Starving

Is there anything that has been left unsaid of the New York Islanders this season? Here on Bleeding Blue and Orange, the regulars have broken down the Islanders in a number of ways. We have suggested line combinations, apportioned playing time, contemplated positional changes, and analyzed statistics. Many of our ideas have been utilized, while some of our most obvious notions have been continually ignored.

We have been advocating a youth movement—an injection of younger players into a lineup filled with aging veterans. The Flyers have been able to turn around a last place team of aging vets to a first place contender this season in merely one year. The Flyers accomplished such a daunting task by making a few key acquisitions via trade (Timonen, Hartnell, and Upshall), one key off-season signing (Brierre), and an injection of youth into their everyday lineup (Richards, Carter, Kukkonen, Coburn, and Downie). It begins to make you wonder is such a turnaround could ever be possible on Long Island.

I can tell you this much, such a turnaround will continue to remain impossible if the Islanders continue to employ a current philosophy of assembling as many “hard-workers” as Snow can find among the leftovers each summer, after all the “real” teams scoop up the “real” players.

The “new” NHL is a league based on speed and skill, and does not emphasize grit and toughness as much as it has in the past (and I’m not implying the Islanders are either gritty or tough anyway). But that’s how the current Isles were built—to outwork you, out-hit you, and make you feel the physical wrath for stepping onto the ice with the New York Islanders. The Isles had done a certain amount of that early on, but that kind of game plan has been missing for quite some time. That’s probably because teams can’t maintain that kind of intense play for an entire season—there comes a point where the overall skill of a team needs to be relied upon to overcome certain deficiencies.

There have been a handful of games this season where the Isles have outworked their opponents throughout an entire 3rd period, only to fall short by one goal. And it must become frustrating when that group of players can’t muster up a goal because that group doesn’t boast one legitimate offensive threat. My overall point is that a team can’t be so one-dimensional. It can’t rely solely on the blue collar aspects of the game, while neglecting to focus on the skills needed to compete in the NHL. It can’t solely rely on a motivating coach to squeeze something out of a team comprised of nothings.

The shortcomings of the Isles are clear and decipherable. Forwards Guerin, Comrie, Hunter, Fedotenko, Vasicek, Satan, and Hilbert have combined for something like 6 goals in their last 125 games (when you combine each of their recent goal droughts). Think about that. 6 goals in 125 games! Guerin, Comrie, & Satan should be 30 goal scorers (let’s say 0.33 GPG), while Hunter and Vasicek should be 20 goal scorers (let’s say 0.25 GPG) and Hilbert and Vasicek should be 15 goal men, considering their minutes (let’s say 0.20 GPG). This averages to 0.27 GPG for those players over the course of a season. They have currently combined for a 0.048 GPG average. So instead of getting a goal from each of those players about every 4 games, we are roughly getting a goal from each of them every 21 games.

Now I don’t mean to point out the obvious. The Isles are clearly starved for offense and that is something that even the novice fan would be able to ascertain. But Nolan could have tried something, anything. He could have used his “magic” to try to squeeze some goals out of the leading goal-scorer in the AHL (Tambellini), instead of bringing him up here and there and giving him less than 10 minutes of ice time. He could have even tried to work him into the Isles PK to create a backdoor approach to gain some offense (Tambellini leads the AHL in short-handed goals as well). He could have tried to work in a speedy and smart two-way center (Walter), instead of giving a boatload of minutes to Mike Silinger, who is so old that he can’t help but break down over the course of the season. He could have demoted Comrie and Hunter from the PP after they proved to the world that they simply could not produce on the PP. But then again, how do you build an engine out of a box full of nuts and bolts.

Here on B&O, I continue to propose that GM Garth Snow disassemble this group. This team as constructed has no future and no promise. Let the fire sale begin.