|
|
By Bryan Berg  October 3, 2009, at 1:59 pm  Finally, we’re here. October 3. Opening Day… and Charles Wang’s “certainty” deadline.
It comes as no surprise that Wang’s deadline was not met by the Town of Hempstead. Bad news, sure, but not at all unexpected, and that’s good. Because this should not be a sad day for Islanders fans.
Instead, it should be a celebration. Tonight should be a celebration of what we still have. We get to watch this team play instead of worry about the future. We get to spend the night in Nassau Coliseum; warts and all, it’s one of the few remaining arenas with a real home-ice advantage when the crowd’s involved. We get to reacquaint ourselves with pretzel twists, easily the greatest arena food available anywhere. Most importantly, we get to welcome John Tavares to Long Island.
On many occasions, I’ve tried to put into to words what John Tavares means to the Islanders and their fans. I’ve failed each time. You never want to give a player the dreaded “savior” label, and it’s not fair to give it to Tavares. However, it’s okay to admit that Tavares is a bigger deal than just about anybody the Islanders have brought in since Pat LaFontaine. He’s the kind of player the Islanders would never have a prayer of signing as a free agent and the kind of player they’d never be able to trade for, and yet John Tavares begins his NHL career as a New York Islander. Even better, he’s a very willing and happy New York Islander.
It’s a night to forget all the Lighthouse stuff. It’s a night to cheer and to finally be proud of the Islanders. That’s something no politician can take away.
By Anthony De Franco October 2, 2009, at 2:18 am The last couple of nights, I’ve gone to sleep at like 9 o’clock and woke up at 1 am. It’s probbaly not healthy, but at least I’ll get to unwind a little bit with some NHL and maybe rip through some of season two of LOST.
Anyway, I’ll scrolling through my twitter, and I found an update from 49ers linebackerTakeo Spikes. He had mention something about week old peach cobbler, and i thought he was posting a picture to get opinions on if it had gone bad. Instead, I got this, which is easily a pic of the greatest t-shirt ever.
Tell me that isn’t awesome. I dare you. Don’t you worry, Comack’s is already in the mail.
By Zach Schiff July 29, 2009, at 9:05 pm Yes, we are still alive. However, with temperatures in the mid 80s and rain escaping us (save for the lightning storms we are currently having), nothing has been going on in the hockey world, and we’ve been on mini-hiatus.
Two things of note though. With the money saved on Nik Zherdev, who is probably 90% not returning after the Rangers low-balled him (the arbitration process is simply going through the motions, I would think, to sever ties with him), the Rangers got Ales Kotalik. Wouldn’t it also be nice to sign Alex Tanguay to a 1- or 2-year deal in the $3M range? Don’t you think he’d rather play with Marian Gaborik in Manhattan than with Kyle Turris in the desert?
And about Phoenix: Why is the NHL so intent on making this mistake work? I wrote about it two months ago, and it still stands. This team has lost $60M over the past season. It won’t get better, no matter who is running the show. It’s hockey. It’s a desert. The only desert city I can see with hockey is Las Vegas. Not Phoenix (or Glendale, or Scottsdale, or Sedona). Time to move.
Yet the NHL doesn’t accept Jim Balsillie’s bid again, even though he offered over $200M, $40M more than the guy whose bid was accepted (Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the Bulls and White Sox).
Something’s going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about. Think about it: Let’s say you have a broken car 2,000 miles away, and 2 people wanted to buy it. One person was going to keep it in the same crappy lot and pay you $1,600 for it; one person was going to move it to an area where he could fix the car AND he’d pay you $2,100 for it. No-brainer, no?
No.
Odd.
By Bryan Berg July 22, 2009, at 7:36 pm Those who were worried about the Islanders’ goaltending situation can now begin worrying even more about the health of Rick DiPietro. The Islanders signed former Philadelphia Flyer and Buffalo Sabres goaltender Martin Biron to a one-year contract today. Terms of the deal were not disclosed; they also don’t really matter. I’ll assume it’s a one-way contract worth at least the $2.5 million the Islanders are already paying Dwayne Roloson.
So here we are. The Islanders are paying Rick DiPietro $4.5 million this year. They’re paying Roloson $2.5 million this year. They’re now paying Biron upwards of $2 million a year. NHL teams only carry two goaltenders. In other words, there will be a high-priced goaltender in the Islanders’ press box for 82 nights next year. Unless, of course, Rick DiPietro is more injured than the team is letting on.
None of this should be constituted as a knock on Biron. He was considered the heir apparent to Dominik Hasek in Buffalo and played well until Ryan Miller emerged after the lockout. Biron then headed to Philadelphia, where he was the key figure in the Flyers’ 2008 run to the conference finals. Because the Flyers organization is apparently required to have a chaotic goaltending situation, Biron wasn’t offered a new contract, though he was linked with teams such as Detroit and San Jose as a sort of “super back-up”.
When I texted the news to Zach a few moments ago, his response was, “Wow, I guess DP is really done.” This will be the sentiment all across Islanders country. Frankly, there’s no reason to think anything else, just as there’s no reason to sign two #1 goalies if your current starter is healthy and capable. While we all welcome Martin Biron to the New York Islanders organization, we can’t help but distractedly wonder what’s really going on with Rick DiPietro.
EDIT: As per Darren Dreger, the deal is worth $1.4 million. Not a bad price. Still doesn’t make sense. Clearly, the 2009-10 season doesn’t end with all three of these guys on the Island.
By Alex Goldberg July 10, 2009, at 12:17 pm We here at The 3rd String Safety would like to introduce you to the latest contributors to our website. These two men have been writing about the NHL for almost a year now and through a stroke of genius and tedious late night negotiations at some of our favorite watering holes, have agreed to syndicate their blog posts. These two men that I speak of are Zach Schiff and Bryan Berg. Both of these gentlemen have a passion for Hockey that the rest of us here at 3ss cannot fully appreciate, since to be honest, most of us simply aren’t interested.
From today forward, you will be able to find all of their latest posts both here on our blog and over at their original nesting location The New York Hockey Rivalry. Also be sure to click on the NHL category at the top of your screen to check out all of their older posts which are now hosted here on our website.
Please welcome these men to our team and we hope you enjoy the insight on the NHL that they bring to our website!
By Jordan Lauterbach July 1, 2009, at 12:20 am From Newsday:
The Isles could use a little more firepower on the wings, which might make them consider moving Tavares. Referring to general manager , Gordon said: “That will be something that Garth and I talk about with players and coaches as far as what potential lines could be. It’s a possibility [wing], but that’s something we’ll find out along the way, as opposed to writing in stone right now.”
Asked if he’s convinced Tavares can play wing, Gordon said: “I don’t know if that’s something he’s comfortable with. I’ve never had that discussion with him. I just said hello to him at the draft. That’s something we’ll talk over as a staff, specifically what we’ll do with the personnel and how they will complement each other.”
This screams bad idea. I thought that the idea was to build around the potential savior of the franchise, not make him fit into a system. A system that, by virtue of the fact that you had the first pick in the draft, didn’t work out too well. If the Islanders have too many center man, why not try and convert someone else. I guarantee that whoever is chosen would be a better choice then John Tavares. Why mess with unbelievable junior hockey success?
I guess the traditional dumb Islander logic didn’t end with the right selection on Friday night.
Because it is probably inevitable, is it possible that Scott Gorden is trying to see how fast he can be fired?
My guess? Game 55.
|
|
Tags: 
