This was bound to be the case. With an average age on the current roster just north of 26, making them one of the youngest teams in the league, Scott Gordon’s Islanders are struggling to find consistency in their game. Surprise!
The last two weeks in particular have shone a spotlight on the club’s inconsistency in what was expected to be a roller coaster ride of a season. The big seven-game road trip began with a bang at 2-0-2 with the team playing some of its best hockey of the season, but ended with a thud as they were fortunate just to grab the final game in Toronto last Monday to finish 3-2-2.
Then there’s the Thanksgiving Eve home loss to the Flyers (2-1)—terrific for two periods followed by a puzzling one-shot third during which the Flyers completely controlled play. Move on to a Friday matinee and you got a spirited 3-2 win over the Cup champ Penguins, with a dazzling 18-5 shot advantage in the third period in coming from behind with two goals. Then….thud again…the next night it’s zombie time for the last two periods against the Devils in New Jersey in a 6-1 drubbing. Huh?
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And with veteran Doug Weight out at least another couple of weeks and the team on the road for the next four, the roller coaster will surely offer up a few more dips and curls in the immediate future.
“In the third period we looked to make plays that weren’t there and they got sticks on it and counter-attacked. You can’t forecheck unless you get the puck in the offensive zone,” was Gordon’s assessment of the woeful third period against the Flyers. For whatever reason his club simply couldn’t get the puck deep very often against Philadelphia in the third and their attack wilted badly. They had peppered Flyers’ goaltender Brian Boucher with 28 shots the first two periods so the brick wall they hit in the third was a bit baffling.
While the optimist will point to their 10-10-7 record and see a young team playing the NHL’s version of .500 hockey and hanging around in the tough eastern conference, the realist might see the epitome of inconsistency and a club that is merely hanging on rather than hanging in.
Either way, Gordon is going to have to address the lapses that have been costing them points all year—particularly in third period. Getting out-shot 11-1 at home against Philly and then the complete four-goal meltdown against New Jersey on Saturday have been the rule rather than the exception the first third of the season.
“The third period is the game, most of the time,” Martin Biron said after the Devil game. “That was the difference again today. It’s our own wrong doing. When we don’t do the right things, it’s (getting badly outplayed) going to happen.”
And dare we mention the six-letter word that has ravaged season’s past? The injury bug is starting to bite again. First it was Radek Martinek’s season-ending knee injury and now Andy Sutton’s groin is a problem while Frans Nielsen suffered an upper body injury against the Devils…uh oh.
While Nielsen’s injury will be easier to address as Blake Comeau and Rob Schremp can step in, Sutton has been a tower of strength and was playing his best hockey in years. If he’s out for any length of time (we’re hearing two to four weeks), it will be a big blow to the team on defense. The Isles simply don’t have a replacement for the 6-foot-6-inch Sutton. Andy McDonald is definitely not the answer.
The current five-game trip continues with stops in Atlanta on Thursday, Tampa on Saturday, Philadelphia next Tuesday and then back to Toronto (duck Dwayne) next Wednesday. By the time they come back home on Dec. 12, the club will have played nine more road games than home games. If they can emerge from this stretch in relatively good shape they’ll enjoy a stretch of nine of the next 13 at home with two of the road games against the Rangers at the Garden. Not much travel at all through Jan. 5 of 2010.
By then we should have a good read on whether or not Gordon’s inconsistent bunch are going to hang around in the playoff hunt or begin chatting about draft position prior to the Olympic break.
ICE CHIPS
While it’s way too early to begin speculating about whether or not the Isles will be buyers or sellers as the race for the post-season takes shape after the Olympic break, GM Garth Snow recently told the Post’s Larry Brooks that the he has been given the green light from ownership to spend some dough to strengthen the club for a legit playoff run.
The difficult thing about making trades as the playoffs approach is the fact that 80 percent of the teams in the league are typically still in the playoff picture at the trade deadline. But with Snow now on the record as saying he is not handcuffed in his efforts to turn a currently competitive team into a potentially good team, the spotlight is now squarely on the former goalie-turned-GM.
The two most obvious needs, in order of urgency, would be a veteran forward with some offensive pop—say a Ryan Smyth (joking) or perhaps Alexei Yashin, (again, joking). The second priority has to be a veteran blue liner with some bite—Toronto’s Garnet Exelby comes to mind (not joking) along with the Pens’ Jay McKee (again, not joking). With the Leafs a good bet to fall completely out of contention soon and with the depth on defense the Pens enjoy, both players potentially could be had.
The team has some $13 million in cap space to play with—though we’re not exactly sure how much the daily Lighthouse Project saga plays into the picture (we can only assume significantly). Stay tuned.
