Scott Gordon can say whatever he wants and if he felt Joey MacDonald should not have been pulled for his club's struggles yesterday I have no problem with that, after the second goal the team did hang MacDonald out to dry.
Having written that when he says he believes in the goaltenders finishing what they start all anyone has to go is trace back his actions last season to how he handled Tuukka Rask on the Providence Bruins here on a winning club that reflects he does not play his goaltenders as he claimed yesterday.
I cannot tell much regarding an injury (Rask had a groin injury for a short time in April) in a particular contest or if the 4/13 game was somewhat of a post-season tuneup in a league where roster turnover is very high.
What I can tell you is Scott Gordon on some occasions (including his final AHL game) did not let his number one goaltender finish what he started on a club with seemingly very little adversity which will not be the case on the 2008-09 New York Islanders, I cannot speculate whether it was about momentum or not.
These were the games Scott Gordon pulled Tukka Rask in:
Worcester-Providence January 11th 2008 here.
Hartford-Providence February 8th 2008 here.
Springfield-Providence January 25th 2008 here.
Portland-Providence March 29th 2008 here.
Final game regular season:
Lowell-Providence April 13th 2008 here.
Playoffs down 3-0 in series:
Portland-Providence May 9th 2008 here.
All this says to me is how much management does not trust the club's media covering them which I understand completely but now the media has a fair reason not to trust Scott Gordon.
Welcome to the NHL, Scott Gordon.
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On the other side of the media coin Mr Botta can write what he wants and call out the club for refusing to name a starting goalie right before the game to it's broadcast rightsholder.
Having written that he was the first to point out that same rightsholder is not electing to provide our team with a pregame show. All three local clubs had a telecast on Monday, only the Islanders did not have a pregame show that was a home game in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
Our fans watching the telecast did not know the lineup until after the game started.
On Saturday the club had to put up a link to ITV for live postgame coverage because that same rightsholder wanted to show their Msg-centric program that did not include live Islander postgame.
Mr Botta will also be one of the first to point out that same rightsholder did not provide our fans a single preseason game on televison or even allow a live webcast.
To date we do not even know if the rightsholder replaed Mike Santini who was supposed to be the club's new produer but left the rightsholder for another job with baseball.