Like the proverbial piano waiting to drop on your head, today was the day resident ESPN Islander critic Scott Burnside did his
Islanders season preview.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
I think Burnside's opening sentence says it all about my perspective on his work which is always lazy and sloppy on the Islanders. There's just something about Scott Burnside's Espn perspective that begs you to be dismissive of him.
It's not the worst prewiew I have read from him given his past articles on the club but it does not work hard to tell us information. In the end just the usual throw together preview that anyone writing about thirty teams in thirty days will do because he's too busy doing other features for ESPN.com today than do some actual work on previewing our team.
Goes without writing it Isles are predicted fifth in the Atlantic and near the bottom in the East.
Burnside makes sure the arena is front and center on almost every issue he writes about despite the fact the last two summers the Islanders have never done better in UFA with Guerin, Comrie, Sillinger and Witt and makes it seem like a miracle Garth Snow could get anyone to sign here.
He ignores that DiPietro faced the most shots per game in the league last year when discussing his save percentage and starts off with his contract and that he has to keep proving himself. The teams powerplay to penalty kill disparity is never mentioned.
Like I wrote I have seen far worse from Burnside, who had very selective amnesia in forgetting the club was in sixth place for a good part of last season. The obligatory dig at Yashin had to be thrown in for good measure and for some reason Burnside seems to think Ryan Smyth scored all his goals in an Islander uniform last year.
Just read John McGourty's NHL.com preview that was posted on this blog a few day's ago, put's this to shame in every possible way.