Streit's an All-Star: Deal with It (*This Post Has Been Medically Cleared)

There's some discussion today about how significant All-Star snubs wouldn't have to be snubbed if the NHL didn't desire to have every team represented at the Winter Not-So Classic. Fingers are being directly or indirectly pointed at the New York Islanders for being an example of a crummy team that still gets an All-Star at the expense of, for example, Mike Green.

I love Green. Second year of plying his trade ridiculously well on my fantasy team. He's obviously an All-Star-caliber player, and it's a shame he won't be in Montreal. But you know what I have to say to those who blame the Islanders for his or anyone else's exclusion?

Not this year.

Mark Streit is a legitimate All-Star. His attendance should not be attributed solely to being the best player on his team or having a decent season on a bad team. Yes, the Islanders have sent that sort to the All-Star Game in the past. Not this time. The numbers and impact are all over the place so I won't repeat them. If you are an Islanders fan, this is an All-Star selection you should be proud of.

And not that the selection of Doug Weight wouldn't have been deserved and applauded, but Streit being named is an even better reflection on the organization. Getting Weight to New York was an important and laudable (and relatively easy) move by Garth Snow. But getting Streit and committing to him was shrewd. It's best for the Islanders to be represented by a new arrival who will be a key cog for years to come than by a new arrival who's in his twilight, as bright as it has been, and may be around for only a couple of more months.

Give the rest of the league a chance to say, "Look at this guy the Islanders got," now and for the next four years.

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I want my prize back for saying that Rick DiPietro would not play again until 2009 (what do you mean there was no prize?). Yes, technically, he did return in 2008. But with Yann Danis being shot from Bridgeport to Calgary on a giant rubber band, DiPietro's December 2008 surfacing was hardly a recovery.

The good news is that no one is counting on DiPietro to lead the Islanders to the playoffs. That's not an indictment of DiPietro, but merely a matter of mathematics. So I won't be getting too agitated about his continuing lack of good health. Not this season, anyway. DiPietro should just do whatever is necessary to completely recover—this has to be maddening for him.

I do hear DiPietro and Danis have discussed teaming up with Schwarzeneggar and Van Damme for a sequel to Sudden Death called Emergency Recall.

DiPietro Back in Business

I'm a little surprised at the way the Islanders are handling the return of Rick DiPietro. You'd figure they would give fans ample notice and use the occasion to draw a big crowd. Instead, we learn of his readiness 90 minutes before a rare Friday night home game during a school vacation/holiday weekend. Perhaps the organization felt that DiPietro's status has received too much focus and it was best to run him out there as soon as he was declared fit. Nothing to see here, just hockey. I don't necessarily disagree with this approach—I'm just surprised. And, yes, I know I said we wouldn't see him again until '09. Close, damn close. But, more importantly, it will be good to see a healthy DiPietro back between the pipes.

Mottau KOs Nielsen

After watching numerous replays of the Mike Mottau hit on Frans Nielsen (thanks to hockeyfights.com on youtube), I am very much looking forward to seeing how Colin Campbell handles this incident in light of the league's recent statement on hits to the head.

Mottau has two major things working against him. First, from both the front and rear views, he appears to be leading with the elbow. Second, the front view clearly shows that he has left his feet to deliver the hit.

Mottau also has two major things working for him. First, despite leading with the elbow, he doesn't land it. If the NHL's supplemental disciplinarian is using replays to evaluate the hit, he can focus on the fact that it looks like the actual impact was made with the forearm and hand. Second, it looks like the bulk of the hit was delivered to Nielsen's shoulder, chest, and neck. From the front view, it almost looks like Mottau pushed him over.

Of course, what it looks like isn't justification for anything. But if you're calling for a Thomas Pock treatment or worse, I'm just saying there's a lot of room for interpretation. And the Discipline-Islanders Islanders-Discipline dictionary has a spotty translation history. Can't you just hear the explanation that this hit, while deliberate and illegal, was not actually a blow to the head?

It's strange, though. The more I cast doubt on Mottau receiving appropriate disicpline, the more I am hopeful that this issue has finally evolved to the point that he will. Nielsen did suffer injuries and will miss time.

Thankfully, and most importantly, the injuries do not appear to be too serious. The worst injustice at this point is not being able to have Nielsen on the ice.

More on the NHL Injury Policy

Stu Hackel of The New York Times hockey blog, Slap Shot, today provides a comprehensive look at coverage of the NHL's injury disclosure policy. And before I go any further, I'll point out that I decided to highlight Stu's entry before I reached the end and discovered my own blog mentioned among many in the discussion. But I do, of course, appreciate being included.

Two themes in particular from Hackel's piece caught my interest. First, the policy is now being put under the microscope by more than just Islanders beat writer Greg Logan. Brian Murphy of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jim Kelley of Sports Illustrated, Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com, and Scott Cruickshank of the Calgary Herald have all weighed in on the issue with varying degrees of criticism.

Second, Hackel featured quotes from Jarome Iginla (via an interview with Joe Haggerty of WEEI) and Andrew Brunette (from the Murphy story) that support the argument that players won't necessarily target the injuries of their opponents.

Here are some quotes from Iginla on being targeted and targeting an opponent's injury:

"I personally haven’t been. You know, I can see the one side where it sounds like you don’t want anyone to know if a guy has maybe a bad hand and you’re going to start slashing his hand. But I don’t think that’s going to happen regularly."

"I know when we hear a guy with an injury, we just played [Jason] Arnott. We knew he came back in Nashville, and we knew he came back from a finger injury. We’re trying to be hard on him obviously because it’s his first game back and he plays so well against us, but no one made one comment about let’s go slash his hands or anything like that. I mean, maybe playoff time things heat up even more. But no, we’ve never really talked like that at all."

"Well, we’re probably trying to hit him anyway, but we’re trying to hit him as much as we can."

"And if it’s an ankle injury, there’s nothing a guy is really doing to another guy’s ankle. I guess it would be a hand would come to mind that you might see more, but refs are on that and see that anyway. So yeah, most of them are like yeah, I’m not that personally, obviously, I’m not that worried about it because usually I feel like they’re trying to hit me anyway, or playing against another team’s defensemen and they’re trying to run me into a corner whether my shoulder is good or not."

And from Brunette:

"I don’t get it,'’ 13-year veteran Andrew Brunette of the Wild told Murphy. “I’ve never seen, never heard anybody say, ‘Let’s get him’ because he’s injured.

Muprhy also quoted Sabres coach Lindy Ruff:

"I don’t buy into this thing about being targeted."

Murphy additionally reported the following:

"None of the 10 players interviewed for this story said he ever has been coached to attack a wounded player with intent to further injure him. And none could recall being targeted because of a disclosed injury."

I recommend reading Hackel's whole blog entry, as well as the articles to which he linked, for a wide-ranging view of the issues surrounding the disclosure of injuries in the NHL.

Sequels | Islanders 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT

Most classic horror movies have sequels. The Islanders got about three-quarters of the way through writing their own horror sequel before they decided they'd rather be an emotional roller coaster with an uplifting ending. Still, it was somehow fitting that Chris Campoli was forced to author the first overtime goal with a sequel that I can recall: Campoli 2 (This Time It Counts). But, like most sequels, when you look back, the first one was the real winner.

Despite the win, it still feels like a lead is there only to absorb the blow of giving up goals later—and then the game really begins. I do believe there is a strong psychological component to protecting a lead. You can say, "Just keep playing your game," all you want, but it's extremely difficult to actually do that. The opponent plays differently and the game feels different. Your instincts tell you to protect the lead so you focus on being defensive—even when your brain, and quite possibly your coach, is yelling at you to do otherwise.

With that dynamic at work, fending off a hungry team that's coming at you for 20 minutes is enough of a challenge with an All-Star goalie and a healthy defense. So it was satisfying to see the Isles bend, not break, and then capitalize on an opportunity to come away with two desperately needed points. Yes, you could do without the bend. But if it's progress and learning we're looking for, then consider that coming out of this game with a win is a significant step in the right direction after the Montreal game.

Blowing a lead does not mean it's time to pack it in. Standing up and saying, "We're still here—let's take this," is the response you're looking for. Last night, the Islanders gave the right response. Next, they need to work on coming up with the right response before they give up the lead.

A New Beat; Will the Islanders Be Prepared?; and Josh Bailey Signs

Starting in the very near future, a new beat will be appearing here on Islanders Outsider. Sprinkled in among the outsider's perspectives, media watches, game reports, and general bloggystuffs will be analysis of the Islanders from a fantasy hockey perspective.

This territory was formerly covered in the Blog Box by Tim Marino, operator of The Fantasy Fancy. Tim has joined Jim McGlynn and Jon Jordan in stepping aside from the Blog Box to pursue other endeavors (Jon continues to provide top-shelf coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning on HockeyBuzz.) All three of these gentlemen are good people and quality bloggers. Their presence in the Blog Box, actual and digital, will be missed. They are welcome to contribute to these pages anytime, and I hope we have not seen the last of their participation in the Islanders vibrant online community.

With Tim's blessing, I will attempt to answer two main questions for fantasy hockey players: Who on the Islanders' roster can contribute to your fantasy team, and how? I'll look at those questions from the standard 5x5 league angle, as well as try to help out those of you who can benefit from stats like hits, blocked shots, and faceoff win percentage.

The Islanders, of course, are not blessed with a roster full of superstar stat producers, so the pickings may be thin at times. (And thankfully the NHL still keeps track of stats like hits, blocked shots, and faceoff wins so we have a little more to talk about.) But as an enthusiastic participant in fantasy hockey, I feel that it is a fun component of fandom that also provides a worthwhile service to other fantasy players.

Thanks again to Tim for handing off the beat, and stay tuned!


As for last night's exhibition game with the Devils, the result only concerns me as a symptom of a larger problem—that the combination of a shortened training camp, a pile of injuries, and a new system to learn are conspiring to keep the Islanders from hitting their stride in time for the start of the season.

It really seems as though the team will have turn on like a switch in order to hit the ground running next Friday in New Jersey. With only three preseason games remaining, we hardly have a well oiled machine here. Maybe those three games will be sufficient to get enough players reasonably fit and comfortable with each other and the system. But, right now, I feel like they need more time.

One thing that will take getting used to is the new injury policy. The idea that players will just not be around with no indication of what they injured, how severe the injury is, or when they will be back is bizarre. But when Andy Sutton is not in the lineup opening night, we'll just have to accept that he's not available and won't be until we see him in uniform again. It's sort of like the NHL's own Witness Security Program. If you see Mary McCormack moving stealthily through the corridors of Nassau Coliseum, don't be alarmed. She's just doing her job.

At least we know where Josh Bailey is today.