Boston 6, New York 3: Charles Wang Sunday

New York was eliminated from playoff contention with Saturday's 6-3 loss.

Comments from the game are on twitter, overall the game was there to be won in the third.

Boston turned up the pressure, New York failed to match, contest was closer than score.

The goal off Travis Hamonic, Montoya needed to stop from that angle. The work for Parenteau's two goals, no goaltender was going to stop.

Charles Wang will be interviewed during Sunday's pregame against Ottawa.

Bridgeport won Saturday.

Casey Cizikas was injured, not sent down to the best of our knowledge.

New York Sweeps Pittsburgh: Bailey Five Points

When a team losses it's first back to games since Jan 10th-11th they are doing everything right, when another team beats them twice in a row this says something very positive about them.

You know it's a sign of something good when Steve Staios is breaking in shorthanded.

All kidding aside, New York was the better team, had the extra step, outworked the Pens, and earned their sweep of the home and home.

They have had success at home vs Pittsburgh before this season.

Not sure what to make of Bailey but a remarkable night to register five points. Of course for this blog he should play his natural position of center. The concept of him being a winger has been tried many times without success, but that's not for today.

Congratulations to Josh Bailey.

Nielsen-Okposo played with Grabner the entire second half of last season.

Congratulations to Kyle Okposo for a new career high in goals. 

That was an incredible effort by Pandolfo short-handed to get the puck to Bailey. 

When a dominating team hits the wall like Pittsburgh has, they are going to lose some games, and make some mistakes trying to do more, despite this they still almost came all the way back.

The Pens short-handed play was good, despite the goal they allowed off their defense.

Montoya's surprising me a little, he looked unplayable for a long time (even before injuries) but now he seems to have settled down which does not happen in a vacuum.

The shift Reasoner came off the bench and scored his first, like in Florida the team had a dominating shift, you could see the Isles were beating the Pens to the net.. Okposo found the quality spot, the first line did not finish but generated chances, Grabner, Niederreiter and Martin had chances.

Streit is just playing like he was told go play offense for a while now, he got caught in Pittsburgh when someone did not cover well, but he has to do it.

Isles took some big hits to clear some pucks on defense.

Overall this suggests nothing new, the Isles have been a team between five hundred and six under the entire season. This is no carryover to next season if there is one.  

Now we see what happens with Bridgeport, who need Ullstrom (plus Cizikas) and what happens when Boston/Ottawa visit over the weekend. 

Those teams have not hit the wall the Pens have, they will be much tougher.

For this day congratulations to the New York Islanders. 

Lottery Watch:
New York is five points clear of the 27th place team. Toronto is playing the kind of hockey where they may well not win another game, anything can happen. 

Beating Winnipeg/Columbus or even better having success against Boston/Ottawa/New Jersey could place the Isles around the 8th or 9th team from 30th spot. 

New York Notables: Poulin Recalled

New York recalled Kevin Poulin on Wednesday, David Ullstrom was listed on practice lines.

Nabokov is out with a lower body injury and a contract for next season so despite being on bench in third period against Pens, it's possible they may shut him down for the rest of the season. 

Anders Nilsson is still out with his sprained ankle in Bridgeport as of March 17th, for now they have the goaltender on an amateur tryout contract in Dan Clarke. The early projection when Nilsson got hurt was seven to ten days.

New York has games Saturday/Sunday.

Bridgeport has three games this weekend with huge playoff implications.

Mikko Koskinen (on loan) is participating in the playoffs with his team up 3-1 in their series. Beyond one video nine days ago of Rick DiPietro there is nothing to suggest he is ready to return to practice much less play a hockey game.

Cody Rosen to the best of our knowledge has played one game for Clarkson.
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What's Next:
Round two with Pittsburgh and likely Al Montoya's chance to see if he can continue to elevate his game.

Not surprised at all with what happened in Pittsburgh besides how Fleury played.

All teams hit the wall after a long winning streak which we wrote about before the game. Ottawa had eight goals against the Pens, the signs were there despite the Sunday win for Pittsburgh. 

The second half against Florida was a sign the Isles had some extra jump to their game.

Isles should have had a few early in the third and put them away handily. The shots against seemed very inflated.

Comments for that game are on twitter.

Unless Montoya struggles or the Pens are on the power-play a lot, I expect another very competitive game against Pittsburgh. 
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Lottery Watch:
One point by Buffalo eliminates New York from playoff contention.  The trends suggest Minnesota (first in Western Conference in December) will not catch the Isles. Toronto could well fall past the Isles.

As written last week trends mean nothing. 

New York needs seven points to match their best season since their last playoff team. At best it will be statistical progression. The club has not had a five hundred season since 2006-07.

The win in Pittsburgh matches last seasons point total. 

Our thoughts have been you miss the playoffs x years in a row, your franchise should not be awarded a lottery pick at all.

However this blog does not make the rules.

The NHL lottery is April 10th.

Charles Wang Cannot Move His 90m Dollar Hotel From Nassau Coliseum Site/New York Notables

Perhaps if it's in the title more folks will understand?

I'm not a big fan of these kinds or repetitive entries however someone has to reiterate, Charles Wang is the last person who wants to move business away from a hotel he spent ninety million dollars for in 2005 (with Scott Rechler) then bought out Mr Rechler's share of it which was reported July 29th 2010.

The same day, 7/29/2010 Islanders website released images of the renovations done to the Marriott Hotel which means more resources were put in by Wang/Rechler.

I do not believe our fans, or a lot of lazy professional media, who don't do their homework in reporting much beyond gossip understand Charles Wang even owns the hotel (and connecting abatement) to the Coliseum.

A closed Nassau Coliseum is the worst possible scenario for Charles Wang because he cannot move his hotel whether he owns the team or not.

There is no also expiring lease for that hotel in 2015.

Folks speculating asbestos concerns are Charles Wang's chance to get out of his Islander lease fail to understand if Nassau Coliseum is closed, he losses huge event money at his hotel.
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To the best of our knowledge nothing has been reported that the Nassau Coliseum must be closed immediately/near future because of asbestos issues.

Aerosmith announced Monday it will perform at the Coliseum on it's tour.

The Cablevision owned Garden did have to close for a few days because of falling debris/asbestos concerns in 2010.

The circus did take place last weekend at the Coliseum, if there were any safety doubts, the inspecting federal/state authorities would have informed Nassau the facility must be closed immediately.
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Anyone who believes NIFA, which held only their second meeting of the calendar year on Thursday 3/22 (at Charles Wang's Marriott Hotel) approved over 2.4m in emergency capital repairs to the Coliseum (among a huge list of expenses) because of asbestos concerns do not understand how slowly Nassau/NIFA work.

Coliseum emergency repairs page 21.

I read this last week and did not even feel necessary to write about it, but put in this entry for those who did not know.
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Ed Mangano had his state of the county address on 3/14 here.

His Hub/Coliseum/Islander related comments are on page 18/19 of 22.

That is exactly why I launched “Accelerate Nassau Now” – a plan that seeks to partner with Governor Cuomo’s Economic Development Council to launch new development
opportunities at the Hub……along with development at Belmont Park on the western
end of Nassau and the former Navy property to the eastern end of the County.

Nassau’s Hub, home to Long Island’s only major professional sports team and its 200
million dollars of local economic activity, has L-O-N-G been the victim of Long Island’s most notable export, the word “NO”.

To solve that problem, I challenged developers with privately-financed plans to come
forward; and I challenge critics today, to become supporters of redeveloping the Hub.

I am confident that if we come together, we will find a path forward that leads not to empty parking lots, but RATHER to a vibrant center of economic activity with Islanders banners hanging from every post and the Stanley Cup on display at its heart.

NYIFC Comments:
For those who recall a year ago Mangano's referendum was plan three of his three part plan, which he arrived at by May 2011.

Mr Mangano is very good at not responding when NYIFC asks him why Nassau was the only local municipality in New York/New Jersey not to give taxpayer bonds/exceptions or outright investment for their local teams, but a referendum?

In 1998, Queens City Council member, Peter Valone, called for a referendum on a new taxpayer funded ballpark for the Yankees here despite supporting a new Mets stadium in an article that screams what politicians are fans of what teams.

Plus what referendum's on sports teams really meant to the Yankees.

Mr Mangano's been great at being a NJ Giants fan, supporting county events for both local baseball teams, while being completely invisible in his hockey support for Nassau County's only professional sports team with a championship tradition like no other NHL franchise in the US, and arguably in the history of professional sports.

New York 3, Florida 2 Shootout

The game New York played their best hockey was the one where they got no points.

Win or lose Sunday, I was very satisfied with the second half of this game by the Islanders.

New York played two poor games in Canada, four points.

New York played two better (not great games in Florida) one win, which should have been two, despite Montoya falling/Martin St Louis missing an open net. Roloson played well, the Isles were in control Saturday with momentum, but the game got away from them.

Our comments on the Tampa game are on twitter.

Florida for it's make-shift roster has size, speed the Isles lack and some more hitting, that's par for most teams the Isles play. The Panthers have earned their standing as a first place team.

After the opening night disaster the Isles played in Florida, Jacob Markstrom stole that game in relief for the Panthers in the third period for those who recall.

On this day, Andrew MacDonald (especially Parenteau like in Tampa) did not have his man on the opening goal, the Isles were scrambling a bit early in the game, but did also get some early pressure, they did not have the extra step.

Florida was hardly good themselves on this day.

Then a funny thing happened with less than eight minutes left in the second, the Isles had a shift where they dominated play, kept the puck in for longer than it seemed they had any team pinned in all season. That concluded with an outside Okposo shot that Theodore saw with no screen (a common theme in this game for the Isles) but the game did change from that point.

From there, the Isles dominated. Moulson converted on a pp, it seemed a matter of when before the Isles got the lead.

Then the common third period theme of a break/breakdown and it's 2-1 Florida, Nabokov's reaction said it all, he had to stop it regardless of the board bounce.

On this day the breaks evened out as Okposo's pass to Sreit, found Dmitry Kulikov's stick, who deflected it past Theodore 2-2.

Isles closed third/overtime out skating very well, obviously Theodore's sweep/check with the stick look like it was thrown.

From there New York won the skills competition.

What stood out in this game for me was the Isles had the five on three pp, Jucina took a bomb from the outside, no one screening (or near) Theodore, which happened a few times.

Ullstrom was very good and kept driving the net, Martin did that once, this team needs a lot more of that. Okposo again had a little more jump. Jurcina looked motivated to stay in the lineup.

Tavares looked tired with no extra step in this game, he still had his chances.

Niederreiter should never sit for Pandolfo/Reasoner. Enough's been written on it.

What was disappointing is it took half a game to really start challenging Florida's defense or pushing the play at them.

In the end folks only remember the final season standings, the Isles have six of eight points on a five game trip that concludes in Pittsburgh.

The best game they played they got no points.
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What's Ahead:
New York heads to Pittsburgh for a home & home. The numbers are what they are, but if history has taught us anything when teams peak too early, it balances out.

Ottawa broke their streak with eight goals, Sunday they came home and defeated New Jersey.

First time in Pittsburgh the Isles lost in a shootout, where DiPietro replaced Nabokov for the skills contest. Unlike recent years this one has been a problem vs Pittsburgh at home.
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Bridgeport:
Broke their long regulation/overtime/shootout losing streak Sunday with Matt Donovan's pp goal in overtime in a game for a shot at first place. Kevin Poulin needed to make over forty saves, in a game the Sound Tigers were short-handed a lot.

Their playoff hold is a mix of Ottawa/Florida.