Islanders Team Report; Courtesy Yahoo! Sports

Inside Shots

Neither the Islanders’ recent roll back into playoff contention—nor their season-long dominance of the rival New Jersey Devils—could be sustained into Tuesday’s trade deadline.

Despite their six-game winning streak overall and their head-to-head streak against the Devils halted at five straight wins in a 4-2 loss Saturday in Newark, the Islanders have presented GM Garth Snow with ample reason to resist selling off part at the 3 p.m. trade deadline before Tuesday’s game against Pittsburgh at Nassau Coliseum.

Asked this weekend if he expected to be a buyer or a seller, Snow told reporters he’s “a builder,” meaning he’s looking for deals that make sense for the Isles’ immediate and long-term futures.

By signing heart-and-soul winger Trent Hunter to a five-year contract extension Friday, Snow removed one potential trade chip from a list of pending unrestricted free agents that includes forwards Miroslav Satan, Mike Comrie, Ruslan Fedotenko and Josef Vasicek. Despite the Isles entering Saturday just one point behind the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-place teams in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, it remains possible that at least one of those players might be dealt before Tuesday’s deadline to avoid last summer’s mass exodus during free agency, including marquee deadline acquisition Ryan Smyth.

Still, the Islanders might be more compelled to stand pat at the deadline after announcing Saturday that checking center Mike Sillinger, who they were hoping would return from the injured list within the next week, instead will undergo season-ending hip surgery this week in Colorado.

Devils 4, Islanders 2: Ted Nolan didn’t have much to complain about during the Islanders’ season-long six-game winning streak, but he was unhappy with how his team lost for the first time in more than two weeks overall—and for the first time since last season against the rival Devils. New Jersey bombarded Rick DiPietro with 20 shots in the final period, scoring twice on admitted errors by Isles fill-in defenseman Aaron Johnson to snap a 2-2 tie in the final 20 minutes. But Nolan saw the meltdown coming in his team’s performance long before Jersey’s Zach Parise and Brian Gionta buried those goals.

“I don’t know if they took over in the third period as much as they took over the game in the first period,” Nolan said. “I don’t know if we thought we were just going to show up and win. But the reason we were winning was by doing all the simple things, and tonight we got away from that. Look where we were three weeks ago compared to where we are today. You make ground. There’s always tomorrow, but we have to regroup and get back to what made us successful the previous six games.”

Notes, Quotes

• Trent Hunter’s five-year contract extension is worth $10 million, a reasonable rate for a homegrown 27-year-old player who currently ranks fourth on the team in scoring while also excelling in a checking and penalty-killing role.

“We’ve said it a lot: Trent Hunter is the kind of player and person we want as a core player for the New York Islanders,” GM Garth Snow said. “Our team theme this season is heart, grit and character and that’s a perfect description of Trent.”

Since coming to the Islanders in 2000 from the Anaheim system, Hunter has appeared in 307 NHL games, totaling 158 points. He was a finalist for the Calder Trophy in 2003-04, scoring 25 goals with 26 assists during his rookie season.

“This is what I was determined to see happen all along—a long-term deal,” Hunter said. “Even though I could have been an unrestricted free agent in the summer, I never gave any thought to playing anywhere else. I’m very proud to be an Islander every day and I didn’t have any interest in being anything else other than a New York Islander. The contract got done with a lot of respect and class shown on both sides, so now it’s back to the race for the playoffs.”

• Defenseman Bruno Gervais returned to the lineup after missing six games with a strained oblique muscle. D Drew Fata, who appeared in two games, was returned to AHL Bridgeport.

Quote To Note: “The effort was there but I don’t think we had enough fight in us. We’ve been playing well, but we’re by no means in any position to take a night off and just start dropping games.”—Captain Bill Guerin after the Islanders’ six-game winning streak ended with a 4-2 loss Saturday at New Jersey.

Roster Report

Goaltenders: Rick DiPietro, Wade Dubielewicz.

Defensemen: Radek Martinek, Freddy Meyer, Aaron Johnson, Bruno Gervais, Bryan Berard, Marc-Andre Bergeron.

First Line: Andy Hilbert, Mike Comrie, Bill Guerin.

Second Line: Ruslan Fedotenko, Josef Vasicek, Trent Hunter.

Third Line: Sean Bergenheim, Richard Park, Miroslav Satan.

Fourth Line: Chris Simon, Frans Nielsen, Blake Comeau.

Player Notes:

• LW Ruslan Fedotenko, a soon-to-be unrestricted free agent who could be moved at Tuesday’s trade deadline, has six goals in his past nine appearances after totaling just eight goals in his first 50 appearances.

• C Frans Nielsen’s assist on Fedotenko’s goal was his first point in 10 games since he was recalled from AHL Bridgeport earlier this month.

• C Josef Vasicek has two goals and six assists in his past seven appearances.