Islanders Army

Blake Benched…Again

murph — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:48:46 +0000

Oh Blakey, don’t say we didn’t warn you about taking the money and running to Toronto. I mean, yeah the guy’s got 4 million dollar bills lying around the house to dry his tears, but it starting to sound like 3 million and change, and you know…actually playing and not being booed isn’t so bad either. At $4 million, it’ll will be virtually impossible for Toronto to move him in the Salary Cap Era of the NHL.

Moments after hearing the news that he was to be benched for the second-time this season, Jason Blake erupted into a sequence of profanities, reports the National Post.

Blake sat out of last night’s game, a 4-3 loss to the Calgary Flames.

“I don’t know what’s going on … we’ll try to figure it out sometime today,” Blake told the paper.

A Little Slice of Puck Heaven

murph — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:43:19 +0000

Here’s a great way to spend your morning while waiting for today’s Islanders afternoon game (unless you’re still working today like me). Via UniWatch Blog comes OfficialGamePuck.com’s Virtual Puck Museum with just under 20,000 puck photos for you to browse. That’s even more pucks than the back of the Islanders net in the third period!

Classics like the Bossy and LaFontaine pucks above. Pucks from just about every hockey league NHL, AHL, College Hockey, even Beer League pucks. Corporate pucks, old pucks, wedding pucks, even ^%$&# glow pucks.

Here are a few more Islander pucks; Blake, King, and Peca. You might want to cover your eyes for this last one John Tonelli…as a King…nooooo!

Parrish Debuts in Dallas with Hat-Trick

murph — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:50:18 +0000

Ex-Isle Mark Parrish was signed to Bridgeport a couple of weeks ago on a 25-game tryout basis. Being an AHL-only contract, he was free to sign with any NHL team and was picked up by the Dallas Stars earlier this week. Last night he made his Dallas debut netting a hat-trick in the Stars 5-2 win.

Mark Parrish had his sixth career hat trick in his Dallas debut and the Stars beat the Anaheim Ducks 5-2 on Friday night.

Parrish, who signed a one-year deal with Dallas on Wednesday, had two power-play goals and a breakaway tally in the first 26 minutes of play.

Lowly Isles Beat First-Place Rangers

murph — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:39:56 +0000

In their own building no less. Nice work boys. Thrashers tonight.

3rd Jersey Unveiled

murph — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:55:52 +0000

NICE! Now that’s a 3rd Jersey you can be proud to wear. Guerin’s “C” is a little big, but I can deal with it. At least they didn’t put everyone’s numbers on the front like the regular jerseys. It looks good…I’d say real good - but it looks a tiny bit odd because of the Reebok slim cut. I prefer the loose CCM cut over any Reebok jersey anyday. It’ll be interesting to see it in motion - Saturday night vs Montreal.

Super Saturday, Super Hit

murph — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:12:41 +0000

The geniuses at the NHL Marketing Department were at it again this weekend, with the debut of “Super Saturday” - all 30 teams playing on one night. Great concept, poor execution. Please tell me why they picked an October Saturday with College Football in full swing, the World Series going on, and no games on Versus? As a bonus, there were absolutely no games last night.

Had a family thing Saturday night, so all I saw were the late night highlights on the NHL network. There were quite a few from the Isles/Hurricanes matchup - 57 Islander shots, 54 saves by Cam Ward, a potential game-tying penalty shot with less than 1 second left in regulation, and this…BOOM!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Doug Weight absolutely crushed the ‘Canes rookie Brandon Sutter at center ice with a legal hit. Sutter was knocked unconscious, and spent a couple of nights in the hospital for observation. He’s been released. The hit started a lot of debating about the legality of the hit and what the NHL can do to protect players from hits like these. It certainly doesn’t help the NHL’s image when players are knocked out and taken off the ice like this, but I don’t know how you legislate this out of hockey. Making it some kind of referee’s judgment call on “intent” or “blow to the head” is just going to make it worse. One odd thing about this hit is that Sutter (6′3″) has 4 inches on Weight (5′11″), I expected the opposite when I looked this up.

Around the rink…

Islanders 3rd jersey unveiling tonight at 5pm before the NYI/NYR game.
DP out for tonight. He’s being checked out by team doctors today, and then the Isles will come back and tell us nothing. Unless they have to do something drastic like amputate a limb, he will be listed as day to day.
And finally, speaking of new jerseys check out these sweet new sweaters for this year’s Winter Classic. Funny thing is, Chelios wore the same jersey in his rookie year back in 1926.

“Young” Isles Actually Right at NHL Average

murph — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:41:30 +0000

Hockey Blogosphere Celebrity James Mirtle has a new home, over at From The Rink where he will be the Manager of NHL blogs. New home, same Mirtle, same great content.

Mirtle put up the average age of all 30 NHL teams. For all the talk about the Isles’ youth movement, when you factor in the veterans like Guerin and Weight, the Isles’ are actually just about average, coming in at #14 at 28.18 years old.

1 DET 30.40
2 ANA 30.31
3 NJD 29.65
4 COL 29.64
5 OTT 29.39

14 NYI 28.18

26 NYR 27.08
27 LAK 26.24
28 CBJ 26.08
29 PHX 25.79
30 CHI 25.65

Dallas Stars Highlight Reel

murph — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:54:02 +0000

Busy at work. Here are the highlights from “Mike Riberio Night” at the Coliseum as the Stars’ winger put up 5 points last night with a goal and 4 helpers.

As always, check the Islanders Army recommended links to the right for the best of the hockey blogosphere today. You gotta see the Bruins’ Milan Lucic glass breaking hit.

Hunter Heroics Earn Isles OT Win

murph — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:28:31 +0000

Not a bad game from the Orange and Blue last night. Solid first and second periods leading to a 2-0 lead, Tampa comes storming back in the third to tie and Hunter responds with a rebound goal off a Tambellini shot. Unfortunately, the boys give that goal right back to the Lightning letting them earn a point for the night’s work. In OT, the Isles catch a break on a sloppy play by Kolzig and Nielsen and Hunter make them pay for it with the OT winna. Even better because I have Hunter in my Fanatsy Hockey league.

Isles’ Prospect Petrov Injured Too

murph — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:47:12 +0000

Neither DP or first round draft pick Josh Bailey have played yet. Martinek is out 4-6 weeks. Campoli, Sutton…we’re a week into the season and the Isles have picked up right where they left off at the end of 2007-08, battered and bruised with injuries.

That includes the team’s third round draft pick Kirill Petrov who is out 2-3 months with an undisclosed injury.

Russianprospects.com has been back to Arena Magnitogorsk to have a look at the Metallurg Magnitogorsk challenge aired for the eight turn of the 2008/09 Continental Hockey League. Ak Bars will be without Kirill Petrov (New York Islanders) as the perspective forward is reported out with a two and half – three months injury, could even miss the WJC.

With all the coverage of the Russian KHL league the past few days due to the untimely death of Rangers’ prospect Alexei Cherepanov, I wanted to check in on Petrov and see his stats…only to find the Islanders injury bug apparently has a passport.