Islander News Articles 4/6:

Newsday: Greg Logan's interview with Charles Wang had the owners praise of the teams prospects with his comments that the last few months have proven Ted Nolan wrong and pointed out how many times the coach has been impressed with the prospects recently.

Mr Wang also said philosophically the team will be build through the draft, but he has never said no if they feel there's some unrestricted free agent who could make the big difference. In addition Mr Wang said there is no rift between the gm and coach over how to build the team and that there is not one player here both agreed should be on the team and that the gm and coach are in sync. He also added they certainly weren't always in agreement but their differences make for healthy debate.

As to a contract extension now for Ted Nolan the owner said there's always the last year of any contract otherwise why have a contract? That we will deal with it at the end of the contract like anything else we deal with and spoke as if he expects Snow and Nolan to continue in their roles under contract and did not seem to indicate anyone would be fired.

Mr Wang also talked of the Ryan Smyth trade and said we took a chance, he didn't want to stay, we tried everything we could. We didn't have the right environment or surroundings or whatever it is to keep him and had a few words on the Light House.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
First off Mr Logan did a good job here but of course part of this is to stir things up a little bit too. When you read this you have to separate the beat writer's speculation/opinion from the actual quotes.

Not to read too much into it but maybe the coach is not/was not impressed with too many of these prospects. Last season he felt Comeau was the club's best prospect with the most complete game and so far that judgement seems correct. We all know he's been impressed with Sean Bergenheim.

Jeff Tambellini at this level has not given anyone a reason to be impressed and it is a fair debate at this point how come he has not had more of an impact.

Ted Nolan did not have an agent when approached about his contract, there is nothing from him demanding a contract extension. He has a year left on his term, were not sure how long the gm has, again you cannot give the coach more tenure than the gm.

Of course the gm and coach are not going to agree on everyone but there has to be some trust on the coach to who the gm feels will help and the coach at what NHL players who he feels can help. Ted Nolan is not scouting college players or prospects, that's the gm and the hockey staff while the coach can barely get away from the club for a day and has gone to Bridgeport several times the last two years.

Mostly stock answers on going with prospects and adding a UFA if he will help, most clubs say that for the most part. He gave his honest opinion on the Smyth trade.

Hopefully Islander fans can separate the quotes from the speculation. I think if Ted Nolan or Garth Snow were about to be fired the owner would not give an interview and say these things.

Of course how do both Snow and Nolan feel about not having contract extensions? For
those who recall Mr Wang's history he gave Peter Laviolette a contract extension and it did not matter because he was fired anyway by the general manager.

The silence from the owner about the veterans overall performance spoke volumes.

Peterborough Examiner: Don Barrie profiles local product Zach Bogosian who is eligible for the NHL draft and has a very interesting story on former Islander draft pick Zdeno Chara and what happened to him during the the draft process.

For those curious Peter Laviolette's Carolina Hurricanes were eliminated from playoff contention Saturday with Washington's win. Boston also qualified for the NHL playoffs with the eight seeds set.

The Montreal Gazette feature on Bill Smith Sunday is a reprint from a feature over a month ago here.

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio recaps Bridgeport's huge loss with Jack Capuano and Joey MacDonald's
comments.

Lebanon Daily News: Dan Sernoffsky recaps Hershey's big win against the Sound Tigers Saturday.

Daily Gazette: Phil Janack has a full interview with Bridgeport winger Peter MacArthur, how he was scouted by the Islanders and other clubs, his experience in college and Bridgeport so far with Jack Capuano's comments.

Ken McKenna's sloppy reporting for HF

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio reported forward Peter MacArthur recently signed a straight ATO contract with Bridgeport, that is the only media source that has issued any release as to his contract status.

Updated:
As of Tuesday afternoon Mr Fornabaio responded in his blog he confirmed this morning from MacArthur he does not have a deal beyond the ATO. No inside info on my part, I asked in his blog, he responded and said he spoke to the player today.

Managing Editor Ken McKenna of Hockey's Future as usual jumped the gun and make an incorrect claim in the sporting news a few days ago that the Boston University product was in fact signed by the Isles, despite no other professional media outlet in North America confirming this here much less the Islanders themselves the last few days.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Seems little has changed in two years at HF in terms of poor coverage and why it's prospect information is something our fans should take with little more than a grain of salt if not outright avoid. I stumbled upon the article a few days ago in the Sporting News and suspected Ken McKenna got it wrong so I did not post it here without confirmation from a credible media source.

Sad that the sporting news provides Mr McKenna with any access but we all know the sporting news stopped covering hockey with professional writers long ago outside of rare Kara Yorio updates.

Alan Hahn used to have a weekly report for the Isles at the site.

This is not about the HF volunteers writers who when I was there always worked hard for the fans but the decisions at the top that only hurt the writers efforts during my time. When Holly Gunning was made staff editor things fell completely apart and our prospect page on the Isles site paid a heavy price.

Most of the quality writers stopped writing when she was named staff editor or she removed them for asking what he credentials were to be an editor? I just wanted no part of writing for her almost immediately and stopped writing.

When I started we had folks like Mark Fishel and the people running the site did a fantastic job. I had a great time and our page was updated the day someone was signed with full backgrounds. The folks at other sites like Russianprospects.com with
Eugene Belashchenko were great and provided updates as did most of the college teams who would always respond with e-mails from the AD office or the hockey staff.

The damage done between Mr McKenna with Holly Gunning as staff editor really hurt that site the final years I was there for prospect information with sporadic updates and rankings that were thrown together along with a prospect rating system that read like playing a game of battleship B4, C6 that made no sense. Who was I to tell people what Per Braxenholm's NHL potential was based on reading an article or looking at a stat line and maybe two quotes a year from the Isles?

Ken McKenna never figured out this is very real to some people. Frans Nielsen's relatives used to send me updates and were very nice about it.

This is why you have to get it right and do more than throw something together.

After I stopped writing the person who took my spot could not get a password to update the page for a full year.

Having written all that it could turn out that way in the end with MacArthur signing with New York after the season but to report someone is signed in the sporting news when clearly it is not correct is just poor research/journalism but the usual sloppy standard by Ken McKenna.