NYI Fan Central Comments:
Sorry folks, forgive me if I miss some things in this recap, our friends at Time Warner whenever a game goes on Msg+2 more often than not has pregame, picture or sound problems.
Tonight the entire game was shown without sound, too bad we did have a picture.
*********************************************************
That was an absolute joke watching this team play tonight and I have seen a lot of terrible Islander clubs.
I think it's time for the system to change, the players to change or this coach was not the right hire for them.
It's not working, I do not think it will work.
No one is learning anything or improving, not the veterans or the prospects and this is not a system helping them play to their collective strength whatever that is.
I have no doubt Scott Gordon and the players are doing all they can but it's a bad mix that is only getting worse. There is no one player I can point to for such a poor collective effort here.
This is not growing pains, this team has enough bodies where they should be far more competitive. A pickup team could have showed better team chemistry than what I saw tonight.
Without MacDonald standing on his head the Minnesota Wild, a club struggling to score that came in with a big losing streak easily could have had nine or ten goals.
That was sure inspiring watching Bailey and Okposo get beaten for goals as players skated around them.
The Islanders were outclassed from beginning to end, they were outskated, outworked and the Wild threw some huge hits without response unless you want to call the penalties a response.
How many quality chances did the Islanders generate? Two or three early and one in the third? How many did they give up? About fifteen or more.
The Wild record does not like, they are not a good offensive club and they dominated in every area and they did not even have to be very good.
Alarming stuff.
Why is Blake Comeau out of the lineup so Mitch Fritz can get a nice seat on the bench or sit for Tim Jackman? Comeau comes up on the left side, looks excellent for a few games then is moved to right wing for someone placed on waivers (who is on the powerplay again) the coach talks about his backchecking after the Jacket game while he plays the wrong position and now he finds himself out of the lineup?
That makes no sense to me, Comeau has good skills and can help but we see Fritz in the lineup and Jackman getting a shift and far too much pk time. Anyone else want to see Comeau with Bailey centering & Okposo all in their natural positions?
This was after Gordon moved Okposo to the left side and admitted it was a mistake.
At even strength Guerin, Weight, Bergenheim were eaten alive. Witt was taking hits from everywhere and will get hurt with that kind of pounding. The Richard Park show seems to be all this club has with Doug Weight getting the powerplay assist, he got his open net goal and little else. I think Andy Hilbert was the latest to move from left to right.
Folks want to say they hung in, without MacDonald making two breakaway saves on Gaborik in the first the game was over right there, they did not hang in at all.
MacDonald was outstanding.
Now Hunter has a groin problem and Sutton gets his latest injury.
I do not care that they lost but how they played is just alarming on every possible level and demands action from the general manager.
It's clear they are doing their absolute best and only getting worse.
This is not taking pains to improve or going with prospects, it's just losing with no one getting anything out of it in the long run.
I do not think there is anything that can be done with this system to give them a better chance in games without changes.
I'm not sure Scott Gordon knows any other way so it's the players or the coach.
All I do know is this is not building toward any kind of improvement given what I am watching and a lot of these players are doing their best.
