It's that time of year folks where the media takes it's extra little kicks at the Isles and stirs the pot with anything they can dig up which of course becomes the perception for fans because someone/anyone writes or says it somewhere.
Ottawa Sun: Bruce Garroich speculates a feud between Rick DiPietro and Ted Nolan based on leaving him in against Tampa for eight goals in his weekly article with about twenty different subjects.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
Seems Mr Garrioch did not even watch this game because if he did he would know pulling DiPietro in the final minutes when the Isles allowed the final three goals in forty two seconds would have been completely pointless nor were any of those final goals on the goal tending.
Mr Garrioch did not even note Ted Nolan praised DiPietro after the Florida and Montreal games where he played well because this footnote to his article was likely already written during the week.
I wonder if he wrote this when John Paddock was fired with all the feuding in Ottawa this season?
NY Post: Larry Brooks who's paper has not had an Islander centric article since March 2nd takes his shots today at Ted Nolan and suggest he has been pouting since Chris Simon was booed at the Coliseum upon returning from the 30-game suspension and traded to the Wild & the coach suddenly has begun to resemble one of those guys who forever is complaining.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
Yes folks, the same Larry Brooks who on February 24th here wrote there is no team in the NHL or in the New York market that has managed to do more with less than the Islanders and that Ted Nolan should be neck and neck with Wayne Gretzky for coach of the year.
Does Mr Brooks really think people do not see through his act at this point?
No wonder in the struggling NY hockey media market at the height of the hockey season along with this article he is reduced to having to do something on baseball today because hockey does not matter in New York.
A large majority of the fans and media do not agree with the double-standard for Pronger vs Chris Simon including Larry Brooks by this article who does a lot more complaining than the Islanders coach.
Ted Nolan has a right to complain about this even if Larry Brooks does not like it nor should he be thrilled with this many injuries and losing which is new for him.
Also Ted Nolan is asked questions about this so it's not like he's calling hockey writers to make his own headlines given his team has not had three days off since the all-star break and callups barely making games during warmups.
When WFAN visited the Coliseum recently Pierre McGuire in an interview praised Ted Nolan and felt he should be coach of the year if the Isles made the playoffs, today he felt Nolan was doing a poor coaching job covering the Pittsburgh game against Philadelphia for NBC.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
How did he become such a bad coach so quickly Mr McGuire other than the fact the injuries and lack of scoring finally caught up with a roster with eight or nine callups on it?
Folks want to write Ted Nolan was part of building the club so he deserves blame for it's failure that's fair and reasonable, but most of what I'm reading just sounds and reads like media people who like to hear or read themselves rant.
It seems done just to stir the pot, too bad some Islander fans will buy into it.
Today was just about three blind mice making noise to stir up the Islander fans and create opinion.