Islander News Articles 3/4

Newsday: Mark Herrmann covered practice Monday had Ted Nolan, Freddy Meyer, Mike Comrie's comments about how the club must pull together here and his own speculation about how important the upcoming games are.

NYI Fan Central Commments:
Islanders may as well be playing Florida again tonight for all the indifference the local and city media have for hockey in the New York market today. Just no time or room in the baseball dominated media any longer for a niche sport.

Big business baseball in the newspapers now with the competition between writers and papers for advertising dollars critial.

A lot more critical than the games themselves.

Philadelphia Daily News: Ed Moran reports Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher could play Saturday against the Islanders.

Edmonton Journal: Joanne Ireland has an updated on how well Robert Nilsson is doing recently.

Star.com: Damien Cox reports former Islander Chris Simon has started a blog to reach out to the Minnesota Wild fans at the Wild gm's request because of the strong negative response the trade has received.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
You think Mr Cox would at least provide a link after going to all this trouble to write an article he is blogging?

Here is the link to Chris Simon's interview with Chris Snow here. Tough to tell if this is in fact a blog or a one time article.

Edmonton 4, New York 0

Islanders website: Has the recap of Monday's 4-0 loss against the Edmonton Oilers.

"This is the second game in a row we didn't skate," said head coach Ted Nolan. "We showed spurts but we need a consistent effort from everyone all game. We can't have 50% or 75% of our guys working. We have to play as a team. Our whole game has been in a funk the last two games. If you don't work you won't get any chances. We have to get back to grinding out games. In the second period there was a lapse and we didn't skate. It gets frustrating when we do this. We had everything prepared, everything seemed right before the game and then we just laid a big egg."

"Edmonton feeds off transition," said DiPietro. "They did that in the second period, creating those two-on-one chances. On those odd-man rushes they found a way to put the puck in the net."

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Shutout by a team that has not won a game in regulation since early December. Two games against two weak teams and one goal by Tim Jackman. Islanders cannot afford another stretch with no scoring.

Islanders are not giving DiPietro much help either, nor did he bail them out of a few goals but you don't score and you likely will not get any points. If this is the game the Islanders wanted to prove something I hate to see one they could care less about.

Robert Luongo, Calgary and Ottawa up next. Those last two games were the easiest games on the schedule.

Newsday: Greg Logan had two of his longer blogs of the season. One with in depth comments on the paths of Robert Nilsson and Marc-Andre Bergeron. The other his second most passionate blog ever which was about an eighteen hour trip from Denver to Edmonton.

“I don’t really care. I’m not an Oiler anymore. I still have some good memories from here. It’s an old saying: ‘Talk good or bad, but just talk about me.’”

NYI Fan Central Comments:
If Cablevision is allowed to fly Billy Jaffe, Deb Kaufman, Howie Rose, Chris King and Steve Mears on the Islander team plane why not just give Mr Logan or the local print media a seat unless it's against league rules?

As for Mr Logan see how easy it is for him to write when he's passionate about something? This is what the Islanders need (positive or negative) from their hockey writers.

Islander News Articles 1/7

Newsday: Greg Logan writes about former Islander Robert Nilsson among several former Islanders and Oilers who have been traded that will meet up tomorrow with something to prove. An update on Radek Martinek was also given.

"He's highly skilled, but there's a difference between having skill and having the competitiveness to play at this level," Nolan said. "He didn't show too much at training camp. Robert has the skill to play a long time, but with myself, the No. 1 thing is that people have to earn their jobs and not have it handed to them. We had to give up something to get Ryan Smyth."

NYI Fan Central Comments:
I suppose going to Edmonton the story line has to be all the players who used to play in New York and Edmonton, but why not more hype for DiPietro who stole a point for his club and less retrospectives on old trades?

Aren't there better things to use Islanders limited newspaper space for than how the Oiler fans react to Mike Comrie or Marc-Andre Bergeron?

Edmonton Sun: Robert Tychkowski has a full feature on the ups and downs of Marc-Andre Bergeron as well as some comments from Ted Nolan on Robert Nilsson, who was a healthy scratch his last game.

"It's a roller-coaster ride," admitted the 27-year-old. "It's been a tough year. I'm playing good, I'm playing bad, I'm playing good ... lately it's been better."

"I need to be more consistent," he said. "I've played some great games and I've played some games where 'I'm holy cow, why did this happen?' I talked with Teddy a few times and he's 'How can you play so good one game and so bad in another?'

"And it's true. I think I'm at an age where I need to realize that when I don't feel as good, simplify my game and be reliable."

Edmonton Sun:Robert Tychkowski's other article is on former Oiler Mike Comrie who also talks about his time in New York so far.

"I'm having fun (on Long Island). It's a great group of guys who want to compete every night. A great goaltender who gives us a chance to win, a coaching staff that makes it fun to be around the rink. It's been great living in New York - staying out of the spotlight."

Edmonton Journal: Also covers the Oilers.

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio's game coverage was on the four powerplay goals Bridgeport allowed the Phanton's in Sunday's 6-2 loss and the fantastic scoring run Jeff Tambellini is on while the rest of the club is not producing.

Mr Fornabaio also repeated the Islanders website statement on Kyle Okposo with Jack Capuano's comments he has heard nothing official from the Islanders on Okposo yet.

"I can't even describe the game," Capuano said. "We were ready to play, they came out and got a couple of power-play goals right away."

Philly.com: Combines Phantoms coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.