Well, it's been a long long non hockey filled 4 months after our beloved Isles came in dead last in the NHL. How could this be? It was only 28 years ago that we were the gold star as far as NHL franchises (sarcastic). Last year was a blurr and then a race to win the JT sweepstakes. Thanks to Garth making it interesting
My question to my fellow HF Islander colleagues. Can you all do it again? Can you sit and watch another season we gets our butts handed to us? Do we have any choice? Our rainbow if we come in last will be a kid named Taylor Hall playing for the Spits in the OHL. He has blazing speed and tons of offensive talent. line him up one day with wunderkid John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Josh Bailey, Blake Comeau and Sean Bergenheim and we may very well have a legit playoff contender on our hands playing for Long Island again.
I know we have to go through the motions of the season with no legit enforcer. To look past the forrest I decided to tinker with a projected line up with Taylor Hall. This looked great. How would your lineup look?
Bergeinheim Hall Tavares ( Bergenheim can keep up with hall and dig pucks all day for Tavares and feed his shop) Bergy will be the staw that stirs that drink and Hall can do it all. THis could be one of the best lines in all hockey one day
Okposo Bailey Comeau ( more top 10 NHL NHL draft picks with an emerging young power forward with skill Comeau that agitates.) Excellent 2nd line
Jonneau (sp) Neilsen Hunter ( finally an old Pro in Trent Hunter, Jonneau can plant his 6'4 frame and Neilsen is one smart Hockey player)
4th line: tons of options with tons of Cap space we will have. Guys like Matt Martin, Trivino, Figren, Dibenetto (SP), Tambellini, The wrecker, and so and so
every one of these guys are home grown except Trent Hunter whom we acquired from the Ducks at the ripe old age of 21 I think back in the late 90's
Why this thread? I don't know, trying to keep my spirits up as I take it personal when the Isles lose. I am 37, married, one kid, live in NE Florida and I still take loses hard. One more season of crap and I feel we will be making noise.
No KC BS and no Dipietro BS please, if we had the #1 pick, do we take Hall and basically have a home grown legit potential offensive powerhouse on our hands or do we take Fowler and start chipping away at defense? Personally, I would go with Hall and grow behind the barn the defense, with DeHaan, Hamonic, Ness, Katic and others quietly we are getting there and I feel with all our cap space one day we can address this need.
If you all are willing to play along give me some projected 4 lines if we draft Hall. In that lineup we will have (2) #1 Overall offensive Studs, Kyle Okposo #8 Overall and Josh Bailey #9 Overall. Exciting to say the least...4 out of top 6 are Top 10 draft picks in some very good NHL drafts. No busts here
Well, it's been a long long non hockey filled 4 months after our beloved Isles came in dead last in the NHL. How could this be? It was only 28 years ago that we were the gold star as far as NHL franchises (sarcastic). Last year was a blurr and then a race to win the JT sweepstakes. Thanks to Garth making it interesting
My question to my fellow HF Islander colleagues. Can you all do it again? Can you sit and watch another season we gets our butts handed to us? Do we have any choice? Our rainbow if we come in last will be a kid named Taylor Hall playing for the Spits in the OHL. He has blazing speed and tons of offensive talent. line him up one day with wunderkid John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Josh Bailey, Blake Comeau and Sean Bergenheim and we may very well have a legit playoff contender on our hands playing for Long Island again.
I know we have to go through the motions of the season with no legit enforcer. To look past the forrest I decided to tinker with a projected line up with Taylor Hall. This looked great. How would your lineup look?
Bergeinheim Hall Tavares ( Bergenheim can keep up with hall and dig pucks all day for Tavares and feed his shop) Bergy will be the staw that stirs that drink and Hall can do it all. THis could be one of the best lines in all hockey one day
Okposo Bailey Comeau ( more top 10 NHL NHL draft picks with an emerging young power forward with skill Comeau that agitates.) Excellent 2nd line
Jonneau (sp) Neilsen Hunter ( finally an old Pro in Trent Hunter, Jonneau can plant his 6'4 frame and Neilsen is one smart Hockey player)
4th line: tons of options with tons of Cap space we will have. Guys like Matt Martin, Trivino, Figren, Dibenetto (SP), Tambellini, The wrecker, and so and so
every one of these guys are home grown except Trent Hunter whom we acquired from the Ducks at the ripe old age of 21 I think back in the late 90's
Why this thread? I don't know, trying to keep my spirits up as I take it personal when the Isles lose. I am 37, married, one kid, live in NE Florida and I still take loses hard. One more season of crap and I feel we will be making noise.
No KC BS and no Dipietro BS please, if we had the #1 pick, do we take Hall and basically have a home grown legit potential offensive powerhouse on our hands or do we take Fowler and start chipping away at defense? Personally, I would go with Hall and grow behind the barn the defense, with DeHaan, Hamonic, Ness, Katic and others quietly we are getting there and I feel with all our cap space one day we can address this need.
If you all are willing to play along give me some projected 4 lines if we draft Hall. In that lineup we will have (2) #1 Overall offensive Studs, Kyle Okposo #8 Overall and Josh Bailey #9 Overall. Exciting to say the least...4 out of top 6 are Top 10 draft picks in some very good NHL drafts. No busts here
thanks for listening
I'm good with this today and, really, what choice do I have?
Well, it's been a long long non hockey filled 4 months after our beloved Isles came in dead last in the NHL. How could this be? It was only 28 years ago that we were the gold star as far as NHL franchises (sarcastic). Last year was a blurr and then a race to win the JT sweepstakes. Thanks to Garth making it interesting
My question to my fellow HF Islander colleagues. Can you all do it again? Can you sit and watch another season we gets our butts handed to us? Do we have any choice? Our rainbow if we come in last will be a kid named Taylor Hall playing for the Spits in the OHL. He has blazing speed and tons of offensive talent. line him up one day with wunderkid John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Josh Bailey, Blake Comeau and Sean Bergenheim and we may very well have a legit playoff contender on our hands playing for Long Island again.
I know we have to go through the motions of the season with no legit enforcer. To look past the forrest I decided to tinker with a projected line up with Taylor Hall. This looked great. How would your lineup look?
Bergeinheim Hall Tavares ( Bergenheim can keep up with hall and dig pucks all day for Tavares and feed his shop) Bergy will be the staw that stirs that drink and Hall can do it all. THis could be one of the best lines in all hockey one day
Okposo Bailey Comeau ( more top 10 NHL NHL draft picks with an emerging young power forward with skill Comeau that agitates.) Excellent 2nd line
Jonneau (sp) Neilsen Hunter ( finally an old Pro in Trent Hunter, Jonneau can plant his 6'4 frame and Neilsen is one smart Hockey player)
4th line: tons of options with tons of Cap space we will have. Guys like Matt Martin, Trivino, Figren, Dibenetto (SP), Tambellini, The wrecker, and so and so
every one of these guys are home grown except Trent Hunter whom we acquired from the Ducks at the ripe old age of 21 I think back in the late 90's
Why this thread? I don't know, trying to keep my spirits up as I take it personal when the Isles lose. I am 37, married, one kid, live in NE Florida and I still take loses hard. One more season of crap and I feel we will be making noise.
No KC BS and no Dipietro BS please, if we had the #1 pick, do we take Hall and basically have a home grown legit potential offensive powerhouse on our hands or do we take Fowler and start chipping away at defense? Personally, I would go with Hall and grow behind the barn the defense, with DeHaan, Hamonic, Ness, Katic and others quietly we are getting there and I feel with all our cap space one day we can address this need.
If you all are willing to play along give me some projected 4 lines if we draft Hall. In that lineup we will have (2) #1 Overall offensive Studs, Kyle Okposo #8 Overall and Josh Bailey #9 Overall. Exciting to say the least...4 out of top 6 are Top 10 draft picks in some very good NHL drafts. No busts here
thanks for listening
with actual nhl goalies this year..they won't be bad enough for the number one pick...you gotta walk before you crawl...honestly i just want to see progression from the kids and this will be a good year...i expect another top 10 pick..
with actual nhl goalies this year..they won't be bad enough for the number one pick...you gotta walk before you crawl...honestly i just want to see progression from the kids and this will be a good year...i expect another top 10 pick..
I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. I don't think our goaltending allows us to be the worst again. Also, we had the most injured team in the league last year, if that didn't happen, I question whether we even would have wound up with #1 pick. The team was very competetive when they didn't have injuries, i think they are going to be even more competetitve this year. They may wind up with a top 5 pick, and then anything can happen lottery wise, or even Taylor Hall can slip like Phil Kessel did in 2006. Let's get halfway into the season before we talk about Taylor Hall.
with actual nhl goalies this year..they won't be bad enough for the number one pick...you gotta walk before you crawl...honestly i just want to see progression from the kids and this will be a good year...i expect another top 10 pick..
Exacty!
I quote Brian Burke when asked if he considered getting Pronger....
"We're still in the rebuilding process. You have to crawl, walk and run before you can sprint."
Hopefully this year we can stand on our 2 feet. And if the stars align... Make a "run" at 8th spot in the East.
With Roloson and Biron in goal, Tavares added up front (who should have a Stamkos-like impact) and a hopefully a much better record in the injury department, this team simply MUST be better than last year -- or at least everyone in the East is gonna have to be better than last season.
This said, I feel that both Toronto and Tampa Bay are gonna be much improved. Atlanta played much better in the second half last season and doesn't appear to have worsened this summer, at least not on paper.
This means that a few other teams are gonna have to be more beatable if we're gonna have a shot at moving up much in the standings.
I certainly am not going into this season with any thoughts of it being a "race for Hall". I certainly hope it doesn't become something like that....
My question to my fellow HF Islander colleagues. Can you all do it again? Can you sit and watch another season we gets our butts handed to us? Do we have any choice?
No, I don't quite think I can. As for the last question, GMG seemingly made a choice not to finish 30th again by signing two legitimate starting goaltenders. Of course, the defense is still very weak (and that's at 100% health) and there are plenty of green players up front, so another lottery finish isn't completely out of the question. Regardless of how the season plays out, we shouldn't be getting giddy for Taylor Hall/Cam Fowler/any other "wonder kid" in September for more reasons than I'd like to mention.
Im not even thinking of next years draft right now. I want the Islanders to compete and make the playoffs. Do i think they will, no. But i do not want them to come in last place, that would be a step back, not forward. We have to improve with the players we have.
Im not even thinking of next years draft right now. I want the Islanders to compete and make the playoffs. Do i think they will, no. But i do not want them to come in last place, that would be a step back, not forward. We have to improve with the players we have.
this is the only beauty of finishing last, next year you can say "there is only one way to go.....up". Thankfully with 2 NHL goalies rather than 2 AHL ones, the defens couldnt get more injures and even if the team scores teh same amount of goals we will be better. Count on it. Tell em Pnut said it
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No, I don't quite think I can. As for the last question, GMG seemingly made a choice not to finish 30th again by signing two legitimate starting goaltenders. Of course, the defense is still very weak (and that's at 100% health) and there are plenty of green players up front, so another lottery finish isn't completely out of the question. Regardless of how the season plays out, we shouldn't be getting giddy for Taylor Hall/Cam Fowler/any other "wonder kid" in September for more reasons than I'd like to mention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Machiavelli
Im not even thinking of next years draft right now. I want the Islanders to compete and make the playoffs. Do i think they will, no. But i do not want them to come in last place, that would be a step back, not forward. We have to improve with the players we have.
Do I reasonably expect a good Islander team this year? No, not really. When you think about it, this is a team marked by young kids, bottom-pairing d-men and 3rd/4th line forwards.
That being said, do I want them to do well this year? You bet your ass I do.
There's a saying in hockey that you build from the goal out.
It's obvious that GMG is not following that philosophy 100%, or else he would have drafted Hedman. But I think the signing of two netminders who have PROVEN themselves will be competing for ice time is a sure sign that the Islanders have no intention of making this season as big of a blurr as last year.
The harsh reality is that the depth chart is downright scary, and this year's team will have to outwork everyone else and make the most of their scoring chances (See: Tavares, John). Our coach now has an NHL season under his belt and I think he'll do a much better job this year. Our defence ... I like some of our guys but let's face it, our goalies will have to earn their money for us to even be able to compete some nights.
So can I do it all again? I'll have to grin and bare it.
I'll be honest .. the only reason I'm excited about anything regarding this team is the obvious one, JT. Hopefully he can give us some flashes of the future "winning success" (his words) that a player with his potential brings us.
Remember, it's Gorton's second year as an Islander coach. Last coach to improve in his second year? Terry Simpson, 1987-88. Luckily for Gorton, he can't do worse mathematically......I hope.
And the saying was "from the defense out."
We look far better in net, our D has a chance at improving and our offense will be the big question mark I feel. Gorton's system, so long as he remembers looking up the word "backcheck" on Wikepedia last season, will be the defining factor. Hopefully Witt and others will continue to speak out against the coach's oversystem when necessary.
Remember, it's Gorton's second year as an Islander coach. Last coach to improve in his second year? Terry Simpson, 1987-88. Luckily for Gorton, he can't do worse mathematically......I hope.
And the saying was "from the defense out."
We look far better in net, our D has a chance at improving and our offense will be the big question mark I feel. Gorton's system, so long as he remembers looking up the word "backcheck" on Wikepedia last season, will be the defining factor. Hopefully Witt and others will continue to speak out against the coach's oversystem when necessary.
Couple things OTH.
1) Gordon
2) I feel our forward group is fine, and our D is the question mark.
Remember, it's Gorton's second year as an Islander coach. Last coach to improve in his second year? Terry Simpson, 1987-88. Luckily for Gorton, he can't do worse mathematically......I hope.
Is that true? Wow that's quite a stat.. but yes since the bar is so low for Gordon he'll be the first in over 20 years! (yay?)
Quote:
And the saying was "from the defense out."
Well for good measure I googled both.. both variations appear to be used by hockey people although I don't personally recall hearing it put that way... (defence out)
Quote:
We look far better in net, our D has a chance at improving and our offense will be the big question mark I feel. Gorton's system, so long as he remembers looking up the word "backcheck" on Wikepedia last season, will be the defining factor. Hopefully Witt and others will continue to speak out against the coach's oversystem when necessary.
I agree with everything you said - with the caveat that Witt does his speaking out inside the coach's office.. with only team people present..
I think it's really hard to predict where our Islanders will finish this season.
I mean, first off, I really don't even know how bad our team actually was last year. Don't get me wrong, I will acknowledge the fact that they were a bad team on paper. But even then, look at all of the games our players missed due to injury. It is quite hard to compare this team (when healthy) to the product we had on the ice last year.
Secondly, just look at our division. We probably had one of the more competitive divisions last year, with us being the only really bad team. And what's worse is that all the teams in our division seem to have made significant additions this offseason.
As for the question presented in the thread title, I think that we will have to muscle through one more poor season to really get the ball rolling. I expect another bottom 8 finish. But I also expect to see a pretty exciting team, and to see steady improvement from our younger players.
As an Islander fan who has not seen the team win one playoff series (being born during the Stanley Cup the last year they did so), I would love the team to make the playoffs and compete. But I would rather go through a few years of dissappointing play in order to compete consistently, rather than scrapping at 8th place like we did for years.
Our patience will be rewarded, as it was for Pittsbugh fans, Washington fans, and Chicago fans.
I think the prediction makers are certainly warranted in predicting us to be amongst the 3 worst teams in hockey. No problem there.
On the other hand, we're clearly better in goal, the younger guys (of which there are many) got a boatload of experience last year, Gordon now knows the league and - at least at the beginning - we should be sending a healthier line-up into action.
That's all got to count for something, right?
Like every year, there'll be teams that perform as expected and others that stumble out of contention despite a promising line-up. A good team or two will be ravaged by injury or some bad politics at the wrong time and head south in the standings.
Just don't know who they'll be?
I think we land between 8th-12th in the East, depending on the luck we have (or don't have) in the health department.
