Tag Archive for 'pittsburgh-penguins'
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.
No Ted Nolan hasn’t been fired, he’s just been staring at Al Arbour’s stats too long. Arbour retired after 1499 games and Coach Ted apparently likes nice, round numbers. He wants Arbour’s stats to read 1500 games. Arbour is going to rejoin the Islanders for one night only to get to the milestone. The NHL has approved the move, and the 75-year old Arbour has requested no additional fan-fare from the Islanders regarding the game. This game just became a “must get tickets” game for me.
Hall of Fame coach Al Arbour will return to Long Island to coach his 1,500th regular season game with the Islanders on Saturday, November 3 when the team hosts Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Nassau Coliseum at 7:00 pm. The legendary coach celebrates his 75th birthday on November 1.
Earlier this week Arbour accepted an invitation from Ted Nolan to run the team for one last game and reach the milestone of 1,500 games coached with the franchise he led to four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 - 1983. Arbour will sign a one-day contract on Friday, November 2 and lead the team the following night against the Penguins.
“This is an incredible gesture by Ted and the Islanders,” Arbour said this morning from his summer home in Ontario. “I am flattered that Ted thought of me and I wouldn’t miss this night for the world. I told the team that I do not want any pre-game fanfare. I’m there to coach the game and help Ted and my Islanders try to earn two points against a very tough team.”
Nolan explains why he extended the invitation to Arbour: “Every day last season I would walk by that big board outside our locker room at the Coliseum that lists the franchise’s award winners and milestones,” said Nolan. “And every day it would kill me when I’d see Coach Arbour made it to 1,499 games.
“I asked (GM) Garth Snow if we could bring Coach back for one more game and to ask the NHL office to recognize it. They did, Coach Arbour emphatically said he was on board and now I can’t wait. It’s going to be an amazing night, I can guarantee you that. To me, Al Arbour and Scotty Bowman are the two greatest coaches in NHL history.”
[UPDATE] The press release has been posted on NewYorkIslanders.com.
I admit I missed last night’s game what with my fantasy baseball draft and a couple of games absolutely critical to my March Madness bracket going on. Thanks to Stuey from Tarrytown for the constant updates. Big time win for the Isles. Stuey, an ex-Whaler fan (those guys are everywhere on the East Coast) says the Isles came out on fire. We’ll need more of that this weekend. Here’s what some people were saying after the game:
“It’s the biggest time of the year,” Viktor Kozlov told Newsday. ”If we continue to play this way, we have a very good chance to make the playoffs.”
“There’s 10 games, and everybody should answer the bell,” Ryan Smyth said to Newsday. ”With what went on the last couple of days with Yash, he responded very well. He’s a leader, and he showed that tonight. He played well in his own zone and capitalized on offense to get an assist on that one goal. Overall, I think everybody contributed, and Ricky was the backbone again.”
“(DiPietro) made some good saves, and we also weren’t able to put in a bunch of pucks that were laying behind him or laying around him,” Sidney Crosby told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“There was more stuff after the whistle than in any other game we’ve had for a while,” Penguins right winger Colby Armstrong told the Pittsburgh paper. “We knew it was going to be a heated game.”
“I believe we have confidence in our game with Ricky in there,” Islanders coach Ted Nolan told the Associated Press. “He was one of the big reasons we won.”
James Mirtle enjoyed today’s Islanders/Penguins game too.
I caught the tail end of the Islanders’ 6-5 win over Pittsburgh today, and I don’t know if it was due to the fact it was a President’s Day matinée, but it sure was a nutty contest. Eleven goals in all, including a Ryan Malone hat trick (his second against the Islanders this season) and four assists from Sidney Crosby, who was the subject of a nice shadow job by Trent Hunter all game long.
No one is talking about the Islanders, but their makeshift lineup looked surprisingly adept today. Coach Ted Nolan dealt huge minutes to Tom Poti, Brendan Witt and newcomer Marc-Andre Bergeron, and all played reasonably well (with MAB clocking in at +2 in his first game as an Isle).
It’s sort of a ragtag group with Alexei Yashin and Radek Martinek out of the lineup, but they play well as a team and will outwork anyone in the Eastern Conference.
Mirtle will be live blogging all the deals on the February 27th NHL Trade Deadline.
“Given that the buyers and sellers have split off in relatively equal numbers, it could be a busy one.
Where do Garth Snow and Charles Wang fit into all of this? They’re probably buyers, but I honestly just liked the picture.”
I was going to post this link anyways, but today’s victory makes it all the sweeter. LCS Hockey updated their Cool List today but it looks like they read it all upside down.
1. Marc-Andre Fleury, Pittsburgh Penguins: Fleury was gonna be No. 1 again no matter what, he’s just that cool, but he secured the spot with some remarkable clutch saves against Martin Havlat and the Chicago Blackhawks.
27. New York Islanders: I’m sorry, but Alexei Yashin? Miroslav Satan? Viktor Kozlov? If the NHL had an AV club, this is it. Their GM is Garth Snow. End of discussion. And it hurts, because Mike Bossy and Pat LaFontaine are two LCS icons.
Looks like the Captain of the Football team (Fluery) just fumbled the football. AV Club for life!
Hola! Buenos dias. It’s murph back from Costa Rica this afternoon, 8 days in sunny paradise while winter finally showed up in NY. Which is awesome, because I’m going snowboarding this weekend. This unemployment stuff kicks ass. I think Tom’s at the game, he emailed me while I was gone to see if I wanted to go. I just woke up and got coffee and sat down for period number two…what a doozy. Less than a minute in and the Penguins take a 3-1 lead on a wrap-around that trickled across the line followed by the Islanders storming back with 3 goals to take a 4-3 lead right now with about 5 minutes left. First Simon, then Blake on an awesome mid-air deflection and finally Kozlov. I’ll be here the rest of the game with updates.
[End Period 2: Islanders 4 Penguins 4] The Isles wrap up the period with back to back penalties for Pittsburgh’s second 5-on-3 PP of the afternoon and another Pens PP goal (full disclosure: I have Pittsburgh’s PP in my fantasy hockey league playoffs..yes!). What’s the NHL record for most 5-on-3 PK’s in the season? The Isles must be getting close.
Costa Rica was a blast. My first time out of the country, other than 2 trips to Canada. My first swim up wetbar, my first deep-sea fishing trip, my first 3 foot mahi mahi catch, AND the first time I was able to use Yahoo Sports NHL streaming. I caught a little bit of the second period of the Toronto game while we got showered and dresses for dinner that night. Pretty cool for the out of town fan.
[13:00 Period 3: Islanders 5 Penguins 5] Ryan Malone…Islander killer. One minute into the third, Malone picks up his second hat trick of the season versus the Islanders giving him 12 on the season with 6 of those vs the Islanders. Malone whacked at a Crosby rebound and then got a second chance with his own rebound right in front of the Islanders net for the 5-4 Pens lead. Chris Simon got it right back for the Islanders, picking up his second of game for the 5-5 tie. It’s been a highly entertaining game. Isles about to get a PP. Speaking of Islander killers, Crosby has 4 assists.
[FINAL: Islanders 6 Penguins 5] GOAL!! 40 seconds left, Crosby dances back and forth behind the net with the puck, he centers it and DP comes up with a big save. The Isles break out 2-on-2, Hilbert over to Sillinger…wrist shot, he SCORES!! With less than 30 seconds left and the Islanders win a wild afternoon game at the Coliseum. The win gives the Islanders 68 points on the season and they jump into a tie for the 8th and final Eastern Conference playoff spot with Toronto and Montreal. Nice job by the Orange and Blue, I really hope Tommy went to the game today it was fun.
Compliments of the guys over at Deadspin.com.
This blondie raised her sign loud and proud at a recent Pens game. 
Be sure to catch Witt thumping Sid the Kid at around the :45 second mark.
[ev type="youtube" data="0vQJZWYOnkU"][/ev]
Eric from Off Wing Opinion puts together his NHL Christmas list over at NBCSports.com where he contributes a weekly column. Number one on the list is some R-E-S-P-E-C-T for Coach Nolan and the Islanders.
An apology for Ted Nolan and the New York Islanders: Like a lot of other hockey bloggers, the circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the New York Islanders this Summer was more than enough for me to write off the team’s chances this season. But despite all the comedy that was generated by the dismissal of Neil Smith as general manager and the hiring of then-goalie Garth Snow as his replacement, what most folks tended to ignore was the presence of Ted Nolan behind the bench, the same Ted Nolan who was partially responsible for the revival of the Sabres in Buffalo in the early 1990s.
Eric even plugs IslandersArmy when mentioning the Zhitnik trade. Muchos gracias! Interesting web-traffic numbers - I thought we’d get a nice bump from NBCSports.com but it was more like a blip. We get a much bigger bump from Off Wing Opinion when we are mentioned there. Check out the whole article, he’s got four more Christmas Wishes and an update on the Penguins’ sale situation (speaking of which, an announcement is due later today).
Just two days after abusing the Flyers for a goal and 5 assists in a career high 6 point game, Sidney Crosby led the streaking Penguins to their fourth straight win 7-4 over the Islanders last night. Crosby had a goal and 3 assists, giving him 10 points in the past two games. Ryan Malone was the lucky recipient of those 3 Crosby assists for the hat trick.
The Islanders defense continues to play poorly, and the team can’t stay out of the penalty box either. The Pens’ PP was 1 for 10, which is a pretty good night for the Isles’ PK - but 10 penalties are way too many. The Islanders PK unit ends up being on the ice and playing defensively too much for the offense to get any rhythm. Not to blame the refs for the loss, but some of those calls were pretty questionable while other Pittsburgh infractions were let go.
The Isles were outshot 29-13 in the first two periods and trailed 5-1. Coach Nolan replaced DP with Dunham to rest DP for tonight’s game. Malone made it 6-1 eight minutes into the third beating Dunham. The Isles made it a little interesting with a 3 goal rally in a three minute span, including two PP goals. Poti (PP), Blake (PP), and York scored to make it 6-4. The Isles PP was 3/6 on the night, a definite improvement over past efforts. Malone iced the game with his hat trick with less than five minutes to play. The Isles and Pens end up splitting four games in three weeks with each other.
Bad, bad night for the Isles, other than the PP performance. After five days off, they should have been rested and ready. Now they have to host the Southeast Division leading Thrashers tonight. Hopefully Yashin will return, but even if he doesn’t, the Islanders need to right the ship with a win.
Video highlights from NHL.com
