No doubt the list of soon to be former Islanders will be increasing.
Day two will also be in twitter format here, which began with Nate Lawson resigning a one-year, two-way contract with the Islanders.
Vanouver Province: Has Jeff Tambellini's comments, who received the league minimum, on a two-way contract to return to Vancouver, who made a very fair point about New York media hockey coverage.
Vancouver Province: Dan Hamhuis direct comments on negotiations with other teams.
"Philly and Pittsburgh were quite a bit lower on our radar," said Hamhuis. "A few last-minute calls came in that raised our eyebrows, but by that time we were pretty secure."
Newark Star Ledger: Had Paul Martin's comments on offers he received, and his apparent problems with the Devils.
NYIFC Comments:
If Garth Snow was targeting defense, as he reportedly said, he failed in day one to address those needs. Only he knows what his specific offers were or how contract offers he made were structured in terms of value.
Snow at least of this writing has not gone to the media, and made public what the Islanders offered, but some professional media took the usual lazy way out.
Katie Strang failed to report what specific offers the Islanders made vs other teams, she just went with stock answers (off unnamed sources) that the Isles offered more, and quickly turned speculation to the Coliseum discussion which is always the easy way out for a writer with no connections, who to date has not gotten one word of comment (or a no comment) from the general manager about a player who had been here since 2002, not being qualified.
Obviously her NHL connections are weak, either she is not allowed to discuss the Islanders on other media outlets by her employer or not invited/interested in doing so.
That's not good for business folks, at least the New York Islanders business.
This was not a great class of UFA defenders, Dan Hamhuis would not sign with Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, Paul Martin left the Devils, and Sergei Gonchar wanted his extra year at five million more than he wanted to stay in Pittsburgh. Anton Volchenko is a nice defender, but six years with some of the wear on him is no bargain.
Phoenix lost a solid defender to Pittsburgh, they also overpaid big for Derek Morris, who's NHL stops other than Phoenix were a disaster.
Did I want Jordan Leopold, to sign here as his fifth team since 2007-08? No.
Having written this all those teams were able to import some replacements in lateral moves, or add more than one defender as the Flyers and Pens did.
Garth Snow has not to this point, he said he wanted to.
From here the risk factor only increases with more suspect players left in UFA on the backline or he enters the trade market to get what he is looking for in this department.
We're already close to Andy Sutton territory vs many of the remaining UFA, or just giving deHaan-Harmonic or someone else a spot, if they show they can handle it.
So Darryl Sutter really said all those things about Jokinen last year, played him knowing he was going to be traded, put the player he got back on waivers after taking his contract, then brought back Jokinen, and gave Alex Tanguay even more money then he received a year ago before he had a terrible season in Tampa Bay?
Must be nice to have fans in the Calgary media as beat writers, who will eventually wrap themselves up in the teams logo, and sell the product to the public because the newspaper needs the advertising.
Tampa did a first class job on Martin St Louis's extension, and getting a fairly solid goaltender, plus unloading an underachiever in Andrej Meszaros for a second.
Cue Andrej Meszaros coming here as the Flyers start unloading.
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