For New York A Time Of Mostly Meaningless Words/Notables

New York Islander Fan Central | 7/09/2014 09:48:00 AM |
Prospect camp is a positive thing, and a lot of fair reason to feel that way about the players given their upside/potential.

Beyond that Capuano saying jobs will be won based on how players work in camp mostly covers it.

As for the 2014-15/ prior entries back to last year say it all.

We'll know if the club is good enough when the puck drops, and we see if they are improved.

In July, it's just a lot of words with no value.........




Last season it was clear there were fatal flaws on day one at five on five.

In 2014-15 we'll find out soon enough, hopefully they get out of preseason healthy, then if there are no standout weaknesses, break it into ten game segments,  finally if team still in contention after fifty games, go to five game segments.

Kind of what coaches used to say.

A lot of different names added, many with middling or poor production that could flat out struggle.

Injuries/lot's of them the one given trend here.

From Sim, Okposo, Streit, Martinek, Hunter, Witt, Weight, Bailey, Niederreiter, Reasoner, Clutterbuck Strait, deHaan, and of course DiPietro no matter where players come from or are in their NHL careers they seem to get hurt that final week in camp or the opening games.

By the time they recover to where they are back at a hundred percent realistic playoff contention is over.

And there is Tavares knee. 

Clutterbuck started skating better by January, before that he seemed to eat minutes struggling below par or to adjust to his new team. 

Can a player be one concussion away from retirement more than Visnovsky? Hamonic has had far too many concussions also.  Back to back for Grabner that quickly is something to be watched closely. 

We're going to discover why Blues management took a first place team, and decided to upgrade it's goaltending, and why Halak is always the odd-man out everywhere? 

For now a lot of names that could have good years or completely bust. Grabovski was bought out for a reason, Kulemin has struggled for years.

It's not 2010-11 anymore.

Both players signed back-loaded contracts for massive dollars. Pierre Marc-Bouchard just signed in Switzerland. 

Josh Bailey traded before 25 so players with less production could take his spot? Not unless the return is for equal potential/term/age/talent unless you like Niederreiter gone with a number one draft pick in 2015 for more Clutterbuck trades?  

What I saw last season was too many blamed the goaltenders while Hamonic was getting beat one on one far too often by star players (Kopitar, Ovechkin, Crosby) looking back, is he really improved with only Calvin deHaan entering his first season as a top pairing defender, and Andrew MacDonald gone?

That's scary, and no one is trading this organization a top pairing defender because no one with years on their contracts are available who have that ability.

You don't trade top players/prospects/picks for a two year Keith Yandle rental. 

One thing for sure, the idea there are too many players in the organization is comical, this is the one trend that's a given because usually thirty-fifty players are needed here to survive 82 games.

Ok, let's see if the prospects can escape mini-camp without injury. 

Enough words, actions will tell the story, which is not for July-August.

I believe Kevin Poulin can win in the NHL, he sure did win those six straight road games last year, and looked very good doing it. What will the Islanders do if he beats them in arbitration, because they can walk away from the award, and let hm test the market?

Bottom line he was qualified, so they do want him in the organization. 

With Smg lease ending 7/31/14 it may not be the final prospect camp at Coliseum but at some point things have to happen at Barclay's Center unless they want to play in front of 2,000 people?
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Prospect website updated.

The Ct Post letting Mr Fornabaio travel to prospect camp for an excellent article may be a  bigger story than camp?

I'm not attempting to keep up with Josh Ho-Sang's quotes, let his play do all talking.

Stockton Thunder beatwriter does a very good job, and let me know a day before about affiliation negotiations on twitter unlike MSG+2 Newsday beatwriter, who does more interviews with bloggers than actually write in his +2newspaper space.

Bloggers, they in turn do a nice job praising Mr Staple for doing less far than his Newsday counterpart so they get future interviews/page views above what our fans deserve which is more print coverage in the paper like 29 other teams receive.

Kind of like Mr Rose, who's on Msg/SNY talking everything but the New York Islanders, the less he does the more many of our fans seem to like him for that reason?
 
I have no interest in any interview with Arthur Staple or any professional NHL writer, he's paid to hide the team in Msg+2 Newsday like they are hidden on +2 television with the glass half empty win or lose, our fans deserve the passion, depth of other writers covering teams, that's not former Ranger beat-writer Staple.

Please don't write, and tell me it's this way in other places, Columbus, Florida, Carolina, Arizona have far more passionate writers, who never stop writing as we see in Newsday+2 with their own team & beatwriter.

Worst media coverage for any North American sports franchise, its not even close, we have more written about our team everywhere but here.

And it does help keep attendance down or draw more/new fans to games. 

Winning does not change things when a team has no coverage.