Where is the quality hockey information?

New York Islander Fan Central | 10/03/2007 03:21:00 AM |
Let me preface this by writing it does not have to be positive or negative about the Islanders but please give us correct background information if nothing else. If a writer does that and tells us he thinks we will finish last so be it.

I guess in the end a lot of out of market writers have enough problems telling us about their own markets much less doing research on one outside. In this market New York City writers do not go near this team daily yet make predictions based on information that provide that just is not correct. Last Friday's preseason loss at Msg was made out to be a route by the Ranger headline writers and reporters even though it was a 4-2 game that the Bridgeport Islanders outworked the Ranger varsity for two plus periods.

Deb Kaufman was on television the other day talking Islanders and for all her work when she's around the club she came off as completely lost because she was not in Moncton for camp. Like many when the speculation comes without being around the club it's clear to see it's forced and reflects a lack of preparation or quality.

Chris Botta wrote in his point blank blog the other day the Islanders were not raided this summer here.

I can understand folks who claim Botta has to shill for the club as part of his job and protect the management and players but in this case he is correct whether you like his views or not. He'll never stoop as low as Al Trautwig does to keep his job but he does have to follow his boss instructions and goes out of his way to speak with the fans whether the news is good or bad.

Anyone who followed this club last season and all summer from the headlines knew the Islanders only offered three years and nine million to Jason Blake and had no intention of playing him close to eighteen million. Any idea that he bolted this club and did not want to be here is just not correct and the same can be said about Tom Poti and any other player who left outside of Ryan Smyth, who was not given an offer so far above market value it would have been a long term mistake.

Most of these articles are just so out of touch with the club it's impossible to respect them as credible. Anyone who watched the games and the numbers saw DiPietro face the most shots of any goalie per game last year and still finish with a 9.19 save percentage. Many writers doing previews could only talk about his injuries or his long-term contract, not the fact he faced a pp-pk disparity that was minus ninety. A few writers did get it right on DiPietro, many did not care to notice.

Someone wants to write DiPietro may struggle because of poor offensive support or his defense is not good enough or even talk about his hip and concussion injuries that's fair. Someone wants to write he'll struggle because of Howard Milstein, John Spano or his long term contract I disagree.

That's why most of these one or two paragraph previews are just simply lazy and not worth the effort to read them other that to read the obvious guess work going into them. If someone did one of these two paragraph previews and predicted the Islanders would win the cup it would be just as hard to take it seriously.

Good or bad, where is the quality information?