Post-Game Talk: New York Rangers @ New York Islanders | October 29th | 7PM (Lost 3-2)

redbull

Boss
Mar 24, 2008
12,593
654
I don't think the Islanders played poorly against the Rangers. I think the Islanders are a better team than them, much better, even with the injuries.

They just lost.

Problem is. The Islanders have "just lost" A LOT lately. Even when they've played well.

There's parity in this league and the Islanders need to play better, they need to play just well enough to win, not just well enough to lose. The personnel is "good enough" to win most of these games. They've had a pretty easy schedule and are letting games slip away, that's concerning.

I don't like the lines, at all. I don't agree with many of the roster decisions and I don't like Bouchard on this team. Still, the NYR are awful and these are games the Islanders need to win - period.

Maybe bringing in a new coach will help. Someone without loyalties to the same players that have brought the same results, time after time. It's a little on Snow, a little more on Capuano but I can't pick a specific player who's really underperformed based on expectations.

They are what they are. I'd argue most players have overachieved relative to their past (Bailey, Okposo (at least statistically), Nielsen, Grabner, Hamonic, Hickey (who I think has been excellent all year), Cizikas, Martin). The only underperforming players have been Carkner and Donovan, and they are playing pretty much as expected as I see it. Same for Regin/Bouchard/Clutterbuck - pretty much what was expected.

Nabby is exactly where I expected as well.

So, is it the personnel that's lacking? I think so. They need a GOOD defenseman (at least one) and a reliable (BETTER) goalie. The forwards are good.

Is it coaching? possibly. Is it poor line selections? (I think yes) or poor preparation/motivation? (at times. But all teams face this). The special teams have been excellent.

I'm not sure who to blame. The Isles have only FOUR wins in 12 game. That is a ticket to the lottery. Even though the team's better than they were last year (on the surface) and they've been in every game, they aren't getting the results.

Next steps: Snow needs to bring in a solid dman (I don't think will happen) and a goalie (maybe Bryzgalov) and then pray Visnovsky gets back.

On Tavares, he's played well. Not outstanding, but he's working hard and creating a lot of chances as he always does. Not getting the results and the frustration is showing. He's also taking longer shifts, trying to do too much on his own, signs of a frustrated player who's trying to carry the team on his own. It's a good sign and a bad sign. But he's the franchise and I'm not worried about his game AT ALL.
 

ekill08x

Registered User
Oct 29, 2011
5,253
1,983
We need several defenseman. I just cant watch Hickey Carkner Donovan and Martinek anymore. These are not NHL defenseman.

We just might not be as good as we think. If were not scoring at least 3 goals were not winning with this defense. Its that simple. Something has got to change and fast.
 

Wedregast

Registered User
Mar 26, 2009
1,051
0
We need several defenseman. I just cant watch Hickey Carkner Donovan and Martinek anymore. These are not NHL defenseman.

We just might not be as good as we think. If were not scoring at least 3 goals were not winning with this defense. Its that simple. Something has got to change and fast.

Carkner needs to go. He's brutal. Martinek was fine last night for what he is. Hickey and Donovan are young, make rookie mistakes, and in Hickey's case a bit on the weak side. But both can improve.

Once Vish or Strait are back, and Carkner is gone we should be a bit better-mostly from the subtraction of Carkner to our roster. Once Both are back, and Hickey or Donovan can alternate spending time in the press box, we will be a lot better.
 

KnishOfTheCrease

Chez Pierre Enthusiast
Oct 8, 2010
6,292
1,473
Las Vegas
They "just lost" because they don't do the basics. They are so fundamentally off sometimes you wonder what the hell they work on in practice.
They-
*dont keep their feet moving
*get beat to loose pucks
*backchecker doesn't pick up the high trailer on a 3 on 2
*defense backs in too much on the same 3 on 2
*Try to make too many cute passes on our Odd man rushes.
*cant clear the front of the net
*cant clear loose rebounds in front of our net
*cant get to loose rebounds in front of opponents net
*cant break the puck out because the Center is busy covering for the winger that's floating around.
*made dumb decisions like clearing puck through center of the ice.
*cant hold the blue line because we pinch at the wrong time.
*instead of Pass/shoot/score, we pass/pass/pass/fake shot/turnover
*too many blind passes in Defensive zone.

Feel free to add something....
 

steveat

Registered User
Jun 4, 2011
12,057
2,003
Cappy is not coaching at the NHL level. He needs to go....Wang has to slow down on this nepotism crap.

A major element of wining a game is to win Face Offs and we aren't.

We can't clear our own zone because Cappy insists that the only way a puck should leave our zone is by making a play and a rush. Sometimes this can't be done and the best thing to do is to lob the puck to centre ice in order to reset the play and reorganize. Our guys don't do that. They are so stressed at setting up a play first before they make that attempt.

Vanek will be fine...TV and JT are just finding their feet together. Vanek wasn't prepared for the unique JT passes. I saw him way out of position on a few occassions to receive a JT pass. That's ok. I am sure Vanek will be all on that sht soon.

Nabby may not be one of the best goaltenders in the league anymore and sometimes he does screw up, but you know what...for the most part, he kept us in the game. Our guys just didn't do their job (a la Defence)
 

12Dog

Registered User
Feb 14, 2013
2,316
930
They "just lost" because they don't do the basics. They are so fundamentally off sometimes you wonder what the hell they work on in practice.
They-
*dont keep their feet moving
*get beat to loose pucks
*backchecker doesn't pick up the high trailer on a 3 on 2
*defense backs in too much on the same 3 on 2
*Try to make too many cute passes on our Odd man rushes.
*cant clear the front of the net
*cant clear loose rebounds in front of our net
*cant get to loose rebounds in front of opponents net
*cant break the puck out because the Center is busy covering for the winger that's floating around.
*made dumb decisions like clearing puck through center of the ice.
*cant hold the blue line because we pinch at the wrong time.
*instead of Pass/shoot/score, we pass/pass/pass/fake shot/turnover
*too many blind passes in Defensive zone.


Feel free to add something....

How bout too often shooting from top of the circles as soon as the zone is gained and missing the net by so much it's a free clear?
 

Doshell Propivo

Registered User
Dec 5, 2005
11,233
4,884
We need several defenseman. I just cant watch Hickey Carkner Donovan and Martinek anymore. These are not NHL defenseman.

We just might not be as good as we think. If were not scoring at least 3 goals were not winning with this defense. Its that simple. Something has got to change and fast.

They're a middle of the road team and will most likely finish 6th-10th in the conference. What did you expect?
 

Wedregast

Registered User
Mar 26, 2009
1,051
0
To me the worst problem with this team right now is they cant complete simple passes. Yesterdays game had passes thrown to opposing players, stolen by opposing players or simply thrown to empty ice too many times.
 

Isles Fan

Registered User
Sep 12, 2006
1,519
21
To me the worst problem with this team right now is they cant complete simple passes. Yesterdays game had passes thrown to opposing players, stolen by opposing players or simply thrown to empty ice too many times.

Affectionately know as "hope" passes. As in I "hope" this hits my man and I 'hope" this gets us out of the zone and I "hope" it doesn't get picked off.

Jeff Norton's entire career was full of "hope" passes. My friends and I used to say only Santa gives away more than Jeff Norton.

Scary that we can say that again about this entire D unit.
 

Bones45

Registered User
Dec 7, 2005
18,533
8,039
N/A
If we didn't make that trade, we would have won 4-3. Moulson had two for Buffalo the other night...
 

CaptDenisPotvin

The Tampa Bay Astros are your 2021 Champions
Jun 20, 2007
2,457
383
Disjointed on offense, mainly due to 1) lack of breakout structure and winning one-on-one battles in our end 2) an absolute stubbornness to dump the puck in when the Rag$ were lined up 4 across at there own blue line.

It was obvious early on they were going to force us to dump it and go win the puck in the corners, they wanted to slow our team speed down or at least speed with the puck. Of course I watched for 2+ periods our forwards bang there d**** in the door over and over. I don't understand the failure to realize simple things, almost common sense when you've been playing a game for 20+ years.....FRUSTRATING

Defense: Why waste my time typing about this? So bad that our forwards have to come all the way down to the goal line to help our defenseman cover 3 forwards leaving the Rag$ 2 defneseman uncovered all game.

Goaltending: I thought Nabby was exceptional last night, wouldn't consider any of the goals his fault per say. He has been our weak link this year IMO but not last night. That honor goes to Hammer, Amac, Donovan, Carkner, Martinek, Hickey. All of them.
 
Last edited:

12Dog

Registered User
Feb 14, 2013
2,316
930
Disjointed on offense, mainly due to 1) lack of breakout structure and winning one-on-one battles in our end 2) an absolute stubbornness to dump the puck in when the Rag$ were lined up 4 across at there own blue line.

It was obvious early on they were going to force us to dump it and go win the puck in the corners, they wanted to slow our team speed down or at least speed with the puck. Of course I watched for 2+ periods our forwards bang there d**** in the door over and over. I don't understand the failure to realize simple things, almost common sense when you've been playing a game for 20+ years.....FRUSTRATING

Somebody gets it, wish the coach would
 

Wedregast

Registered User
Mar 26, 2009
1,051
0
If we didn't make that trade, we would have won 4-3. Moulson had two for Buffalo the other night...

Yeah, he had two the other night, and was on the ice for 1 scored against. Buffalo also lost the game. Good job Moulson, scoring points and helping them lose games with his non-existent defense play! Welcome to Pavel Bure 2.0 without a lot of the skill or speed of course. :sarcasm:
 

WangMustGo

Registered User
Mar 31, 2008
8,741
2,945
Long Island
The thing that worries me about this team is that so far our PP has been 3rd in the league, the PK middle of the pack, and yet we are below .500, it just shows how terrible we have been 5 on 5. When the PP starts falling back to earth like the PK has, we could be in huge trouble.
 

islandermaniac

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
5,303
0
Carkner needs to go. He's brutal. Martinek was fine last night for what he is. Hickey and Donovan are young, make rookie mistakes, and in Hickey's case a bit on the weak side. But both can improve.

Once Vish or Strait are back, and Carkner is gone we should be a bit better-mostly from the subtraction of Carkner to our roster. Once Both are back, and Hickey or Donovan can alternate spending time in the press box, we will be a lot better.

how a veteran can completely screw up a three on three with under ten minutes to go in the third period of a tie game against a hated rival is beyond me. please watch the replay and kindly explain to me how martinek "was fine." brutal, brutal, brutal play. what the hell was he even thinking?

that said, the rangers won the game and deserved to win the game because of more than martinek's bonehead play on that three on three. no one watching this team right now can honestly say that they resemble ANYTHING close to the team that outplayed the penguins in last year's playoffs. i don't know where THAT team went but THIS team has been awful.
 

islandermaniac

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
5,303
0
They "just lost" because they don't do the basics. They are so fundamentally off sometimes you wonder what the hell they work on in practice.
They-
*dont keep their feet moving
*get beat to loose pucks
*backchecker doesn't pick up the high trailer on a 3 on 2
*defense backs in too much on the same 3 on 2
*Try to make too many cute passes on our Odd man rushes.
*cant clear the front of the net
*cant clear loose rebounds in front of our net
*cant get to loose rebounds in front of opponents net
*cant break the puck out because the Center is busy covering for the winger that's floating around.
*made dumb decisions like clearing puck through center of the ice.
*cant hold the blue line because we pinch at the wrong time.
*instead of Pass/shoot/score, we pass/pass/pass/fake shot/turnover
*too many blind passes in Defensive zone.

Feel free to add something....

how about win a ****ing faceoff?!?! this team is simply brutal in that category and it is an absolute joke that snow has not addressed this glaring need for years. instead, let's grab peter ****ing regin as a free agent! :shakehead

how this aspect of the game is lost on snow is disturbing. get something that the team actually needs that can be realistically attained, garth!!! if you are going to dumpster dive, can the guy please possess a skill that no one else on the team has? oh, nate thompson, can you please come back to the island?
 

isles31

Poster Excellont
Feb 19, 2007
4,648
74
LI
Cappy said in the post game that "he was asleep" when we had the Too Many Men penalty. He was asleep the whole game.
Too_Much_Man.jpg
 

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