Wisniewski from the Ducks: Stockpiling D-men?

All of them. I love this move, we needed a physical presence somewhere on the D and finally got it.

On the FA thing, he is listed on nhl.com as a free agent, so I think we need to give him a contract, but I am honestly not sure.

Shooting into shinpads, lol. The guy still put up 30pts in 60 games in his 2nd “full” season in the nhl “shooting into shinpads”, so I’d take it. He plays physical, adds much needed offense, . I remember him from the hockey playoffs a year ago on anaheim. He was a very physical presence that plays good d and seems to play fine under pressure. 5’11’’ 205 is big enough for me to be on any line, especially with the way he plays. His penalty minutes were racked up with 20mins from fighting, so he isn’t a penalty/hot-head liability. And we was getting top 4 to top 2 minutes in anaheim last year, so he isn’t that bad at all. Great trade and much needed.

As Anacurt said, now all we need is 1 bottom 6 forward that’s somewhat productive to definitely keep nino in juniors next year.

This makes me confident that Hamonic and de Haan would have to walk on water to make the team out of camp, and in my book that’s a good thing.

With the Bridgeport guys, I’m sure the Islanders ambulance will mean they get some time. I think Katic is still rehabbing his shoulder, too.

I wouldn’t bet on jurcina making the team out of camp, at least the starting lineup. Hillen is better all around then him except for size and hillen showed last year he is definitely nhl ready and an offensive tool that we need. Jurcina has for most of his career been a 7th d-man, so I wouldn’t change that now.

As for Gervais, his play has plummetted bad. He’s easily our #8 d-man if we don’t like someone in the minors more then him. And because of this, our ahl team should be pretty good.

This is from Eaton’s press release

"With the addition of both Mark and Milan, we add both size and experience to our defense," Islanders General Manager, Garth Snow said. "Each played in winning environments the past few years and we look forward to them bringing that same element to our dressing room."

So it doesn’t seem to be in ever release.

Maybe he reads our forums or reads a lot of fan e-mails and suggestions. It was obvious we lacked a physical presence and player on our d-core. And who doesn’t like hitting defenseman that can put up points? It’s obvious to me. BUT, if he really wanted to help the fans, he’d try making a big trade splash pulling a fairly young 55pt+ forward from a team by giving up a 1st and 3rd round pick with a joensuu or martin or maybe even comeau/hunter to get a young offensive force to help us out NOW. We need em and I’d be fine with something like that. How much more of a farm system do we need? We easily have 2 should/will be top 6 forwards in nino and petrov and 2 should/will be d-men in hamonic and de haan with a lot of questionable possible future nhl’ers that will definitely fill out some of our future team. I say do this, if you are reading Garth, lol.

Why didn’t they give the money to Volchenkov?

Because he decided to sign elsewhere. You can only throw so much money at a guy, if he’d rather play for a contender your out of luck.

Also, we need everything.

a solid paycheck, he just didn’t wanna come. We reportedly had interest in him, so he most likely turned us down before or after he was given an offer. And it’s not like garth’s trying as others have stated. Reports say he gave tons of big names GOOD offers like volchenkov, martin, hamhuis, and kovalchuk. He’s doing his job, it just doesn’t seem like the isles are attracting any big names yet. But yes we need offense. I’m sure garth is trying to right now either:

A. Put some trade together for a solid bottom 6 guy
or
B. Talking to tons of bottom 6 free agents and talking numbers.

If he isn’t, he’s not doing his job, which seems highly unlikely up to this point.

Being drunk around closing time at the bar…whoever is still around looks real attractive, you buy some drinks, the lights come on or you sober up and realize you made a mistake. (hopefully not a long term one). Let’s not start buying guys like Frolov drinks or getting him pregnant…he may be ugly or have a bad personality in the morning…

Belanger is quality. That would create a nice problem down the middle. I’m not really high on Stempniak but the more the merrier, I guess.

Who’s spot would he be taking? He’s a center and we are already overloaded there. I can’t possibly see why we’d go after him. He’s definitely not taking nielsen’s spot, but could take schremp’s spot if they want schremp as a reserve center because he’s still young and unproven for the most part. Looks like a good 2-way player. Seems to be a similar player to nielsen, but not as good from what I can see.

As for Stepniak, plays either wing, so that helps. His best career year was last year, could be a fluke or he might have finally found his scoring touch. Who knows for sure. Either way he at worst looks like a 40pt guy that adds some offense. I’m not sure where he’d go, but I’d be guessing he and comeau would be fighting for that top 6 spot on Tavares’s right wing and the loser goes into the bottom 6 rotation. Looks like a solid 2-way guy that has decent scoring potential. I’d pick him up for depth without question and leave both JJ and matt martin in the minors for the start of the year. Gives them more time to find their strides which I think they need.

Half of our defense. I have to be better about proofing when sending from iphone! Sorry!

I think the new players will mesh fine though. All top 6 now seem to have the capability to adapt to the system. Minutes shouldn’t be that hard to figure. After the first few games, then it’s mending time. Hillen and a-mac are fine imo. They showed last year they played very well with the tasks they were given, so no questions there for me.

I’d definitely sign wiz to a long term deal at 26. Kid has a lot of promise if he can fix . I’d let martinek walk at 35 unless you want a cheap viable defenseman that’s injury prone. Jurcina was obviously a we need someone to fill the spot signing. And Gervais needs to pick up his game in the minors or he could turn into a career ahl guy. He had some promise though at one point being a full time nhler. That being said, Hamonic will be ready next year without a doubt in my mind. Reports say the kid is working hard on his game and wants to be bigger and stronger too (he’s already 6’2’’ 220lbs how big does he want to get, lol). De haan could be a possibility next year too, but he might need more time. That’s a big question there on when do you move him up. Other then that, we are going to be an ok d-core and no longer the laughable one we used to be. BUT, honestly we need 1 big guy to add as a shutdown d-man sooner or later. Our tallest defenseman without the meak jurcina is 6’2’’ and our heaviest is 205lbs. We still lack size and need it one day, obviously hamonic will help that, but every top 6 d-core needs at least 1 220lb d-man that’s 6’3’’ or bigger. NOT JURCINA though.

Wiz was a -5 on a team that was an overall -13. Not horrible. And don’t forget this was his 2nd full nhl season and they gave him top 2 minutes to boot in his spot. He had a lot of pressure on him and seemed to deal with it pretty good. That pronger trade left them hurting on D and wiz did as best he could I’d guess with his tools. Seems to be a top 4 guy though. Obviously has the offensive capability to be a top 2, but probably overall he’s a top 4 with his all around play.
And remember, if he honestly got 30pts in somewhat injury shortened season, then he must have been hitting his spots more then shooting into shinpads. And if the shinpads thing is true and not just remorse from ducks fans, then we have a possible 40pt d-man that plays physical now. Either way, I’m extremely pleased with this much needed pickup.

lol, he was given a ton of playing time as stated and he greatly underperformed for us. And what did you want to trade him for? A 4th round pick? Because that seemed like the best possible thing we were gonna get for him. I was reading his numbers, and if biron played a little better and made his win/loss column 50%, the isles finish at worst the 10th spot and are more heavily competing in the playoff race. But then again, no nino. Yeah, I’d prefer nino over a slight playoff run anyday :) .

One thing garth is a really smart gm. He can put together a team really well. Drafting, trading, and signings. I can’t wait till the day we make the playoffs and then wang lets garth spend some nice money. I think then, you will see garth at his best bringing in some solid players to help our team make good cup runs.

Do you think there is more to come? I hope Garth looks a little into RW if he doesn’t plan on bringing Petrov on board.

A lot of forearm “checks” that look like elbows in the follow through. It looks like a lot of his fights are after hits like that, but I saw him go after Perry (when he was a Blackhawks) after Bertuzzi ran their goalie, and he had a great scrap with Tootoo that I think he gets the win. (Didn’t appear to lose too many either, but a lit of times he gets taken down or a guy lands on top…homer announcers making it sound like he lost) His fights are pretty passionate, and I think the fans will love him when he starts sticking up for his teammates.

That’s what makes me nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for someone to bring a bit of the crazy who can also actually play the game for more than 4 minutes of own-zone play a night — I just have very little patience for dumb decision-making. So I hope it’s just a bad rep, or a work in progress, and not Jack Johnson’s Disease.

that he IS dirty, but the couple of hits LOOK dirty which set off some fights etc. I welcome the abrasiveness though, clean or dirty, I think it’s good for the team, and they may HAVE To stand up for each other.

Eaton was a 4/5 defenseman on the penguins last year and jurcina was pretty much a career 7th man. Wiz seems to be a solid top 4 guy, all around. Definitely a great and needed pickup. Imagine how much worse we would have looked without him right now. Makes this signing even more sweeter.

On paper he does look close to the total package. But, he honestly needs a little refining in some areas to be a top 2, but even without that he’s a solid top 4 without question. Definitely has the potential to be one, so that’s more then enough for me to have a mile wide grin now. I pray we sign him longterm before the season ends. Kid has a lot of potential and seems to have a lot of heart and agression to WANT/ALWAYS play an uptempo style. I’ve seen him play and he looks like the real deal for what we need in all areas.

Hadn’t thought about it in that way, but Wiz > Sutton in my book. And factoring in age, betting on Wiz next year > Sutton next year.

I liked this deal as a trade in its own right (nice value transact), but many of you guys are swaying me on the prospects for Wiz as a player in his own right.

Just getting to this today… this is the best case for Wizzer that I’ve heard so far. I’ve never been against the signing, but this really sums up the positives. I completely forgot how shallow the Isles are at RH D(Bruno, Jurcina, Marty, Reese(?))
Consider that Reese is maybe(has he signed anywhere yet?)
Bruno is trade fodder right now. You have to wonder if now that they have JW and Jurcina to play across from Streit they are heavily shopping Bruno… but that’s like trying to sell generic cigarettes at Phillip Morris.
Marty… damn, I really like Marty… but we all know that Marty will be on crutches by Christmas… (got I hope I’m wrong… for Marty’s sake)
This is probably why Jurcina was signed,
“Scott, we need a RH defenseman, can you think of anybody”
“Jurcina played well for me at Providence”
“really”
“If nothing else he can reach the top shelf in the utility closet without a step stool”
“wow… that’s good thinking, we lost the little ladder last year and you know how Mr. Wang is about that kind of stuff.. and I didn’t see you going into your pocket for a new one.”

By the way, I’m going to be a pedant again (jerk!) but only for the sake of clarifying in case someone looks at the Ducks’ cap figure and says, “Wait a minute…”

At $44 million as of today the Ducks have some significant cap room, but they are clearly a team operating on a specific cash budget that probably didn’t have room for Wis in the role they had for him. If you look back, two of their acquisition/salary dumps last year were trading bigger cap commitments for smaller cash obligations. Blake and Visnovsky both have less money due to them than their cap hits, and they were acquired for guys who have the reverse: Lower cap hits than the actual annual money still due. Essentially the Oilers and Leafs bought some of the Ducks’ cap space in those moves. The singular EarlSleek had a nice breakdown of this at BoC.

For obvious reasons, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Islanders make moves like that if the opportunity arose.

heh, Nice Sig!

Ha, I missed that sig before. Chili I hope you can still stand to watch the Isles after being spoiled by the Hawks. ;)

I don’t know why people are giving jurcina more credit then he deserves. Can he win a spot over a hillen? Maybe, but I don’t think so. He’ll be our #7 to start the season I believe when all is said and done. He has size, but not much more. Most of his career he was a #7 d-man, so I don’t know why that should change now. Who knows though, he may surprise some people at camp and earn a top 6 spot, but that’s highly unlikely unless he’s playing with a new fire under gordon.

About our youngings:
Hamonic-Definitely ready for some nhl time. I’m drooling over his first nhl appearance (most likely this year) from all the things I have been hearing about him

De Haan-Had a rough injury, probably spends another year in juniors. He’s still not as big as the isles want him to be I hear, but still has all the offensive and skating skills of a top tier d-man. 1 more year and he should be nhl ready.

is in no way shape or form a top 4 d-man, even on a team like the islanders

Put Hillen next to a sizable guy and keep his jaw from shattering via Ovi slapshot and he’s in that top four. They have some options here. Between Streit, Wiz, Hillen, Eaton and A-Mac they have five guys they shouldn’t need to “hide” in any scenario (I’m using a fair bit of hope with Eaton.) I’d be tempted to keep A-Mac with Streit a lot of the time; they complement well and A-Mac doesn’t try nor need to do too much.