Islander News Articles 6/20:

Newsday: Greg Logan's article has Nikita Filatov's comments he likes the Islanders a lot and refused a new contract in Russia. Colin Wilson said New York is definitely a place he would like to go as he talked about being a teammate with former BU player Rick DiPietro and that Kyle Okposo his teammate from the World Juniors has told him nothing but good things.

Luke Schenn talked about his interview process with the Islanders as Alex Pietrangelo said the group got a tour of New York City and was pretty happy with how the meetings went and would like to be part of the Islanders rebuild. Zach Bogosian visited separately and had dinner with former Isles defenseman Eric Cairns and Ryan Jankowski and said he would try to do everything in his power to help the organization and that team win.

At the end Mr Logan had to throw in a quick dig that it looks like the Islanders cannot go wrong but we know better.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Why ruin a great update with that at the end? If Snow screws up knock yourself out but for now spare us please.

Newsday: Katie Strang has an update on potential draft pick Jordan Nolan with his commets along with Islander coach Ted Nolan.

Los Angeles Times : Lisa Dillman reports the Los Angeles King intend to keep their second overall pick with Dean Lombardi's confirmation Thursday night that he has had offers from three teams in the last two weeks for the No. 2 pick (widely expected to be Doughty, a defenseman with the Guelph Storm). The most recent proposal came Tuesday, essentially a three-for-one deal -- a current player, a prospect and a draft choice for the pick but went to Kings ownership as he had with the other two, recommended they reject the offer and that everyone wanted to keep the selection.

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Mike Knobler has Thrasher's gm Don Waddell comments that he thinks we're going to get a defenseman we could have for years to come who's a special player with the writer speculating between
Zach Bogosian or Drew Doughty.

St Louis Post-Dispatch: All of Blues writer Jeremy Rutherford's Thursday articles were about defense including his speculation in a q & a with fans that he got the impression that the Blues don't think Filatov is ready.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Nothing directly quoted from Blues management on this.

Globe & Mail: Tim Wharnsby speculates in an article about Steven Stamkos that the Kings are expected to select Guelph Storm defenceman Drew Doughty and the Atlanta Thrashers would settle for Peterborough Petes blueliner Zach Bogosian. The St. Louis Blues are believed to have their eye on Kelowna Rockets defenceman Luke Schenn, leaving Russian forward Nikita Filatov for New York in the fifth slot.

In the I'm too lazy to give a link department but check feeders:

Tsn.ca reported Toronto traded a third rounder to St Louis for Jamal Mayers.

Sportsnet claims but not confirmed Flyers could resign Jeff Carter for theee year at fifteen million.

Tsn confirms Atlanta has hired John Anderson from the Chicago Wolves as it's new head coach.

Updated Friday 10:00am
Thrasher's gm Don Waddell has denied Anderson has been hired yet as of late Thursday night in the AJC.

Michael Fornabaio reported in his Ct Post blog Steve Stirling will be coaching the
Iserlohn Roosters, a European club among several items.

The Predators reached an agreement in principle with Dan Ellis on a multi-year deal and then traded goaltender Chris Mason to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for a fourth round pick in this year’s draft.

Updated 10:00 am
Eric Times: Victor Fernandez has a few words from draft eligible prospect Cullen Eddy from Mercyhurst College about the Isles who last year contacted his coach and told was told by club officials that Eddy would be chosen after they conducted a psychological test during the season and an interview a week before the draft but was not selected.

Greenwich Time: David Fierro reports Cam Atkinson of Boston College is projected to be a middle-to-late-round pick in the 2008 National Hockey League Entry Draft tomorrow after not being selected a year ago, the Islanders are one of several teams that have expressed interest but Washington has been the most aggressive.

Montreal Gazette: Pat Hickey has an interview with Nikita Filatov where writer speculation is he will be available to the Islanders or Columbus.

Islander-Sound Tiger Notables/Quick Hits

St Catherine's Standard: Jim Wallace has a full interview with prospect Alex Pietrangelo who comments he visited Long Island (among several clubs) during the process leading up to the draft.

Columbus Dispatch: Aaron Portzline reports Nikita Fliatov wants to play in North American next season with the young Russians comments while the writer speculates he could be available for the Islanders at number five who pick ahead of Columbus.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Why do I keep thinking of Alexandre Volchkov who Mike Milbury did not take in his first Islander draft and got abuse about who was one of the all-time draft busts for Washington. I will not bring that name up again before the draft.

Islanders website: Profiled the New Islanders Illustrated television show which will debut tonight at 6:30pm with it's host.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
No complaints with the Islanders here, they have to do the production from what I can gather and this can get very expensive/time consuming and they deserve a lot of credit for putting something together for the fans. It's a start but until Cablevision gives our fans the time and space on their networks (along with the classic games/player profiles) they do for the Garden's team on Msg this cannot be considered a fair partnership.

My suggestion is Jiggs McDonald would be perfect at doing half hour programs with supporting highlights and writers comments profiling each player with a few comments from the players themselves. Not only the legendary Islanders but the current ones.

This was done a long time ago with a program for Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin called Crowning Glory which was a one hour special on Sportschannel.

A lot of money to be made, DVD's for each season, the championships years. These highlights sitting somewhere are not helping the Islanders, Msg or the league.

Ottawa Citizen: Don Campbell has a full feature on prospect Zach Bogosian with his comments.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Outstanding article, a lot of information that goes beyond what I have read to this point.


Intelligencer Journal : Greg Caldwell has a full feature on Sound Tigers Pascal Morcency with his comments about being named man of the year for charity work and his recovery from damage behind his patella with two meniscus tears that he is rehabbing from along with expectations that he can make the NHL with the Islanders or another club.

Note-Sound Tigers.com had this before I researched it and posted it on the website.

Sound Tigers website via hockey News: Posted a preview of the 2008 draft.

Miami Herald: George Richard has more from Marc Gandler on Olli Jokinen and that Tampa traded a seventh round pick to regain the rights to winger Vinny Prospal for negotiating purposes until 7/1 when he can become UFA again.

Quick Hits:
Not much to say about former Islander Glenn Healy leaving television to work for the NHLPA beyond what my impression that he seems like another person who would take the league into another lockout if he did not get what he wanted but that impression could be dead wrong. Where I live I do not get to see Healy's shock jock coverage often but it seems to have recieved mixed review.

Glenn Anderson in the Hall of Fame? I guess we can finally stop reading all the criticism Clark Gillies got now from the writers for his induction now that both are in and I can start asking how is Butch Goring not in the Hall of Fame?

Finally congratulations and best of luck to blog boxers Michael Schuerlein Islesblogger.com & Tom Liodice Tiger Tracks who were given credentials from the Islanders to cover the draft in Ottawa and will be in attendance live and will do a great job providing updates.

Islander/Finals notables

Thanks for the e-mails on the outdoor game folks, but please just send your e-mail to Mayor Bloomberg, not to me. I have done what I can with this, it's up to you.

I will leave the link up until a decision is announced on the game. If you want our team involved you have to do your part, I do not know if it will help but it sure cannot hurt. Isles put in two years trying to make this game happen and I feel our team deserve to be in this game or no event like this should ever take place in New York.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Eliteprospects.com
Has three rumor reports Tuesday of Islander prospect Kim Johansson moving to Sundsvall, Nyköping or Nybro with all three linked to a blog here.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Take all this with a very large grain of salt but with Johansson needing to be signed within a week I listed it. I'm leaning toward cutting out eliteprospects.com from our updates because a few of them like this are linking to blogs I'm not sure are legitimate professional media sources and they have not been as reliable as they have been in the past. _______________________________________________________________________________
Finals notables:
My finals predictions of Pittsburgh in six from Hockey Night on LI Saturday with Osgood being exploited because he is not one of the new age goalies wearing all the extra padding is not looking too good right now. Guess that home ice advantage not being a big deal in today's NHL has me 0-3. (Laughing)

Having written that I did also say these clubs have never met and we'll see what will be the over-riding factor and that anything could happen.

It is getting old reading these 83 Oilers comparisons, Pittsburgh did not dominate during the regular season like Edmonton did in their conference that year. Fact is this Pittsburgh team is looking more like the 81-82 Oilers but played two average clubs in Philadelphia-Rangers who struggled to make the playoffs and a Ottawa club in a free fall but their overall talent and long-term potential is excellent.

Now they are meeting a good team playing well that dominated their conference all season, but Pittsburgh is going home and this will tell us whether we have a long series or a short series if their home winning streak is broken.

Gary Roberts looked like he did in the 2002 playoffs going after Jonsson's head last night. Only this time he's too old to charge in from center ice, garbage play.

These Versus ratings are not exactly great, are they double last year because they have more outlets in year three for people to watch? What does 1.8 on Versus translate to on a network with limited affiliates?

I guess we will find out when NBC takes over for game three. Personally I do not think any market makes that big a difference, the fact so many media did not even go to Detroit says all we need to know about what the sports editors think of hockey in general.

The New York media is not even showing the game highlights.

Best articles I have read from the major media on the finals are the ones wondering why Gary Bettman opens his press conferences with softball questions from NHL network to set the tone as David Shoalts in the Globe & Mail pointed out here.

It's about as pre-packaged as those rating reports coming from Versus media people.
__________________________________________________________________
Newsday: Mark Herrmann does a feature with Robert Borzomi from Sunday, who has painted the Nassau Coliseum ice since day one which the Isles website linked to today with comments from Bryan Trottier, John Tonelli and Lorne Henning.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Nice feature and well deserved, but it's long overdue for an update on pending free agents and a state of the Isles. If there is room in the print edition for a two part feature on this there should be room in the budget for information on the team. Kind of sad only Steve Zipay's Ranger blog is going live for the finals but all I can do here is point it out to everyone and ask why the Islander blog is not covering the finals?

The Oklahoman: Bob Hersom does a very good three part interview with former three time cup winner with the Islanders, Mike McEwen who talks about what is was like to play on those championship clubs.

Telegraph-Journal: Scott Briggs has a feature on former cup winning Islander Yvon Vautour who will enter New Brunswick sports shrine Saturday as he talks about being a part of a championship team with the Islanders.

Newsday: Noel Rubinton in the business blog of Newsday has more on Cablevision's purchase of the paper with more criticism for the deal and a link to the LI business news article on 5/23 and a Times article on the history of Newsday.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
I sent Mr Rubinton an e-mail about a week and a half ago asking what this means for the New York Islanders and their hockey coverage, to this point he did not respond.

Point Blank: Mr Botta answered a blog on the Islanders Hall of Fame regarding Bob Bourne and did a second video blog as a new feature (nice work) on John Tonelli.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
A few years earlier a relative of Bob Bourne sent the Sunday Post Soundoff of all places an e-mail about Bourne being under appreciated. As usual Charles Wang stepped up and did something about that to make up for past owners because it was the right thing to do. Hopefully names like Goring, Tonelli, Persson, Westphal and company also are added to that list in the coming years.

In the prospect section Igor Volkov transferred to another Russian club over the weekend.

The Star: Kevin McGran reports the draft prospects combine is underway in Toronto with the Isles (among several clubs) having wined and dined Paul Myers who is the fourth-ranked skater in North America according to the NHL's Central Scouting bureau. Meyer and as Alex Pieterangelo are asked and comment about being drafted by the Leafs.

Feature on Alex Pietrangelo

NHL.com: Adam Kimelman has a full feature on prospect Alex Pietrangelo with comments from Chris Edwards, who scouts the Ontario Hockey League for NHL Central Scouting, E.J. McGuire, the Central Scouting director and Gary Eggleston.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Excellent feature where the young defender talks about his ability with the prospect experts breaking down the upside and downside.

For what this is worth my speculation is this will be the Islanders selection if Filatov is already drafted.

Islander News Articles 3/17:

Newsday: Greg Logan reports on Kyle Okposo's callup with comments from his Bridgeport teammate Ben Walter.

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio has a few words on what Okposo's recall means for Bridgeport in their playoff drive with speculation on who could be returned to the AHL.

Mississauga News: Gary McCarthy reports defense Alex Pietrangelo of the Niagara IceDogs is currently ranked among the top five players in the Ontario Hockey League in an interview.

Edmonton Sun: Cary Castagna has a full interview with Bryan Trottier on how he stays healthy, all the legends games he plays, how he relishes his job with the Islanders and plans that he is not ruling out a return to coaching.

Toronto Sun: Mike Zeisberger reports Mats Sundin and Nik Antropov will not play against the Islanders Tuesday.

Star Tribune: Michael Russo has Chris Simon's comments Sunday that he was treated unfair by Colin Campbell and will be speaking to his agent about this matter with the writer speculating there could be legal action.