of the game, he made the Hall of Fame - and he never accumulated 100 PIM in a single season. He didn't need to. It can be done. But it requires a sensible system of discipline, that people can trust to be just and impartial. We're farther from that goal now than we were during the alleged big, bad 70's. The current Wheel of Discipline system is ridiculous because the guy who starts stuff gets punished less than the guy who steps in to stop it.

If you want more Clark Gillies and less Trevor Gillies - and honestly, I'm good with that - then protect good players by punishing people who are trying to injure them, rahter than merely defend against them. The rest will take care of itself.

Welcome aboard!

mikb — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:50:20 -0000

At the beginning of the season, our local Blogfather, Dom, wrote a community guidelines post for all of us, new and old, getting ready for the new season.

Remember those days? Promising, optimistic... there was even playoff talk about our New York Islanders... and then the team was pr*j*ct*d into injury oblivion. Media piled on. The club sacked a coach, traded their only healthy goaltender, and worked the waiver wire like Ali worked a speed bag. And we few (we happy few) held it together and stuck up for our guys.

And things began to change after Woe-vember. The team rallied. We got the mixture of luck, coaching, and performance that successful teams seem to take for granted. The 9-3 drubbing of the Penguins that brought so much tongue-clucking served as a statement and a launching point all at once.

Through it all the fans have been a mirror to the rest of the team's passion and energy; the Pittsburgh game was no different. This is a good thing. It's why many of us love this blog, and if you look at the comment threads, it's a case of the stats confirming what our lyin' eyes are telling us - the game threads rack up 500+ comments, many of the recaps and features top 150, there are always new FanShots and FanPosts (some of which also top 100 comments), and we've added a regular parody category (LHH Zeitgeist) for our flights of fancy. What's not to love?

Well, there's plenty to love in all that, and that's why we see a jump in the new memberships and in the blog activity. Dom's long-term strategy was, dare we say, Garthian:

In a word, I wanted this place to build organically: slowly and naturally. To that end it's been a success, which is why I've never had to post Community Guidelines before. People have always acted according to their judgment, which is ideal.

The downside, if there is one, is that success causes the proverbial hard choices. Luckily, we're not a hockey franchise bound by a lengthy and convoluted CBA. We can have more than 50 contracted commenters at any time. We can wear our white jerseys at home. Things are good that way. The hard choices are more subtle. In order to keep the tone and the vitality of the board, it becomes necessary to remind ourselves of the guidelines again.

What Dom wrote (linked above the jump) is pretty much impossible to improve on. Add in the general guide to Lighthouse Hockey and it should be covered. But I'ma gonna highlight a few things:

1. "You are invited to participate, guide the conversation, invite your friends, be part of a community." The most important thing to remember is that all these guidelines aren't a matter of Law Handed Down From Above. All of this is simply a description of the kind of vital and fun community that grew up at LHH. In trying to keep it that way, nobody is trying to dictate terms, least of all the moderators.

2, "...treat each other with respect ... and feel free to disagree for the sake of discussion. Also: recognize we are here to have fun." Simple to say, hard to do. In the heat of the commentary, it's easy to feel the tug, to snap off some putdown or really engage a fellow LHH-er personally, rather than what was said. I've done it too. Please don't. To use some (completely hypothetical) examples - saying "you're nuts/dreaming/stupid" is - well, it's kind of nuts and stupid. What good will come of that? "Criticize opinions, not people. Use evidence."

3. Be careful with the tone of posts. We have a great vibe, but it's harder to maintain properly when we can't see each other grinning while we jibe, hear the tone of voice, or read body language. Things like the "sarcasm font" and other shortcuts have grown over time to help fill the gap, but it's not perfect. Don't strain other people's good will with too much snark.

4. Ultimately, the board we all get is the board we all make. We're all in this together. here isn't just the Great and Powerful Mods and a bunch of peons. A great online group like this would be impossible under those terms because we'd lose the good judgment and good humor of the individuals in favor of a limited vision of one or two people.

But we do have mods. Like hockey refs, they are a small evil required to prevent far worse. Like good refs, we try not to interfere with the flow of the threads. Besides, nobody wants to be the heavy, and least of all us. We want to enjoy the conversation just like everyone else. And thankfully, most of our tiffs thus far have been self-correcting. That's the ideal. Take ten minutes, take a walk, then come back and try to take a look from the other side of things before it becomes a flame war.

If things get out of hand, though, be assured - we all care too much about this to simply watch it implode. If certain comments cross the line they may be deleted. We'll warn people if they get out of hand. And if all else fails and someone is making things lousy for everyone, we will break out the banhammer. But again, that's up to the individual. It's pretty easy not to be banned, actually: just play friendly and remember that we're all fans, we all love hockey, we all root for the Islanders. Everything else is just details. So please, take the time to read Dom's previous guides to LHH for more specifics. When in doubt, feel free to ask. Keep it civil, keep it friendly, and don't say anything (even in jest) that would make Mario cry.

DGB strikes again! This time, it's Other Mario Lemieux Grievances.

mikb — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:55:11 -0000

DGB strikes again! This time, it's Other Mario Lemieux Grievances.

"While all the cheap shots and fighting during last week's rematch were hard to take, the Islanders really went over the line with that lengthy pre-game ceremony retiring David Volek's number."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

#grabsisfast

mikb — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:08:11 -0000

We do love our hashtag memes here at Lighthouse Hockey, so this is a spot to collect and create our favorites. (One per comment, please, to make it easier to find and rec the really good stuff!)

I've gone through the prior threads and I think I've got all the rec'd stuff, along with most of the rest of them. There were a couple I tweaked for clarity. Please accept my apologies for any goofs or oversights - and feel free to re-post in the comments below. Below the jump, the best of "Michael Grabner is so fast..."

We do love our hashtag memes here at Lighthouse Hockey, so this is a spot to collect and create our favorites. (One per comment, please, to make it easier to find and rec the really good stuff!)

#grabsisfast ...

"Michael Grabner is so fast, he was able to take the picture of himself scoring on Miller in OT." -mikb

"Grabs is so fast that he's back sitting on the bench in time to sing Life is Life before the red light is on." -Paumanok

"Michael Grabner is so fast he can Twitter his goals as they happen." -mikb

"Michael Grabner is so fast he could drop his gloves in front of Maxime Talbot and score before he turtles." -JPinVA

"Grabner is so fast he breaks radar guns when they gauge him." -OzzyFan

"Grabner is so fast that he beat Michael Phelps' swimming records by running on the bottom of the pool." -OzzyFan

"Grabner is so fast that he is the only person to have ever taken flight from running." -OzzyFan

"Grabner is so fast he can actually catch OzzyFan sleeping." -WebBard

"Grabs is so fast he's his own 2-on-1." -19 Isle in NJ 22

"He's gone to PLAID!" -John Candy, via bob l

"Michael Grabner will make point-five past lightspeed." -mikb

"Michael Grabner is scoring so many goals for the Islanders, as a league we must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and we must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action... I need to re-think whether I want to be a part of it." -nyisles1974, channeling Mario Lemieux

"Michael Grabner is so fast that he can defeat the gravitational force of a black hole and escape the event horizon." -garik16

"There once was a man from Villach
Whom everyone loved to watch
He's adept at ice hockey
And not a bit cocky
And skates faster than I can drink scotch." -JPinVA

"Overspeed wears #40." -Fabraption

"Michael Grabner scores on real NHL goalies with the NHL '94 Wraparound Move." -mikb

"Grabner is so fast, he scored on a wraparound and sat on the bench before the goalie got back to his crease." -Rickfansince76

"Granber saw a quarter on the ice during a breakaway, went over to pick it up, and came back and scored before anyone realized he was gone." -mikb

"Ninjas watch Michael Grabner play hockey and sigh dreamily." -mikb

A respectful question from a Pens fan - not a troll

mikb — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:17:54 -0000

{Editor's Note - I've moved this comment from the Sabres game thread to this separate post, so we can have a friendly and rational discussion, similar to the one that developed between all of us and Justin and Frank from Pensburgh in the Pittsburgh game recap. Let me please emphasize FRIENDLY. I think the poster has a legit question, and is asking in a calm manner.

{So, I'll turn it over to "alt31" below the jump, and leave our replies to the comments. -mikb}

Sorry for the late reply, it's the 24 hour delay to signing up.

I’ll say right now, that I am a Pens fan, but I’m not trolling, and I hope I can get a more rational discussion than "Crysby suxx" that one usually finds throughout the internet world. First of all, I’d like to ask what suspensions and fines the Penguins deserve for Friday’s incidents? The match penalties that were issued to the Pens resulted directly from fights (and I admittedly don’t have the highlights in front of me as the only ones I can find don’t show the aggressor) that were instigated by the Islanders. It wasn’t the fights that drew the fines, but the instigation of the fights.

The Islanders made it known that they were out for revenge, and began instigating fights after they were already up 6-0 on a dilapidated Penguins roster. I’ve seen it written that the Penguins injuries mean nothing to the Islanders, who are depleted themselves, but I’d like to put forth this fact: The Islanders have lost roughly $17 million of their salary cap due to injury. The Penguins, on the other hand, have lost around 26 million salary cap dollars. This means that over half of the allowed NHL salary cap of the Pittsburgh Penguins is in the press box. That is more than significant. So yes, I do believe the Pens have a voice in the "most injury plagued team" conversation this year.
Lastly, I’ve watched the Comeau hit over and over and I see a clean hit every time. I’m trying to see it as an objective fan, not a Penguins fan, so I’m asking you guys to explain to me what made that hit dirty. I’m not being a dick, I really want to know your viewpoint.

PS - another from the very bottom of the Pitt game recap as well, from "lostprophetRJX" :

Just curious...
Which exactly sparked the whole retribution thing? Talbot’s hit on Comeau? Johnson’s KO of DP? Both? I’m also hearing a lot (ie. Konopka) about the Isles finally frustrated about being pushed around. Was this from all teams or just us?

Depleted Isles hold open tryouts for netminders, exorcists

mikb — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:22:15 -0000

Fueled by news of Kevin Poulin's dislocated kneecap, the New York Islanders held open tryouts at Iceworks to find able-bodied goaltenders to finish their increasingly bizarre season.

Goalie-turned-GM Garth Snow personally oversaw the group of aspiring netminders, all of whom were required to sign a long complicated waiver before setting foot on Islanders property. Meanwhile, special advisor Scott Gordon took over a conference room to audition a variety of shamans, healers, voodoo priestesses, and exorcists to purge the team of "bad spiritual ju-ju."

"It's a process," Snow said when asked if he'd found anyone suitable to take the ice for the Isles. "You have to understand, you're not seeing guys who are generally used to playing in seven layers of styrofoam and bubblewrap. A couple of them seemed to have mobility issues."

This may have been a reference to one player who was so heavily cushioned that he spent most of the session wailing, "I CAN'T PUT MY ARMS DOWN!"

One aspiring goalkeeper did stand out during the three-hour session:

(via www.panikstoybox.com)

Head Coach Jack Capuano praised the young man, noting that once his machete was replaced by a hockey stick, he was solid in net. "His mobility wasn't so great," Capuano admitted, "but I liked his rebound control, and the kid's indestructible. Someone lost an edge and plowed him by mistake; they took him to the trainer's room, but all of a sudden he was marching down the ice again. He came from an entirely different part of the arena - just popped up from nowhere."

The team, however, could not sign the mystery goalie because he suddenly keeled over and vanished in a cloud of brimstone. "We think one of the shamans got lucky," Snow said. "It's good news long-term, but it doesn't really help us in the here and now."

When asked if he would move back to the ice himself, Snow leaned back in his office chair and admitted that it might become necessary. He was immediately run over by the Zamboni.

Capuano praised another candidate, a rec league goalie from New Jersey. "It's true that he doesn't actually have any ice hockey experience... or ice skating experience... but his bum knee makes him a natural Islander. I mean, how badly can he get injured if he's already injured?"

The player was found three minutes later, unconscious in the parking lot, with feral cats attempting to drag him into the woods. He is now resting and stable in an area hospital. In a cruel twist of irony, his roommate at the hospital is digruntled netminder Evgeny Nabokov, who is out indefinitely with imflammation in his sense of entitlement. "He's had complications, it doesn't look like he'll join the team any time soon," Capuano said.

"It's really shocking," Nabokov said in a statement. "It's almost what would possibly happen to franchise if they perhaps angered Russian Mafia... hypothetically speaking. But it's certainly very unlucky as far as you can prove." He also denied rumors of imploring the vengeance of Baba Yaga. "This is book on knitting - more or less," he said, indicating a leather-bound Cyrillic volume surrounded by mysterious darkness. "Why you think I have these needles dipped in something that is NOT goat's blood?"

Reduced to desperation, the team followed the recommendation of their newest trainer, Baron von Tamedi the Great, and filed a contract for reanimated netminder Terry Sawchuk. "We're not sure how long it will take him to get into game shape," Capuano said, "and of course there's the off chance that he'll try to eat the brains of an Ice Girl, but if this works, we'll be adding a Hall of Fame goaltender to our staff."

"I'm excited about this," said Islanders captain Doug Weight. "I remember seeing Sawchuk when he came up through juniors, I think he still has a lot left to contribute. Physically he's still only 40 years old."

The league denied a waiver claim for Sawchuk from Detroit GM Ken Holland. "The CBA is quite clear on this point," Gary Bettman said in a statement. "Since Sawchuk died as a New York Ranger, his zombie form is their property - in this case, literally - unless another team reanimates him first, and then they claim his rights. That's the Islanders." Glen Sather, however, vowed to give Sawchuk's remains a four year, $18.5 million deal.

Us and Them - Rob Neyer joins SB Nation

mikb — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:08:16 -0000

Us and Them - Rob Neyer joins SB Nation

And after all, we're only ordinary men... but Neyer is more of an extraordinary writer, and I hope that he keeps bringing the good ideas.

More significantly - he's coming directly from ESPN.com to SBN, with membership in the BBWAA and a well-earned national reputation for knowing his stuff. That's a big deal, to attract a talent of this level, and it reflects well on SBN in general.

Welcome aboard, Rob!

The NHL Guardians Project - with a new update

mikb — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:15:55 -0000

Originally posted Jan.7. | Ed. Note from Dominik: I bumped this one up since the Guardian Project vote is on-going, and some of the commentary here as each one is released was cracking me up.

Double Ed. Note from mikb - now that our Guardian has been revealed, head to the comments for double-bonus snark. Personally, I think Captain Lighthouse would have been a better pick.

Many of us are all-too aware that the New York Islanders are not the best-marketed franchise; in other words, they have the media savvy of Pepsi. (New logo fail? Check. Pepsi Clear = Lighthouse Project. "Brown and Bubbly?" Kind of describes the Mystery Injury Reports.)

But you know, I'm beginning to think that it'spartly the league's fault.

Some of us may remember that the league's top-down, central planners came down hard on the Rangers a few years ago, for daring to have their own website in "noncompliance" with the rest of the league. It got so bad that MSG threatened to sue the league under anti-trust laws, and the league counter-threatened to force MSG to sell the Rangers. Yup - that's just what we want, a league and a member franchise publicly fueding.

Beyond this, the NHL has some laughable notions about how to market its teams - at least, the ones not in the Winter Classic or led by Sid Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. The latest of these is an idea so awful that it only lacks the silhouettes of a man and two robots making fun of it while it happens: the NHL Guardians Project.

Originally posted Jan.7. | Ed. Note from Dominik: I bumped this one up since the Guardian Project vote is on-going, and some of the commentary here as each one is released was cracking me up.

Double Ed. Note from mikb - now that our Guardian has been revealed, head to the comments for double-bonus snark. Personally, I think Captain Lighthouse would have been a better pick.

But you know, I'm beginning to think that it'spartly the league's fault.

Basically, the idea seems to be that hockey fans could give two craps about actual good hockey, or seeing their best players made known to the wider sports world, through entertaining "Sports Center" promos or charity work or what-have-you. Nope, turns out that what hockey really needs to be popular is comic-book tie-ins! Because pro sports league/comic book tie-ins have a spectacular track record, right?

Worse, they decided to give this gig to Stan Lee, who probably still has his Montreal Wanderers season tickets.

The results look predictably awful thus far. The very first revealed Guardian, the Penguin, looks like Stan just shrugged and said, "Use Cyclops, he needs the work." When your creative guy is punting on any semblance of original content 1/30th into the project, you're in a world of trouble. But it gets laughably worse, such as this part of the Penguin's description -

In exterior appearance, the Penguin is an impressive looking superhero, mostly human features except for a set of Penguin like wings attached to his arms.

This sentence is full of grammar fail, from the small-beer lack of hyphens in the compound adjectives (in increasing order of fail: "impressive looking," "mostly human," and "Penguin like"), to the awkward redundancy "exterior appearance." Note to copy writers everywhere: an appearance is, by definition, exterior. Then there's the assertion that anything resembling Cyclops is in any way "impressive looking," especially when doing surfer-related dance moves in bright yellow spandex. And finally - hey, I don't see wings of any sort attached to this guy.

The wings, like that of an actual Penguin, don't enable him to fly but rather they allow him to maneuver both in the air and especially at sea.

HAHAHAHAHA... the wings don't let him fly, just "maneuver... in the air." Only in the NHL could "maneuvering in the air with wings" NOT mean "flying."

The rest of them are also fairly lame ripoffs of Stan's great work with Marvel:

the King = Purple Thor (at least the costume. The powers are going to Tampa Bay, no doubt.)

the Hurricane = Red Tornado

the Blackhawk = Iron Man, right down to Tony Stark's personality (ye cats)

the Sabre = Hydro-Man, only a good guy

I'm really, REALLY worried about what dreck they'll pull from the water to represent the Islanders. The Gorton's guy? That goofy bobble-headed ex-mascot? But, as fun as it is to snark the darkness, I also prefer to light a small candle. Therefore, I am coming up with my own Guardians below. Excelsior, true Islander believers!

New York Islanders - Captain Lighthouse. He fights for all things awesome with his amazing powers: the Danish Backhand of Justice, the Moustache Ride, and Multiple Third-Rounders. Weaknesses: his joints, pronunciation, and not particularly caring.

New York Rangers - Chuck Schumer, Senate Ranger. Powers: endless appropriations of money, finger-wagging at press conferences, Sean Avery. Weaknesses: the salary cap, Sean Avery.

New Jersey Devils - Doc and Chico, the Announcing Duo. Through Doc's huge vocabulary and Chico's abilty to agree with anything, they have the ability to inflate their team's accomplishments while downplaying their opponent's abilities, making them a formidable enemy. Weaknesses: a team with no abilities to inflate.

Philadelphia Flyers - Bulliest the Goon Lord. A terrifying mix of elbows, high sticks, blindside head shots, and Dan Carcillo's mullet. Weaknesses: goaltending (both their own and others').

Pittsburgh Penguins - Sid the Hockey Kid. His mild-mannered alter-ego hides behind a wispy mustache and the endless thirst to know elementary science facts. In his hockey form, however, he has a wide array of passing, shooting, skating, and bitching abilities, and should never be underestimated. Weaknesses: a glaring aura of hype makes it impossible for Sid to sneak up on anyone.

Washington Capitals - the Boudreaunator. A f'k'n offensive juggernaut, able to f'k'n bury opponents in f'k'n goals from any f'k'n angle and style. Weaknesses: playing defense, the month of May.

Tampa Bay Lightning - Mighty Y. Sailing through the stormy skies over Pinellas County, his spoked red "Y" glittering on his chest, Mighty Y has the ability to jump-start any rebuild. Weakness: noticing that 90% of the work was done before he arrived.

Carolina Hurricanes - Gale Force. Powers include a plethora of synonyms for strong wind, exploiting their usually-weak division to crash the playoffs, and then beating the Devils. Weaknesses: can only cycle left.

Atlanta Thrashers - Byufyuglyun. A mythical beast whose powers include playing both forward and defense, and stealing his abilities from the Chicago Blackhawks. Weakness: he plays in Atlanta.

Florida Panthers - LeBron James. One of the many abilities he took to South Beach was the power to make everyone forget (even more) about the terrible hockey in South Florida, which should work for long enough for the team to improve. Weakness: it'd be better if LeBron could play hockey himself.

Buffalo Sabres - the French Connector. Sacre Bleu! Buffalo's champion rushes through opponents with flair, grace, and awesome 70's hair. Weaknesses: the league makes you wear helmets now; weighed down by a collection of misfit logos.

Toronto Maple Leafs - Don Cherry. His blistering tongue (and even more blistering wardrobe) strike fear into the hearts of all non-Canadian hockey players. Weaknesses: unfortunate habit of sucking feet into his mouth and trading all his draft picks.

Montreal Canadiens - Guy LaRoychard. The living spirit of all things French-Canadian. Powers include invading other teams' arenas and a parade of great goaltending. Weakness: insufferable ego, only stands 4' 2".

Boston Bruins - Chowdah Keg. A brawling, physical presence who turns people's own shoes against them. There are rumors of a shadowy presence protecting them via email from within the league. Has never backed down from anything that didn't look like Matt Cooke. Weakness: having a high playoff seed.

Ottawa Senators - Historion. A man of learning, of history... of insisting that his franchise is the same as the one that folded in the 30's, and thus is a former Stanley Cup Champion. Powers include wearing down opponents with long, dry arguments. Weaknesses: guarantees, scoring in their own net.

~~Come back later for the Western Conference!~~

OK - it's later! The remaining fifteen Guardians are below. Major thanks to Dom for the idea and powers for the St. Louis Guardian, who had me completely stumped.

Chicago Blackhawks – Politically Correct Hawk. This Guardian was born at Auburn University , and has dedicated himself to pointlessly changing long-standing traditions, confusing and infuriating his opponents so badly that they ignore his pedestrian goaltending. Weaknesses: cab drivers, filing important paperwork before deadlines, common sense.

Detroit Red Wings – Longeviteen. Plays at a high level, seemingly forever. It is vain and pointless waiting for him to retire-for-pity’s-sake-already-wouldja, forcing opponents to overcome him in a contest of skill and smarts – a contest in which he excels through practice and long study. In certain incarnations, is also a mean, uncompromising bastard, presenting another challenge to his foes. Weakness: is vulnerable while waiting for new incarnation to come to full power; can also be shot through the goalkeeper.

Columbus Blue Jackets – The Dispatcher. Snarks opposing teams from the insular safety of a dying medium. More of a sidekick than a true, full-fledged hero. Just give him time. Hey – I said GIVE HIM TIME, OK? I mean, what’s your team done lately? Who says we play in a division with two other Stanley Cup winners and a perennial contender? Who? Huh? Don’t make me misinform you! Weakness: old, crotchety, and his powers entirely vanish after 82 games.

Nashville Predators – The Phantom Skater. People entirely overlook him… and then find themselves losing 4-1, wondering who exactly scored the goals. A dangerous opponent to underestimate. Weakness: finally captured and forced to wear garish mustard yellow or shiny silver, robbing him of his best power. And what’s with your faaaaaace?

St Louis Blues – Philanthro Q. Génerošz, Esquire. He’s just so gosh darned NICE, you know? Above all, an Old World gentleman… a nurturer of talent… all of which he spreads to the rest of the league, to win Stanley Cups: Arbour, Gilmour, Stevens, Shanahan, Hull, Pronger, Brind’Amour, etc. etc. Attempts to use his powers for his own good (Gretzky, Fuhr, young Pronger, Janney, Oates, Tkachuk, MacInnis), unfortunately, always end in tears… leading to lots of strong Eastern European beer and the mournful music which gives the team their name.

Los Angeles Kings – The Creepster. This hero has stretches of long hibernation, only to suddenly re-emerge and take foes by surprise. Capable of tremendous feats when pressed. Weakness: his best work lately has been in the wrong sport. Also, he gives everyone the blinking fantods.

Anaheim Ducks – That Bird in the Comments. His main power is the ability to take on so many bizarre appearances that opponents double over with nausea. Like other Guardians, however, his powers can be turned against him: some opponents just laugh at him while they win by four goals.

San Jose Sharks – Easy Skater. Everything’s a breeze on the beach, dudes! "E.S." (as he prefers to be called) just goes with the flow, making hockey look effortlessly easy. Weakness: so laid back and so used to nice weather that spring hockey doesn’t cause any sense of urgency or intensity.

Dallas Stars – Uncle Travelin' Mike. His pioneering spirit drove him to be the first Guardian to leave their ancestral home in the north. This willingness to break barriers led to their greatest success, on a play where his foot was CLEARLY OVER THE FRICKIN’ LINE. But did Bettmanicus do anything? NOOOOOOOOO.

(Uh – sorry folks. The French Connector got in there when I wasn’t looking.)

Phoenix Coyotes – Bettmanictus. The most powerful Guardian in the hockey universe has made it his personal quest to save Southern Hockey everywhere, especially where it’s gone bankrupt. His powers work against players and owners alike, making him impossible to defeat – your only hope is to endure. Weakness: knows next-to-nothing about hockey, hockey traditions, and hockey fans, and cares less; as a result, his powers are far more dangerous than helpful.

Colorado Avalanche – Collector Spectre. This ghostly presence imports his greatest abilities from other franchises: big-game goalies, elite (yet fragile) 2-way forwards, feared agitators, and beloved veteran defenders. Weakness: has no powers of his own.

Edmonton Oilers – Tambelowe. This Guardian attempted to absorb his own powers from Collector Spectre, only to have it backfire… though it almost worked, the side effect was a franchise condemned to a shadowy existence on the fringes of the league. Many claim that this damage can only be reversed by the powers of another Guardian. The problem is that the current guy is very difficult to be rid of, and very expensive.

Calgary Flames – Secret ‘Stache. His mighty facial hair hides determination, a wicked slapshot, and the ability to make opponents shoot the puck off the back of their own goaltender’s leg. Weakness: long since retired; his successors have been waiting in vain for someone, anyone, under the age of 30 to take his place on the team. Their last contender, for example, is now working in a much more suitable venue.

Minnesota Wild – Snorion. His brother Historion prefers to use the family’s power of boredom in pedantic discussion, but Snorion is a man of "action" – said action being to grind everything to a halt. "Baseball pace, soccer scoring" is his mantra. Weakness: more likely to put his allies to sleep than his foes; left without help, his system invariably breaks down.

Vancouver Canucks – the Neon Lime Twins. Their bizarre antics in the stands are matched by their deadly on-ice chemistry. Marvel as they simultaneously mock opponents in the box and score on the power play! Cry when you realize that they aren’t triplets, and neither of them is a defenseman!

Who wants cupcakes??? Puck Daddy wants cupcakes

mikb — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 22:43:40 -0000

Who wants cupcakes??? Puck Daddy wants cupcakes

It was inevitable. Puck Daddy's Sean Leahy meets up with Amy Brady, the owner of Cupcake Gourmet, and samples some of the wares.

No truth yet to the rumor that JPinVA was the shadowy figure in the parking garage of Leahy's apartment complex, whispering, "Follow the icing..."

Of Mice and Men: Franchise Goaltending... RDP and Bobby Lu

mikb — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:00:47 -0000

In one of the recent comment threads, an imromptu discussion about Milbury vs. Snow popped up, with goaltending a featured sub-thread. To wit, the bold assertion of metalstar:

As it stands right now DP and Luongo are equal.
Luongo has proved to be nothing more than a work horse regular season goalie who can’t get it done in the playoffs. Vancouver has fared no better in the in post season with Luongo than they did without him. DP when he was fully healthy and in top form was a major reason why the Isles made the playoffs the last couple of times they managed to get there.

Talk about serendipity - the Contrarian Goaltender talks about Luongo's playoffs in a recent post, to which I now refer the curious. I will go over some different numbers below the jump, comparing more apples to apples regarding Luongo and DiPietro - their formative goalkeeping years behind similarly-struggling teams.

In one of the recent comment threads, an imromptu discussion about Milbury vs. Snow popped up, with goaltending a featured sub-thread. To wit, the bold assertion of metalstar:

As it stands right now DP and Luongo are equal.
Luongo has proved to be nothing more than a work horse regular season goalie who can’t get it done in the playoffs. Vancouver has fared no better in the in post season with Luongo than they did without him. DP when he was fully healthy and in top form was a major reason why the Isles made the playoffs the last couple of times they managed to get there.

Here's some stat-fu for everyone to consider. The numbers are for each goalkeeper in their age 21-26 seasons, with DiPietro's numbers not including his post All-Star Game work, after he had first been injured:

player	gp	rec	GAA	sv%	so	sv	sh	gl	mp
RDP	229	107-83-27	2.670	0.9096	13	5903	6490	587	13193
Luo	317	108-154-41	2.677	0.9201	26	9164	9960	796	17842

Those numbers for Luongo happen to coincide with the five seasons he spent as a Florida Panther. The GAA for both is negligible over the same age range, and Robby's got Rick by a significant amount in saves percentage. He has twice as many shutouts in only 38% more games. The record is the only thing that's worse - and when we look, we see that the difference is offense, not defense or goalkeeping:

	LgAv	FlaG	rnk	opp	rnk
"00-01	226	200	24	246	23
"01-02	215	186	27	250	27
"02-03	218	176	29	237	24
"03-04	211	188	23	221	22
"05-06	253	240	22	257	15

	Lg Av	NYIG	rnk	opp	rnk
"02-03	218	224	11	231	21
"03-04	211	237	5	210	18
"05-06	253	230	25	278	25
"06-07	242	248	12	240	12
"07-08	228	194	29	243	23

The Isles gave their keepers much more support than the Panthers, on balance; their failings were in goal prevention. The team had better-than-average offense three times, but even when outscoring their opponents, they never had better-than-average goal prevention. (Being only 1 and 2 goals better than the league average over 82 games is negligible.) Florida never had an above-average season - in fact, their offense was bottom-third of the league every year. Of course, they were also below-average in stopping shots, as per above - but how much was Luongo and how much the defense? A suggested answer lies further down.

Luongo also outperformed his backups by a great margin, as compared to RDP, over the same time period.

player	gp	rec	GAA	sv%	so	sv	sh	gl	mp	sh/60
Luo	317	108-154-41	2.677	0.9201	26	9164	9960	796	17842	33.494
others	140	25-61-21	3.175	0.8971	3	3261	3635	374	7068	30.857

RDP	229	107-83-27	2.670	0.9096	13	5903	6490	587	13193	29.516
others	185	66-77-19	2.894	0.9015	4	4291	4760	469	9725	29.368

Dig that last number. It suggests why the Panthers were worse-than-average in the goals permitted department, despite Luongo's strong play - Florida's matador defense. Essentially, Lou faced four more shots per game than Rick, and stopped all of them. (¡Olé!) He also faced more shots per than his backups, while the Isles were essentially the same team in front of everyone for those years. Rick was still better than Snow and Dubie (and others) but not by nearly as much as Lou was better than... well, Trevor Kidd and Jani Hurme, but still!

Season-per-season it's much the same. Luongo had three seasons where he was tremendously better than his backups (01, 02, 04), one where he was decently better (03), and in 06 he was marginally better. Since in '04 and '06 his backups played so much less than he did (he led the league with 75 games in '06, for example), it's just as likely that luck played a big part in those short-term performances: Steve Sheilds was just bad in '04 behind an incredible year for Bobby Lu, while in '06 Jamie McLennan had good results behind an average year for Luongo.

In DiPietro's case, he also had three seasons where he was much better than his backups (04, 06, 07), and one where he was decently better (08, pre-injury). In '03, he WAS the backup behind Chris Osgood and then Garth Snow, and was a fair sight worse, albeit in just ten games.

Given that Luongo had already climbed to elite status while in Florida, one would expect more success with the stronger team in Vancouver. Again, the Contrarian Goaltender is on that case. In brief, Luongo has sparkling results in international play, and in the playoffs, the only team he's been bad against is Chicago, losing both his series against them. (The Hawks did just win a Stanley Cup - can you necessarily blame Luongo for not doing that well?) The jury is still out about whether (or how much) Roberto Luongo is responsible for Vancouver's recent playoff history - but I think we can safely return a verdict on Metalstar's charge, that at this point he is no better than DiPietro. That verdict is, he is better by a significant margin... he was better at the same age, he was better before RDP's injuries, and he is certainly better now.

Poll

Is Roberto Luongo "no better right now" than Rick DiPietro?

Of course he's better than Rick! Curse You Milbury!

12 votes

Sure he's better, but if Rick hadn't been hurt, it'd be a lot closer.

16 votes

Luo's better... but if Rick hadn't been hurt, he'd be better for the money.

10 votes

Yeah, I think Metalstar's got a point. Playoffs are all that matter.

1 votes

I am a Canucks fan and wish that Luongo (and his contract) could be shot into the sun.

0 votes

39 votes | Poll has closed

SBNation.com User Blog: mikb

May Hockey?! New York Islanders by the Calendar

Jets 5, Islanders 4 (OT) Game Recap - from the heights to the depths

How the Bettminch Stole Hockey

TSN puts Tavares in Top 16 Under 25

Wait, what? *Patrick* Kane might be available?

Is Garth Snow actually drafting well, or are we all just pr*j*ct*ng again?

Bruins 6, Islanders 3 - Tied After Two magic evaporates along with playoff chances

Game Highlights

Good things

Teh Gritz

Teh Rookiez

Wheels on the Scapewagon

Next Up

Big market, big delusion

Fun with letters - The curious case of hyphenation (UPDATED with answers and some fascinating historical stuff)

Fun with numbers: Any time is a good time for π

Senators Many, Islanders Nil - the Trainwreck Recap

Game Highlights

Islanders vs. Senators Preview and Gameday Thread

Next Game

Slow and steady rebuild is paying first dividends

Kyle Turris deal immanent?

Recap - Stars (on 45) 3, Islanders 2: Can Games Be Only Forty Minutes?

Game Highlights

A quick note on the salary cap floor

Rangers 4 (EN) (again) Islanders 2 - Maximum Effort, Minimum Results

Capuano Post-Game

"But they had no pressure on them!"

The NHL's nationally-broadcast games, 1993 - present

Fun Islanders trivia - can you name our Masterton trophy guys?

Isles Pride and Campbell Prejudice - what punishment on the Gillies-go-round?

Welcome aboard!

DGB strikes again! This time, it's Other Mario Lemieux Grievances.

#grabsisfast

A respectful question from a Pens fan - not a troll

Depleted Isles hold open tryouts for netminders, exorcists

Us and Them - Rob Neyer joins SB Nation

The NHL Guardians Project - with a new update

Who wants cupcakes??? Puck Daddy wants cupcakes

Of Mice and Men: Franchise Goaltending... RDP and Bobby Lu

Is Roberto Luongo "no better right now" than Rick DiPietro?

Of course he's better than Rick! Curse You Milbury!

Sure he's better, but if Rick hadn't been hurt, it'd be a lot closer.

Luo's better... but if Rick hadn't been hurt, he'd be better for the money.

Yeah, I think Metalstar's got a point. Playoffs are all that matter.

I am a Canucks fan and wish that Luongo (and his contract) could be shot into the sun.

Wait, what? Patrick Kane might be available?

Is Garth Snow actually drafting well, or are we all just prjct*ng again?