Tag Archive for 'jason-blake'
David from HockeyFights.com sent me a pointer to this story from Tuesday’s NYI/TOR tilt.
The Islanders decided to poke some fun at Leafs winger Jason Blake, who scored 40 goals with their team last season before joining Toronto as a free agent. Through 74 games this season, Blake has just 13 goals.
The Islanders erected a mock plaque alongside their wall of fame, which has images of nine greats from the franchise’s history (Bill Torrey, Al Arbour, Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy, Billy Smith, Bob Nystrom, Bob Bourne, Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies).
Alongside those plaques, the Islanders taped a picture of Blake with the caption “40 goal scorer.”
“It wasn’t framed,” Blake said, laughing.
Anyone in the Blog Box get a picture of this?
With the Islanders’ continued inability to score, we got curious about how former OrangeAndBlue sniper Jason Blake is faring with his new team - the Toronto Maple Leafs. We certainly knew that Blakey wasn’t exactly lighting it up this year but it had been a while since we saw his stats. Here they are:
Jason Blake 2007-08
GP G A P +/-
67 12 28 40 1
At first glance, you might interpret this as “good thing the Islanders didn’t sign that guy.” And you can’t argue with that sentiment. Blake got $20 million from Toronto after coming off a career year in which he posted 40 goals and 29 assists in 82 games. He was durable and he consistently lit the lamp. This season playing in a new system with a new club that has been plagued by inconsistency, Blake has been a shadow of his former self. He still gets the shots off, leading the Leafs with 277 so far this season, but they cross the goal-line just 4.3% of the time. He’s actually averaging more shots this season (4.1 a game) than he did last year (3.7). The difference is last season with the Islanders, Blake scored on 13.1% of his shots, more than three-times better than his average this season.
The question is - would the Isles have been better off this season if Blake had stayed? Long-term, I think the answer is obvious, they had to let him go. Blake just got too expensive and, at 34, is past the prime age for big-time scorers. But would the Islanders been better off with Blake for this one season? Probably, but I don’t think anyone could have expected him to duplicate last season’s numbers. For the three years prior to last season, Blake averaged 25 goals and 28 assists per campaign.
On this season’s club, Blake was basically replaced at left wing by Ruslan Fedotenko. Fedotenko has scored 15 goals and 16 assists this season. The other two big offensive additions are Mike Comrie (20G 27A) and Bill Guerin (20G 17A). To afford Blake, the Islanders wouldn’t have been able to acquire all three of these guys. Substitute Blake for any one of the three, and give him his average numbers over the three years prior to his break-out season, and the numbers are pretty even.
What is harder to gauge is what intangibles Blake would have brought to the club. He hustles. He goes all out. He creates chances out of thin air. He causes penalties. He can hog the puck. He can get trigger happy. He’s not a very good two-way player.
So, after thinking about it, I guess my answer is it is really difficult to tell whether the Isles would have been better this season with Blake suiting up but I don’t think he would have made much of a difference either way. I know it’s all guess work but I just don’t see how Blake could have had a big impact on this moribund offense. The problems go deeper than missing one good sniper.
Woah! Two in a row! 4 powerplay goals? Who are these guys? Special teams were the difference last night as the Isles PP was 4 for 7 last night while the PK killed 4 of 5 penalties.
“We saw the improbable last year when we were left for dead,” goalie Rick DiPietro said after the Islanders slipped past the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on Thursday night. “There’s still a lot of hockey left.”
“There’s still belief in this room,” Comrie said. “Ted (Nolan) and the coaching staff have us focused on the game at hand. We’re not looking too far ahead.”
Ex-Isle Jason Blake had an assist on Toronto’s last minute goal. After 59 games, Blake’s stats are 11G 25A 36PTS, just a little off his 40G 69PTS performance last year which led to his big Toronto contract. Gotta get back to work now…
Wow. What a crazy game last night, lots of good and bad to talk about. Fan-Favorite (for the most part) Jason Blake returned to Long Island for the first time after signing a free-agent deal with Toronto last summer. Blake was a “love him or hate him” Islander - you either loved his speed and hustle, or you hated his tendency to hog the puck and occasional turnovers that came with it. We here at Islanders Army were strongly in the “love him” category, as evidenced by our top secret plan to clone Blake and dominate the NHL with five 40-goal scorers on the ice at once.
It was all business and $$$ that led to Blake leaving. He wanted a longer deal than what the Isles were offering and after a career year with 40 goals, he found someone else willing to give it to him. The Toronto Maple Leafs opened the checkbook for a 40-goal scorer for 5 years, and so far have 5 goals and 16 assists to show for it. The Isles showed their appreciation for the 6 years Blake played for us with a short pre-game video tribute.
I missed the first two periods and the Islanders “offensive explosion” of 3 goals in the first. Considering the difficulty the lsles have had scoring 3 goals in 60 minutes, 3 in the first 20 was quite the feat. The excitement of those goals quickly wore off at the start of the second period when Wade Dubielewicz came out of the tunnel and into the net in place of Rick DiPietro who apparently hurt his knee in warmups and wasn’t able to finish the game. DP is getting an MRI on the knee and will miss tonight’s game at Ottawa. Joey MacDonald has been called up from Bridgeport to backup Doobie. With Doobie in net, the game took a more defensive tone - 14 Islanders first period shots turned into just 4 second period shots. Still the Isles held a 3-2 lead after 2 periods.
An early 3rd period Islander powerplay backfired into a shorthanded goal and a 3-3 tie. It stayed that way through regulation thanks to the heroics of Doobie, Toronto goalie Andrew Raycroft and some goalposts. Both teams had some great chances down the stretch, including Mike Sillinger getting stoned on the doorstep twice by Raycroft with less than a minute left in regulation.
Richard Park got called for hooking in OT and it looked like the Isles were doomed on the 4-on-3 powerplay. Doooooobie to the rescue with some awesome saves and it looked like we were headed to a shootout, until this….
Richard Park (aka The “New” Jason Blake) pick-pocketed the “Old” Jason Blake at the Isles blueline and turned it into a 2-on-1 because of a Toronto line change. Park’s shot was deflected by the defenseman, stopped by Raycroft, but then a uncovered Mike Comrie came along and banged in the rebound with just 10 seconds left in OT for the 4-3 Islander win. Tic-Tac-Toe, three in a row for the Orange and Blue.
Blake’s miscue is sure to send Leafs Nation into a frenzy. After the game Blake defended his actions, while his coach wasn’t buying it.
“We’ve only got so many seconds left in overtime,” he said of his extended bout of stick-handling. “I was trying to make a play. [Park] made a great play by poke-checking it.”
Blake’s coach, Paul Maurice, was not impressed.
“He turned the puck over an awful lot tonight,” Maurice said. “You can’t turn it over there at any point in a game.”
Sorry Blakey…it was all just business last night.
With a 6-7-3 record so far this year and a rabid fanbase desperate for their first Stanley Cup in 41 years, pressure is building on the Toronto Maple Leafs and their high-profile free agent Jason Blake to succeed. Through 16 games this season, Blake has only 2 goals compared to a year ago on the island when Blake had 9 at the same point. The Toronto Sun sat down for an interview with Blake to discuss the season so far. It went something like this:
Blah, blah, blah. Mats Sundin. Blah, blah, blah. $20 million. Blah, blah, blah. Ottawa 5 Toronto 1.
At the end of the interview, they ask Blake some questions about the Islanders who have 1 more point than Toronto with 4 games in hand. Here’s the good part:
“No. 1, they have an unbelievable coach,” Blake said. “Ted Nolan’s the best. No. 2, we played like the Senators, that way. We weren’t as talented, we weren’t as big, we weren’t as strong but we moved the puck. We tried to hit the open guy. No. 3, we had Brendan Witt, one of the most underrated defenceman in the league.”
And No. 4?
“The best goalie. The best upcoming goaltender in the league. (Rick) DiPietro will win the Vezina in the next three years.”
We’re one month into the 2007-2008 season and we figured it’s time to take a look at how some of the ex-Islanders and their successors are faring. While we recognize it is way too early to make any concrete judgments based on the numbers, we were still curious to see the stats. We’ll be updating this information a few times during the course of the season.
The Old
Player G A Pts +/-
Jason Blake, TOR 2 11 13 3
Ryan Smyth, COL 5 4 9 2
Viktor Kozlov, WAS 2 5 7 0
Aaron Asham, NJ 3 2 5 0
The New
Player G A Pts +/-
Mike Comrie, NYI 5 6 11 -3
Bill Guerin, NYI 4 6 10 -2
Ruslan Fedotenko, NYI 3 5 8 -1
Josef Vasicek, NYI 3 1 4 -3
Some bad news this morning from ex-Islander but still a fan favorite, Jason Blake who signed with Toronto this past off-season. Blake revealed this morning to his new teammates that he has a rare but treatable form of Leukemia.
“This morning I shared with my teammates news that I was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia,” Blake said on the team’s website.
“It is highly-treatable, and I have begun taking a pill on a daily basis that has proven to be very effective in controlling this cancer. The prognosis, and certainly the expectations of my physician, myself and my family, is that I will live a long, full and normal life. This situation will not impact my ability to live my life as I otherwise would, and will not affect my ability to perform at my highest level for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I’m looking forward to my first season with the Leafs and helping our club compete for the Stanley Cup.”
A sobering dose of reality from a guy we were sad to see leave the Island. We’re glad that everything is treatable and that Blakey should be OK and can continue to play. Go Blakey…just not Thursday night against the Isles!
Boot camp is back in session here at IslandersArmy and we’re here to give you some 2008 Season Predictions. Murph will probably bounce back with his own take later on. For the time being, you’re stuck with me and my busted up, broken crystal ball.
Atlantic Division
1. Pittsburgh Penguins - Sid the Kid leads a potent offensive attack on a team that should only improve with another season’s experience under their belts. While the scoring should come fast and furious, the big key is likely to be netminder Marc-Andre Fluery. Fleury surprised a lot of people by going an awesome 40-16 with a 2.83 GAA last year. Can he do it again? Another big question is how will the young Pens handle the expectations?
2. New York Rangers - As usual, these guys are loaded. The arrival of Chris Drury and Scott Gomez will bring more energy and skill to an offense that should have tallied more goals than it did last year. Henrik Lundqvist should turn in another good year. Two questions that need answering - can Lundqvist play big for a full season and how long will it take Drury and Gomez to gel with new teamates and a new system? Also, why do the Rangers Suck so bad?
3. New Jersey Devils, aka the Brent Sutter All-Stars - I’m going to have a soft spot for these guys all season. Sutter was a very good Islander and by all indications is a great guy. I don’t plan on rooting against him much. The Devs lost a couple of big names, Gomez and Brian Rafalski, but will still win their share of games thanks to future Hall of Fame keeper Martin Brodeur. I actually predicted the Devils would go to the Finals last year on Brodeur’s back. Big surprise - I was wrong. That said, Brodeur is still one of the best and Jersey has a track record for changing its parts without derailing the team’s effectiveness. They’ll be around all year and by the time the postseason rolls out, a dangerous team if Brodeur is on one of his streaks.
4. New York Islanders - RIP Jason Blake, Ryan Smyth, Aaron Asham, Viktor Kozlov, Sean Hill, and Tom Poti. Thanks for playing. Oh, Alexei Yashin is also gone but damn if that ain’t a big, fat positive. Alexei, if you are reading this, it ain’t personal but you had to go. Actually, I know it is personal for a lot of Islander fans. A lot of money and expectations came with your signing a few years back, followed by a host of first-round exits. The divorce should have actually happened a couple of years ago. Better late then never. The Isles turn to Bill Guerin to be their new leader on offense. Bill plays hard, plays the game right, but is kind of old and has never really carried a big team on his own. He’s just not one of those guys. This season is really going to rest on the play of the $67-Million-Dollar-Man, my goalie and yours, Rick DiPietro. A big season and the Isles can grab that eighth spot and maybe make some noise. Fingers crossed.
5. Philadelphia Flyers - They shouldn’t be as awful as last season but they are still bad. Philly brought in a crop of new players and will hand the keys to the net to Martin Biron for a full season. They should be more competitive but don’t confuse them with the big Flyer teams from earlier this decade. Them, these guys ain’t.
Daniel Tolensky has posted an excellent article about yesterday’s UFA signings on the HockeyBuzz.com blogs. He compares yesterday’s spending spree to the July 2002 spending spree which more or less lead to the 2004 lockout. It’s the have and have-nots, all over again.
Will July 1st 2007 be the day that we realize the lockout was a complete waste?
Philadelphia: Briere - $52 mil
NY Rangers: Gomez - $51.5 mil
Philadelphia: Timonen - $37.8 mil
NY Rangers: Drury - $35.25 mil
Colorado: Smyth - $31 mil
Detroit: Rafalski - $30 mil
Philadelphia: Hartnell - $25.2 mil
Toronto: Blake - $20 mil
Six big market teams spend a combined $282.75 million on eight players.
We missed a whole year of hockey so that Buffalo, New Jersey, Nashville and the Islanders could each lose two players to Philadelphia, Colorado, Detroit, Toronto and the Rangers?
There is also a look at how Briere’s deal is structured vs the salary cap, and a comparison of Blake’s deal with previous 30-something UFA extended contracts.
Newsday’s Greg Logan has an article in the paper today and a couple of blog posts on yesterday’s UFA action.
Most interesting is the $$$ (isn’t it always?). Smyth signed in Colorado for less than the Islanders offered and meanwhile the Islanders lowballed every other UFA we had and lost out on them.
Ryan Smyth, who generated so much excitement when Islanders general manager Garth Snow acquired him from Edmonton at the trade deadline, spurned their five-year offer worth $32.5 million. Instead, Smyth agreed to a five-year deal for $31.25 million with Colorado that would return him to the Western Conference.
Coming off a career-best 40-goal season, Blake signed a five-year deal worth $20 million with Toronto that actually exceeded his asking price with the Islanders by $2 million. Snow is believed to have offered three years for $10 million.
After topping the Islanders in ice time and assists, Poti was offered a three-year deal by the Islanders for close to $10 million, but Washington stepped up with a four-year deal worth $14 million.
Kozlov also enjoyed a career-best 25-goal season with the Islanders, but he was offered only a modest raise over his previous one-year deal for $865,000. The Caps went to $5 million for two years. Florida gave Zednik $3.25 million for two years.
