The Hockey News Weighs In On Nolan’s Departure
July 14th, 2008 by Tom
Mike Brophy of The Hockey News might be right on when he speculates about why Ted Nolan is no longer coaching the New York Islanders:
Read between the lines, however, and this is the more likely accurate scenario: Excellent coach sick and tired of trying to make chicken doo-doo into chicken salad. My guess is Nolan took a look at the Islanders’ roster and decided to conjure up a few philosophical differences to get his butt out of town.
And he adds a little cold hard truth:
The Islanders have become the team veteran players with nowhere else to play sign with. At the rate they are going, it will be years before they become a contender.
Read the rest of Brophy’s take here. Ugh. I’m so disgusted with this team right now.
cj Says
I think it’s all a ploy, so wang can move the team.
Jul 14th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
fauxrumors Says
1) We kinda predicted Nolan wouldn’t last his 3rd season a few months ago, but even we didn’t see this coming. You guys who are die hards must be the most loyal hockey fans in the NHL for putting up with this bullshit!
2) As we wrote on our blog this morning Nolan would have been fine with the ‘rebuild’ IF they gave him the contract extension and the confidence that this brings to a coach who, looking at the roster, will have a tough time winning more than 30 games this year.
3) We surmised that Wang/Snow were going to use Nolan (and he knew it) to be the scapegoat this upcoming season. When it looked like Nolan wasn’t going to be the good little employee and keep his mouth shut it forced Wang’s hand.
4) So what next? probably a Bryan Trottier era. Why? Its good PR and it’ll be hard to boo a living legend. Sorry guys, but it looks like the worst run franchise n hockey got even worse this morning! Who knew you’d look back upon the Milbury era as the good old days? Geez!
Jul 14th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
david mac donald Says
Thanks for nothing GARTH!!!! Ted was the wrong guy to let go YOU HEAR ME GARTH, you were the wrong guy to keep. Iam tired of getting my hopes up, just to have them crushed by someone that cant keep there ego in check YOU HEAR ME GARTH. Lets bring back milbury( another joke to the hockey world) and that nasty ugly gordens fisherman uni back so we can realy be the laughingstock of the NHL. What are you going to do about this Wang???????????
Dave Mac
valley Stream NY
Jul 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
OrangeNYC Says
This is horrible news. Unfortunately, I don’t see this tema remaining on Long Island much longer.
Jul 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
fauxrumors Says
1) Orange: The Isles are going no where any time soon. Their TV deal saved them from moving for the past 15 years, and the new arena will keep them on LI for a long time to come
2) You guys have to be wondering what’s next. The ‘youth movement will be cover for sucking/not making the post season this year. Then the isles will have a big draft day and all fans will be focused on watching these kids develop and play in the NHL. In a few years the isles wil again be a power house built from within.
3) The problem is that this was the strategy a decade ago, and to Milbury’s credit he DID draft well and assembled a huge number of big name players, but in the end it was all frittered away by bad trades. Are you guys prepared to suck 2-3 years and then hopefully start to rebound? Can/will Wang wait this long?
Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
NYI Fan Central Says
Isn’t this the same youth movement the fans complanined was not followed through in the late 90’s. The gm tries to give it to us while the coach will not play prospects and this is the reaction so Richard Park can play on the powerplay and go thirty games between goals with Andy Hilbert and never gave Robert Nilsson a shot.
This is the same coach who a year ago was ready to play Dunham until the club was eliminated and even had his veterans complaining about him and the coach has a hand in putting together the roster last summer.
Who did Mike Milbury draft since 2001 below third line who broke through up front and made this team as a forward? He lucked into Gervais and Campoli late and that was it.
Forwards?
No one.
The timing and the lying about how they got along from everyone is the reason to be critical. Not the rest of it.
Jul 17th, 2008 at 8:54 am