Dwayne Roloson Joins the Islanders

TSN is reporting that goaltender Dwayne Roloson has signed a two-year deal with the New York Islanders for $5-million.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=283429

Satan and The Tank go to the Penguins; Isles add 6

The Penguins raided the Isles pantry on Thursday, signing Miroslav Satan to a one-year deal that TSN is reporting to be worth $3.5 million. The Pens also picked up former Islander Ruslan Fedotenko to a one-year, $2.5 million contract as well.

The Isles also announced the signing of six players for depth in the organization. All of the following have signed one-year, two-way contracts according to the team: C Mike Iggulden (formerly of the Worcester Sharks), D Brett Skinner (Providence Bruins), F Kurtis McLean (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) and F Mitch Fritz (Hartford), D Chris Lee (Iowa Stars ) and G Peter Mannino from the University of Denver.

Iggulden and Skinner were AHL All-Stars in 2007-08. Skinner and Mannino also attended the University of Denver together.

Yesterday the Islanders announced the signing of G Yann Danis. Presumably, he and Mannino will be manning the nets in Bridgeport this season.

Weight... Don't Tell Me... Islanders sign veteran Doug Weight to 1-year deal

NEW YORK (AP)—The New York Islanders agreed to terms Wednesday with veteran forward Doug Weight on a one-year deal worth $1.75 million plus incentives.

The 37-year-old center, who had 10 goals and 15 assists in 67 games with the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks last season, is the second major free agent signing by the Islanders since bidding got under way on Tuesday. New York inked defenseman Mark Streit a day earlier to a five-year, $20.5 million deal.

Weight is a four-time All-Star who was a member of the Carolina Hurricanes’ team that captured the Stanley Cup in 2006. He has 265 NHL goals and 969 points in 1,131 career games over 16 seasons.

“Bringing Doug aboard was a priority for us,” Islanders general manager Garth Snow said in a statement. “He not only brings a wealth of NHL games and experience with him, but he’s the type of player we want our younger players to learn from.”

He had three goals and 13 assists in 23 playoff games during the championship run with Carolina, after being acquired by the Hurricanes at the trade deadline, and famously struggled to raise the Cup despite a painful separated injury that knocked him out of the last two games of the finals.

Weight, a native of Warren, Mich., was on the U.S. Olympic team in 1998 and 2002 and was a teammate with current Islanders captain Bill Guerin. He ranks eighth among active NHL players with 704 assists and 12th in points.

He is also fifth in assists among active U.S.-born players and eighth in points.

The Islanders also announced the signing Wednesday of goalie Yann Danis to a one-year, two-way contract. Danis, who starred at Brown University, is 81-67-18 in 176 career AHL games with a 2.78 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage.

No Complaints!

Let's see. Garth Snow signs Mark Streit for five years and just over 20 million bucks.

The Blackhawks admittedly overpay for defenseman Brian Campbell to the tune of $57.12 million over an eight-year deal.

The Ranger$ jump back into the hilarity by giving Wade Redden a six-year deal worth $6.5 million per year. If you're scoring at home, that's six years of getting booed at for the former Islanders' draft pick.

Not to be undone, the Maple Laffs restore order in the word by giving the Finger to their fans (I couldn't resist) by signing little-known defenseman Jeff Finger $3.75 million a year. This is a dude who was scratched for five of Colorado's ten playoff games.

Streit scored 13 goals and had 49 assists for 62 points in only an average of seventeen minutes on the ice. While he isn't well-known for being an especially adept defensive force, Streit is not exactly Marc Andre Bergeron either. Besides, we have the defensive horses on the Island and in Bridgeport. What the Islanders needed was some help on the power play and in Mark Streit, we finally have a power play quarterback.

So, if you look just at the numbers, the Islanders made out like bandits on the first day of free agency. At and average of just over 4 million dollars a year, they brought in one of the key components of Montreal's league-leading power play from a year ago and signed a relatively young man for 5 years. Streit--as Greg Logan mentions in today's Newsday--was also the captain of the Swiss National Team so he should bring more professionalism and leadership into the room next season.

There were other rumors regarding who the Isles had made offers to yesterday as well. Brian Rolston reportedly got an offer from Snow before deciding to make his return to the Devils. On Hockeybuzz, there was a posted rumor that the team had made a monster offer to Marian Hossa, which was quickly removed from the site. That one had me howling to my friends in the office. Why would Snow offer so much cash to a player who is not exactly known as a great "team guy"--especially after Snow had his oft-stated goal of letting the young guys play.

Rumors are just rumors...and in the internet age, you have to use common sense when you read this stuff.

We'll have updates today as often as we can...and if they are necessary.

ISLANDERS SIGN D MARK STREIT

New York Islanders signed free-agent defenseman Mark Streit to a five-year contract worth $20.5 million on Tuesday night.

Last year with Montreal, Streit scored seven of his 13 goals and had 27 of his 49 assists on the power play.

“Mark was someone we targeted from the beginning and we’re thrilled he’s an Islander,” Islanders general manager Garth Snow said in a statement. “Mark provides us with the stability on the blueline that we were looking for.”

Streit has 25 goals and 84 assists in 205 career NHL games. Last season, Streit finished tied for 11th in the NHL in power play scoring and finished tied for second among defensemen.

The 30-year-old played eight seasons of professional hockey in Switzerland before coming to North America after he was drafted 262nd overall by Montreal in 2004.

Free Agency is Almost Upon Us. Don't Expect Much

With the renewed interest in trying to build the franchise back up by playing the kids, the Islanders will still have to sign and pay some veteran players to make the floor of the NHL salary cap. In case you missed it, the cap for this upcoming season is $56.7 million and the floor is just a shade over $40 million. The Isles are nowhere near $40 million for the upcoming season--and Greg Logan is reporting that the team bought out Shawn Bates this week-- so somebody out there is gonna get paid.

The McCabe rumors in Toronto are purely speculation at this point. In fact, both dailies in TO (the Sun and the Star) are reporting that Leafs "management" are mulling over the prospects of just having Bryan McCabe sit home and not attend training camp if he is not moved by then. Because of his no-cut/no-trade contract, the Leafs can't even send McCabe to the AHL Marlies to keep his salary off the big club's books like some teams have done with overpaid players from previous regimes.

Naturally, because McCabe's wife is from Long Island and the family has a home there, the media think the Isles should just be happy to take this egregious salary off the Leafs hands without some other kind of compensation. Chris Botta mentioned that the Isles need to have the deal sweetened before anything like this could happen and man, I happen to agree.

What it surprise me if McCabe played for the Islanders this season? No. Not at all. It would surprise me if the Islanders gave up anything more than a conditional pick for McCabe and some other considerations (cash or picks) from Toronto. The CBA, as currently constructed, does not allow for one team to assume a large chunk of a player's contract while he plays on a different team than the one he signed the contract with. Brian Burke is trying to get that one changed but as of right now, no dice. Of course, there are other ways of "compensating" any team that takes on McCabe's contract. This is the NHL. There's gonna be a loophole.

Other rumors floating around have the Islanders making a play fro superpest Sean Avery. I could write books about why I don't want this to happen. ESPN's Scott Burnside makes a great point with a quote of Avery's where he said that he never wants to play in Canada because Canadians take hockey too seriously.

Umm...come again? Do you want to get behind a guy and pay him when you know that hockey isn't his first priority?

If Avery ends up playing for the Islanders--and I think he would really, really like to do so now that the Rangers have given up on him--I'll be about as happy with him as I was during the Yashin Era. He's wearing the sweater and all, but he'll embarrass me nonetheless.

Saying that...the Isles could use some of his hyper-competitiveness. Is it worth putting him in the room with a ton of impressionable kids? Do we need Blake Comeau and Kyle Okposo thinking that interning at Vogue is a better idea than playing hockey and working at their real careers? What happens between him and Mike Comrie when Avery hits on Hilary Duff?

It's just a nightmare waiting to happen. I was one of the few who loved what the Islanders did at the draft (although people are starting to come around if I am to believe what I have read) and the last thing they need is to bring a disturber like Avery into the room to brainwash the kids.

Ideally--and I don't know how much is left in the tank--I would like to see the Isles go for Brian Rolston; who almost signed with the Islanders when he went to the Wild earlier in his career. Rolston is a hard worker who gives all he has on every shift. If he is willing to play with the kids and show them the light, then I would be all for overpaying Brian Rolston for two or three years so that he can work with Richard Park, Mike Sillinger, Bill Guerin, and Brendan Witt and mold the next generation.

Enjoy this weekend and all the speculation. Come Tuesday, the landscape of the league is going to change. There really is no off-season any more in professional sports.

We'll have more on Shawn Bates upcoming once the news of his buyout becomes official.

The Mess in Toronto

While we all wonder what the heck is going on in Toronto, it is important to note that some good can come out of the circus for the New York Islanders.

In case you haven't heard, last week the Anaheim Ducks denied a request by the Leafs to interview Ducks' GM Brian Burke for the same position in Toronto. Burke's all-but-coronation had been all the talk in Canada for weeks and many considered it to be a foregone conclusion that Burke was going to land there.

Of course, no one had officially asked the owners of the Ducks. Now Burke is allegedly trying to hammer out a longer-term deal with Anaheim and is going to work through the last year of his contract.

What does this mean for the Islanders? Well, speculation was that Burke had already made noise about buying out the remainder of defenseman Bryan McCabe's contract; just as the Isles did with Alexei Yashin last summer.

McCabe as a free-agent would lead to more "he's returning to Long Island" talk since his wife is from the area and her family is all on the island. Every time the TO media needed to move McCabe and his suffocating contract, they always speculated that Bryan would be good with returning to the Islanders because he got his start there.

Would this be a good move for the Islanders? Well, I suppose it would.

McCabe has developed into a dangerous power-play defenseman with a hell of a shot and a bit of a nasty streak. He had one great season where he was scoring goals like a bigger Paul Coffey and the Leafs decided to drop a bank safe full of teachers' pensions onto his lap. So he signed a long-term deal for like $5m a year like anyone should. This money--and the stranglehold the fans thought it put on the Leafs' salary cap--made him a bit of a whipping boy in Toronto. Hey, remember, these are the fans that booed Larry Murphy out of town and to Detroit where he won a Stanley Cup!

If I am Garth Snow--and I am not--if McCabe is bought out and expresses a desire to come back to the Islanders, I think he can expect a bit of home-town discount. He may have been making over five million bucks a year to get his pride stepped on up north but on the Islanders, I think a three-year deal is ok to make. There is no way that Bryan McCabe should make more money than a warrior like Brendan Witt so for 3 years I am thinking between eight- and 9.5 million is about right. He is younger than Witt and is tough player but Witt means more to the leadership core you're developing with the young guys.

My wife asked me if there were any other former Islanders that I hoped would find their way back to the Islander. I guess it is worth noting is that Calgary defensemen Adrian Aucoin will be unrestricted pretty soon (after next season) as well and he may want to return to where his career took off. Of course, Chicago signed him to a four-year, $16m deal as a free agent when he left NY but I doubt that he is going to see that kind of scratch again. Aucoin has been hassled by injury since leaving the Isles and worse, he was exposed as being a much better player when paired with Kenny Jonsson on the Isles. Jonsson had a way of making the heavy-lifting look easy, didn't he?

Mike Milbury didn't think Aucoin was worth what the Blackhawks gave him and even though I was a fan of Aucoin's, I didn't either. If he wants to play for the Islanders again, I'd give him just over $2m a year. Someone else might give him more but as much as I like Aucoin's game--it's similar to McCabe's but perhaps less nasty--we already have younger guys who are ready for bigger roles on the Islander blueline. Another year of development for the guys next season and the Isles will know what kind of players they have for the future. We see guys like Bruno and Campoli who are regulars when healthy. Andy Sutton is still a young guy and so is Radek Martinek. Aaron Johnson is young and proved himself capable at times last season as well.

Mike Peca will be unrestricted this summer, too, you know. Don't think he should come back.

Tonight at 8:00PM on the NHL Network is a show I have been waiting to get for a while: Classic Series 1993--Penguins vs Islanders. Two words: David effing Volek. Make sure you check it out. They're also playing the 1984 playoff game vs. the Rangers where Ken Morrow won it in OT on a little snap shot toward the net. Just like Pierre McGuire says, you don't always have to drill it.

Also worth nothing is that beginning May 16 the NHL Network will be broadcasting games for this year's Memorial Cup. Having never really seen too many Junior games aside from stuff online, I am really looking forward to this.

Why Not Take a Shot at a RFA?

Last year, the Oilers got vindictive and we saw GM Kevin Lowe tendering offer sheets last summer to Buffalo's Thomas Vanek and Anaheim's Dustin Penner. The Sabres panicked and signed Vanek to a way-too-big deal because they were afraid of the good will lost in the city when Chris Drury and Danny Briere skated away.

Some in the NHL were shouting about the Oilers playing dirty pool, but in a way, doesn't that send the message to the Oilers fans--who had just seen Ryan Smyth leave the province--that the team was trying to get better, faster? So what if it ruffles some feathers?

The Isles are in a pretty good position this off-season. The team is pretty much set on defense (another puck-mover would be nice) and in net with Rick DiPietro, of course. But if you take a look at the list of restricted free agents, you'll find two very interesting names and each would fill a need in a most desperate way.

First off, Jeff Carter. Oh, wouldn't it be sweet for the Isles to land a Flyer just coming into his prime? Carter totally came of age while Mike Richards was out injured and made himself very, very valuable. The Flyers have committed large dollars to a host of players on the team already and may not be able to match anything Carter might find this offseason.

Think about it. If you're Carter and you see long-term deals and long-term dollars in place for Kimmo Timonen; Mike Richards; Daniel Briere; and Scott Hartnell, do you wonder where you fit in? Also, the Flyers manager, Paul Holmgren, is going to have to find dollars for guys like Braydon Coburn and Scottie Upshall. He's got goalie Martin Biron for a couple more and he is going to have to find out--soon--whether Biron is the guy who can take them where they need to be.

Suffice to say that Carter is going to be a very attractive restricted free agent because of what the Flyers have already committed in salary going forward. It would be great to see Garth Snow swoop in and make the guy an offer.

The other name that jumps out is that of Washington defenseman Mike Green. Green, who led the NHL in goals by a defenseman (18) this past year, is going to be wined and dined this summer for sure. He has a different deal in Washington than Carter does in Philly in that Green could decide to hitch his wagon long-term to the Ovechkin Express and see how that ride turns out. My guess is that he won't be dissatisfied. Washington has no long-term deals on the books aside from Alex's mega-deal so the Caps should be in a good position to make good for the NHL most exciting young defenseman.

But, you know, we can dream. He does fill that glaring need on the Islanders blue line.

What the Andy Sutton signing means for the Islanders

I really liked the signing of Andy Sutton. As they say, you can't teach size and at 6-6, Sutton is one big dude. You add in a nice mean streak and the Ludwig-like willingness to block shots and you have a great policeman on the ice for the team.

Isn't it amazing that shot-blocking is almost a found art these days? In the "old NHL", it seemed that you had a few guys like Jay McKee and Sean Hill who were willing to block shots, but very few others. Maybe that was because with all of the hooking and whatnot that was going on it was hard enough to block a shot when you're holding a guy by the sweater.

I was asked by a friend if the Isles overpaid for Sutton. That's a tough one. Being below the salary cap allows Garth Snow the ability to pay higher salaries to the guys that they feel are the best fit for the kind of team Ted Nolan wants to put on the ice. So in that regard, I guess that would make the Islanders a better alternative than another squad who offers less. Coach Nolan had a quote that I read where he said that Andy Sutton is the kind of player the team wants to "commit" to. To me, telling a player that you want to commit to him is not different than committing to a spouse in a lot of respects. Sutton is no different than any other player that signed with the Islanders this off-season--he has something to prove (in his case, that he can stay healthy while playing a rough and tough style)--and having a team court you and give you the opportunity has to be attractive.

Some other interesting news over the weekend:

Steve Zipay in Newsday is reporting that the new upgrades at the Coliseum won't be in place until 2011 at the earliest. Wow. The Giants can get a new stadium and the Yankees can get a new stadium and the county can't agree to do something beneficial for the rink and the surrounding area for 18 months. I am so glad that I am not paying taxes in Nassau County. That's all I can say about that.

Eklund is also reporting that the Islanders are talking to Jason Allison, a guy who hasn't played in like forever because of injuries and personal issues that kept him out of the league last year. I really liked him when he played for the Bruins and Capitals because he was productive as heck and looked like he was able to skate just a little better than I could. Not sure how he will fit into the New NHL where skating is a priority but much like I said with Andy Sutton, you can't teach goal scoring and production.

Anther rumor online that got some traction in the Canadian press was that Michael Peca was looking to sign with the Rangers. Not sure if this was floated to get the Leafs to move or not, but it seems entirely likely to me. The Rangers are paying Drury and Gomez a ton of money and you know Jagr is getting his chunk already. If they had to trade Matt Cullen to move his salary, I am guessing that the Rangers are up on that cap pretty hard.

With any of these rumors, you have to take them with a grain of salt; for lack of a better cliché. All we can do is wait and see how it all goes down.

There's a new sheriff in town

ANDY SUTTON ADDED TO BLUELINE
Chris Botta New York Islanders
Aug 10, 2007, 6:40 PM EDT
8-year NHL veteran defenseman signed to 3-year deal

The New York Islanders have signed 6-foot-6 defenseman Andy Sutton to a three-year contract. Sutton, who will enter his ninth NHL season in 2007-08, scored two goals and added 14 assists for Atlanta last season and is known for his shot-blocking and physical play. Despite playing in just 55 games last season, Sutton ranked 19th in the NHL in blocked shots with 162. In 2005-06, Sutton ranked fourth in the NHL with 195 blocked shots.



We'll have more this week regarding all of the new guys in a roster review...

Arron Asham signs with Devils

from Newsday.com

Former Islander Arron Asham signs with the Devils

Right wing Arron Asham, who appeared in a career-high 80 games with the New York Islanders last season, was signed as a free agent by the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday.

"Arron Asham is a veteran forward who brings a level of toughness, intensity, and feistiness to our lineup," Devils chief executive Lou Lamoriello said in a statement.

The 29-year-old Asham has played seven seasons in the NHL -- the last four with the Islanders. He had 11 goals and 12 assists last season. His career totals are 58 goals and 67 assists.

Trent Hunter signs a one-year deal

I was hoping that they wouldn't even go to the arbitration hearing but the Isles and RW Trent Hunter agreed on a one-year contract after the arbitrator ruled in favor of the Islanders. All reports are that the hearing was amicable and that no one went in there wth the intent to make the other party cry...which is cool since Mike Milbury once made Tommy Salo cry like a widow at one of these hearings.

The key thing now is for both parties to come together and work on something substantial for Trent Hunter. He'd be an unrestricted free agent next year because he will be over 27 years of age. Hunter is totally a key player going forward. We need to lock him up and keep him on the Island.

According to TSN.ca, the deal is worth $1.55 million.

The New Guys

The Islanders had a press conference to introduce the four new guys: Mike Comrie; Ruslan Fedotenko; Jon Sim; and new captain Bill Guerin. All of the pictures can be seen at the team's official website.

The Isles apparently surprised Guerin by naming him captain. Again, I think it is a good move.

The most famous of the rumor sites is reporting that the team is on the verge of a "major" trade. Could this be with Phoenix? No idea. Generally my Spider-Sense lets me know when the Isles are up to something. Nothing so far.

Garth Snow

After losing co-captains Chris Drury (Ranger$) and Daniel Briere (Flyer$) to free agency, the Buffalo Sabres weren't going to let high-scoring Thomas Vanek get away after the Oilers game of dirty pool. Buffalo matched Edmonton's seven-year, $50-million contract offer that they could make to Vanek as a restricted free-agent.

Anyone else like me and appreciating the Islanders' Jedi Council a little more after that kind of news? I mean, we all were incredibly bummed when Ryan Smyth left for Colorado. Rightfully so. And the fact that the team was seemingly inactive in the free agency period afterward while other teams were gobbling up the talent was hard to take. But after the Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie signings, you have to feel good that the Isles didn't jump in and begin overpaying for players who simply aren't worth what they received. It would have been another Yashin nightmare.

I like the Guerin and Comrie signings a lot. The one thing that I always wondered about Mike Comrie was whether or not he had maturity issues because again, for a young guy, he sure has moved around a lot. My guess is that since Ted Nolan has been so good at getting players to work up to their capabilities that we are going to be very impressed with the contributions in this upcoming season from Comrie.

The Guerin signing makes a ton of sense as well. He played well last year and is another locker room leader. Remember--they guy was a big voice for the players during the lockout. He must be one of those players who guys respect if they allowed him (or, most likely) trusted him to be a player voice in the bargaining. The Islanders Jedi Council has a good track record of bringing in the right kind of guys to shore up the leadership core. The pro scouts have done Garth and Mr. Wang proud in the past.

There are two paths teams can take in the pursuit of free agents. The first is to be prepared to pay the right guy for the right reasons. That was obviously what the team wanted to do with Ryan Smyth. The second is do band-aid the team the way the Flyers always have. Doesn't it seem like they always throw money at big-name guys to appease the fans? (Just an observation.) St. Louis tossed $18 million at Paul Kariya and I'm sorry, but Paul Kariya's contributions are not worth $6 million a year. I'm so glad Garth Snow was prudent on that one.

The deal to acquire Ed Jovanoski from Phoenix is intriguing. I mean, I can see not wanting to move right after you built a new house. But let's face it: the Coyotes are going nowhere. From a pure competition standpoint, you would think that he would want to move. But once families get involved--see Michael Nylander and Chris Pronger--everything gets chucked out the window. Still, we'd love to see it happen.

Noticed this on Newsday.com today...

WILD SIGNS EX-ISLANDER

HILL DESPITE BAN. Just when Sean Hill thought a steroid scandal might mark the end of his NHL career, the Minnesota Wild signed him to a one-year deal. The 37-year-old defenseman played for the Islanders last season and was suspended hours before their playoff loss to Buffalo on April 20, becoming the first NHL player to be suspended for violating the league's drug policy. He received a 20-game suspension and will miss the first 19 games of this season. The Wild said Hill acknowledged using a doctor-prescribed testosterone booster approved by the NHL, but he tested positive for the anabolic steroid boldenone, which is banned.

(Bill's notes: Docs often prescribe testosterone boosters to people who have abused steroids. Steroids are synthetic testosterone and once you start using a synthetic, your body shuts down that function because it is getting what it needs from the outside. No finger of blame here, just something I learned in college that has been mentioned here and there in the Benoit coverage. Bears a mention in this forum, I thought.)

A Dose of Summer Reality

I've been thinking about hockey a lot lately. I bet you all have been doing the same.

The elation of the springtime was sent crashing to reality as all of the high-priced/high-talent free agents found new homes away from Long Island. One thing is for sure: the more you look at the numbers, the more and more it looks like the whole lockout was a waste of everyone's time.

Devils: C Dainius Zubrus (six years, $20.4-million)

Rangers: C Scott Gomez (Devils, 7 years, $51.5 million), C Chris Drury (Sabres, 5 years, $35.25 million)

Flyers: C Daniel Briere (8-year, $52 million), D Kimmo Timonen (6-years, $37.8 million), F Scott Hartnell (6-years, $25.2 million).

Toronto: RW Jason Blake (Islanders, 5 years, $20 million)

Canadiens: D Roman Hamrlik (Flames, 4 years, $22 million)

Red Wings D Brian Rafalski (5-years, $30 million)

Colorado D Scott Hannan (4-years, $18 million), LW Ryan Smyth (5-years, $31.25 million)

OK, I think we can safely assume that there are a good number of names on this list that we can qualify as true superstars and many are also difference-makers. I mean, any team who signs Chris Drury--and it pains me to no end to say this because he is now a Ranger--is getting their money's worth. The guy is a winner and he always has been.

Take another look at the list, though, and you'll see the sickness. Some of these dudes are clearly overpaid. All Islander fans can look to the money that Montreal gave Roman (head down; turtle-style) Hamrlik and wonder if he showed up to the negotiation with a weapon and mask on his face. Whether he did or not is immaterial. The guy left the meeting with 22 bags with dollar signs on them. Just crazy, insane money for a guy who plays like he is half-interested.

The same can be said for the Devils and Dainius Zubrus. Good player, sure. Difference-maker? Hard to tell. He has never been in a position to make a real difference after playing with Washington and even with Buffalo this past spring. Do you want to test him out over six years?

How about the Flyers? I mean seriously. If I am a Flyer fan, I have seen this band-aid management style before. They always bring in a high-priced free agent (or three or four) and I'm still trying to remember how many cups this boutique shopping has brought them. Oh, yeah. Zero.

And why pay Scott Hartnell for his alleged potential when he, you know, hasn't proven anything yet? Also, between he and Timonen, you're talking a six-year experiment here. Briere for eight years? That is ridiculous. He's been a top player for a couple of years now. Would he look good on Long Island? Why, yes he sure would. The point here is that no one learned from the Islanders' Yashin debacle. (And yes, I am aware that we have 14 more years of DP in net. Is that a different case? Well, not really.) These long contracts and crazy money pretty much send a flare up to all of the fans of the NHL who suffered through the lockout. You know what that flare says? It says, "The lockout was a joke."

I don't know about you, but I simply cannot stand being played. A year without hockey was like your parents missing your birthday: unconscionable. And yet, we sat there and lapped it up. Why? Because the league said it was for The Good of the Game. Salaries had to come down for the game to survive. And guess what? The average NHL salary is now higher than it was before the lockout occurred. Chew on that for a minute. What does that say to the fans who stood by the league and the game while the players were locked out?

Here's another one for you. Remember how before the lockout there were all of these penny-pincher teams who put together bare-ass teams for little or no money? Remember how the Edmontons and Calgarys and Floridas of the world complained about the other teams in the league and how they were being so outspent by the Rangers and Caps and Leafs that they just couldn't compete? Well, now thanks to the lockout, those teams are spending pretty good money on their teams--money they claimed that they did not have before--but now they just suddenly have it? I know the Canadian dollar has come up a ton in the last few years and that might be a part of the suddenly-level playing field...or it could have been creative Chicken Little accounting techniques.

Just thinking of this gives me another freaking concussion--but none of that matters because the Islanders signed Ruslan Fedotenko!!

Mail Responses

Well, I figured since we are all sitting around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for 12:01 tonight, I'd take the time to respond to some of those who were kind (?) enough to send me their opinions. Here we go:

To BLAKE55--No, I have not forgotten about Jason Blake. I like Jason Blake and I love the energy he brings to the ice. It's just that everything I have read said that he and his agent want a lot of money (I seem to recall 4-5m a year) and to me, that is too much to pay for a guy who is 34. I know he just had his best season as a pro and has been a mainstay on the Island through tough times. But that is just a lot of cash. My guess is that he goes to Toronto or Minnesota. Either way, he will always be an Islander and I bet he'd be the first to say that.


To GomesGrrl in NJ: Scott Gomez would be a great addition to whicher team he picks. I am thinking he goes West Coast since he is from Alaska and anywhere in the west is closer to Alaska than New Jersey.


To GoLefsGo: I TOTALLY brain-farted when I said the Leafs got Toskala from the Predators. Mea culpa. I must be as stupid as you said I am. One thing I know is that I can properly express myself in words and I also learned how to capitalize the first word of a sentence in school as well. I might not be genius but I am smart enough to know that JFJ is not one either. Why else are the Leafs trying to bring in a "hockey guy" to hold his hand? Isn't JFJ a hockey guy? Just wonderin'. Good luck Leafs.

To John in Halifax: GREAT to hear from the Maritimes! I hope to visit someday.

Chris Benoit may have been a troubled dude for sure; but I am hopeful that the docs doing the autopsy check his brain out. Too many chairshots and diving headbutts from the top rope can't be good for your mental health. I bet they find that he has the brain of a 80 year old guy with the onset of Alzheimer's. That would definitely increase the paranoia effects from painkillers and muscle relaxers.

Of course, anything is speculation at this point. We won't know much until the toxicology reports and autopsy results are made public.

One thing about the media speculation that sticks in my craw is the way that a lot of these so-called experts on TV obviosuly have no idea as to what they are talking about. The worst offender in this has to be Geraldo. Nancy Grace is no genius either.

Another thing: nobody thought that football made OJ do what he did. No one pinned football as the thing that made Rae Carruth do what he did. A lot of people think wrestling is to blame; which is ridiculous. You can probably pin a lot of stuff on the McMahon family but you can't pin a guy flipping out and killing his family on them. Wrestling itself is not to blame at all. Now the pressures of the game and the way in which these men and women put their bodies on the line could very well have contributed to his mental state. No denying that. But to toss a blanket on "wrestling" itself is disengenuous and a scary characterization.


To all that asked: My favorite Islander player of all-time is probably Mike Bossy or Denis Potvin. Gotta throw Steve Thomas in there too. Stumpy totally rocked in NHL 93 on the old Sega Genesis. I could score with that guy from anywhere in that game!


Pete in Long Island asked about Pierre Turgeon. Yeah, I was totally a fan of Turgeon's. I still hate Dale Hunter and what he did to derail the Isles in 1993. And yes, it's weird that one of my favorite current Islanders, Brendan Witt, wears #32 to honor Dale Hunter. But Witt rules and he is so fun to watch.


That's it for today. Keep the letters and comments coming. Well be back with more free agent fallout this weekend.