Islanders website: Has the preview for tonight's opening game of the preseason against the Boston Bruins with comments from Scott Gordon and Doug Weight along with some tentative line combinations.
Joey MacDonald Yann Danis
Brendan Witt – Radek Martinek Chris Campoli – Mark Streit Jack Hillen – Chris Lee
Jon Sim – Doug Weight – Kyle Okposo Andy Hilbert – Richard Park – Sean Bergenheim Kurtis McLean – Trevor Smith – Mike Iggulden Mitchel Fritz – Rob Hennigar – Jesse Joensuu
Sound Tigers website: Has an interview with Blake Comeau and highlights from day four of camp in Moncton.
ITV has highlights from today's skate with Steve Mears and Billy Jaffe.
NYI Fan Central Comments: Not sure why the Islanders website at this time has conflicting start times, the Bruins site has it at 6:30pm.
Not sure what to tell anyone about live coverage (even live Internet) but Billy Jaffe and Steve Mears said they will be calling the game at the end of practice so check back here or at the Islanders website.
Last year the Islanders had Msg employees in place to do live Internet telecasts and have Billy Jaffe in Moncton. Last night the ITV folks did have highlights of the scrimmage for everyone.
I put up a new scoreboard that should have the preseason scores from games.
Mr Logan via Newsday is hosting a live blog around 1:30pm for more information from camp.
It appears the television schedule has been release for the season which includes some possible NBC games but no preseason telecasts.
For this blogger pre-season means virtually nothing in terms of the win-loss record as long as they show some semblance of being competitive in the games.
Just show me the club does not have an obvious weakness or flaw that goes beyond the roster or lineup, hope no one gets injured and that the club knows the systems with the players in top shape with everyone on the same page.
I have seen one or two preseasons like that from this team long ago where they would score one or two goals over six games and it was apparent this was going to linger, one of those years I believe was Butch Goring's final year where he wanted some left handed centers to set up his right wingers.
Last time I saw a rookie coach from the AHL come here he started 7-0 in preseason as they blew out the Devils in the final game at the Coliseum with the crowd going wild.
First regular season game the Isles were bombed off the ice and struggled badly early.
Ted Nolan's first games on the West Coast this team clearly was not on the same page in many departments with DiPietro and Mike Dunham under constant pressure as the club could not get out of it's own way.
Just a little advice not to put too much stock in these games and results. Jon Sim used to be famous for big games in preseason and had one early game (I think with Dallas) where he had four goals.
Finally: Best of luck and thanks to Jim McGlynn from the Islanders blog box who will not be part of the program this season. He did an excellent job with his updates at Greetings from Islander Country here and his contribution will be missed but as long as he blogs at his current site his updates will be part of the blog box feeder here for everyone.
Newsday: Greg Logan has an article on Doug Weight on what went wrong last season, how he feels he can contribute to this team, the young players on it and why he decided to sign here.
NYI Fan Central Comments: All I know is a year ago Doug Weight reported to the St Louis Blues a fifty point player. If he had a poor season because of the circumstances around him or how he was used by the coaches in St Louis and Anaheim that's fair enough but on this team he has to contribute on the score sheet and make plays to score or setup goals that the departing players did not provide or his acquisition will not work out.
CBC.com: Marc Crawford had some comments about the new crop of NHL coaches hired over the summer and felt Scott Gordon's Islanders could surprise.
Montreal Gazette: Dave Stubbs reports Boston in it's first preseason game Monday won 8-3 against the Montreal Canadians in a physical game keyed by a huge return by Patrice Bergeron and Manny Fernandez.
NYI Fan Central Comments: These teams played a seven game playoff last spring with first seed Montreal beating eighth seeded Boston.
Islanders website: Report the Islander rookies defeated the UNB 4-1 in a scrimmage with three shorthanded goals. Matt Martin and Justin DiBenedetto––both drafted by the Islanders in 2008––along with Sting alumni Mike Haley and Vladimir Nikiforov each notched goals. Kevin Poulin allowed only one goal on 23 shots.
Sound Tigers head coach Jack Capuano and Pro Scout Tim Maclean comments on how the club played.
ISLANDERS (ROOKIES)
49 Kevin Poulin 35 Peter Mannino
6 Jared Spurgeon – 15 Travis Hamonic 3 Andrew MacDonald – 5 Jyri Niemi 16 Simon Lacroix – 37 Jordan Hart
29 Matt Martin– 19 Tomas Marcinko – 39 Vladimir Nikiforov 17 Jason Pitton– 11 Justin DiBenedetto – 26 Max Gratchev 24 Joel Rechlicz – 20 Tyler Haskins – 18 Micheal Haley
UNB Website: Should have an update on tonight's prospect game at some point.
Times & Transcript: Gerald McLaughlin has Andy MacDonald's comments and a recap of the Islanders prospect win against UNB.
The Guardian: Jason Simmonds reports Islander officials were in Summerside on Monday in preparation for Thursday and Saturday’s games with comments from Islander assistant Kerry Gwydir.
Newsday: Greg Logan has a blog update with comments from Brendan Witt and Doug Weight to the club's new system and what it means to hockey they play.
From Monday: CBS Sportsline: Wes Goldstein Monday had a conference review that was basically worthless beyond telling our fans about Rick DiPietro's contract and management doing things differently.
NYI Fan Central Comments: Tell us the club cannot score enough or it's not skilled or too injury prone, not about the all-star goaltenders contract or management structure and I would write that's fair enough. This was just thrown together and lazy.
Islanders website: Sound Tigers head coach Jack Capuano comments on tonight's game against the University of Moncton (6pm) featuring former Wildcats Travis Hamonic, Andrew MacDonald and also talks about how the players that went to prospect camp are adapting to Scott Gordon's " overspeed " system.
Scott Gordon talks a lot more about how the players are adapting to his new system and what it will take from them as a group for it to work on the ice while strength and conditioning Coach Chris Schwarz has made some adjustments in training to address what the coach is doing on the ice.
Sound Tigers.com: Has interviews with Kurtis McLean and Chris Lee along with more on tonight's game.
NYI Fan Central Comments: Again, I love what Scott Gordon is trying to do with what he has to work with because the Islanders team speed is one of the basic flaws with this roster but it will come down to if this group of players are capable of playing this kind of hockey of if they will buy-into it?
What Scott Gordon has not addressed or mentioned is how he will get more goals from overspeed because you cannot teach hands or scoring skills and to this point a lot of players on this roster have not demonstrated they can score enough to play in a teams top six forwards which is where your goals must come from.
My guess is here the first test of the working relationship between coach and general manager will be when a veteran wants to do what he does best and play as he always has while the coach wants him playing his system vs when someone can play the system but not score enough to keep a spot.
What was it Al Arbour told Bill Torrey when he has a choice of Dwight Foster or Micheal Bossy? " Get me the home run hitter "
Different times but the same basic theory applies.
Newsday: Mark Herrmann has an NHL column that includes Bruno Gervais comments on former teammate Richard Zednik who is returning to play with the Panthers.
New York Islander Fan Central | 9/22/2008 12:43:00 PM |
Coverage Notables
* Has to be the most quiet camp to date in terms of outside coverage.
Nothing from the Times, News, Sun or Post and apparently we will not be seeing New York Islander hockey on Msg+ from Moncton or likely anywhere while the house team has all it's preseason games on Msg but supposedly our fans will be getting some crumbs thrown from Islanders TV on the 10pm Msgny show.
If the Islanders are doing a feed from Moncton for tomorrow's game to this point they have not released any details about this.
A year ago former Post beatwriter, Evan Grossman was in Moncton for NHL.com and did a host of updates.
Islanders also seem to be competing with the Bruins for coverage space in the Times and Transcript.
* Will be interesting to see what Mr Botta provides in his new blog. He had some details on what he is planning in the current version of his Point Blank blog which unfortunately he is going to close up. Hopefully it is setup in a way where folks do not have to subscribe to wordpress with a feeder so folks can follow from anywhere as easily as possible.
* It's also been a bit quiet from the teams media folks as well with one update from Steve Mears, nothing from Chris King despite the many Islander TV blogs and interviews which no doubt are time consuming and do not even cover all the updates on the Sound Tigers. If Jiggs McDonald did travel to Moncton again, no one has reported it or if he is preparing to call games or if Billy Jaffe traveled to camp.
Newsday Sports media person, Neil Best who lobbies for expanded Ranger radio coverage on Long Island did not even report the clubs new radio network in the paper despite countless updates and a live chat but did a little selling for Matthew Barnaby who's new job will apparently be replacing Barry Melrose on Espn.
* So where does New York Islander coverage and perspective come from today?
A lot of folks like John Dellapina who work for a lot of newspapers and team beats who finally get to cover the team they really want to be writing about, until they get where they want it's a job and a paycheck, little else.
What our fans need are media people who's first love is New York Islander hockey and there are a lot of them out there. That's when coverage and perspective will improve because even if it's critical it will be passionate and not from a place that just want to rip them to stir reaction or drive our fans away but to tell the clubs story.
Instead we get media who do not write about Al Arbour night or find a negative angle to bring out about it or put down the core of the four weekend or take a pass on Rick DiPietro starting the all-star game.
Funny, but how many times did the Yankees trot out their alumni this summer between Old Timers Day, All-Star game and last night's event who will all be at the new ballpark for day one next April and how many ripped them in the media for it as the competition among writers is far greater than any competition on the field?
When Charles Wang does this with the last New York team to win four championships in a row and more consecutive playoff wins then the Yankees, it's critcized.
If the New York Islanders have a bunch of life-long passionate fans on their beat and competition for coverage and story lines it would be a different story.
* A few more small and subtle changes to the blog, one experimental in terms of coverage that seems to have a little promise I'm sure everyone will notice. Part of the fun in doing a blog is to keep working to improve it for everyone.
Finally in the good news department I have added Pierre LeBrun and Craig Custance blog feeds to the media sections here, I think folks will like the effort and quality of their work.
