Montoya, Ullstrom Concussions; Islanders Need Strong Finish to 2011

The wheel goes round and round and round…

He threw his back into the hit. The Jet player didn’t do anything egregious. Kane should get 1 game for running Montoya—Tootoo got 1 for running Miller.

He attempted to check Ladd, who hit him as he spun out of the way. Totally clean.

He gave up two very soft DP’esque goals to the Jets. The first was just horrendous, right through the five hole! The more and more he plays the more and more his flaws are showing up being taken advantage of. Of the three goalies the Isles have Monty has been the best but he wasn’t that much better than Nabby while DP, as is his way, showed flashes of being the player he once was but he also got the starts against the toughest teams who tore him a new one.

But the real issue as we’ve all stated on numerous occasions is the Defense. If they could come up with some solid replacements for the Three Stooges of hockey: Mute-O, Beaten, and Stale-os we’d be in decent shape. I thought de Haan looked solid in his one game and I am have been quite impressed with Reese, he seems to have made quite an improvement over last year. I would very much like to see Wishart get some time and maybe even Klemenyev. It’s too bad Katic had to get hurt, he would’ve been quite useful this year. Whatever happened to Dustin Kohn? Even he would be an improve over the aforementioned Stooges! I’d even be open to bringing Jack Hillen back.

It’s not like the 4th line scores much if at all. Haley and Gillies with Reasoner in the middle would be a great intimidation line. Move Wallace up to the third line with Bailey and Martin and I think we’d be on to something…

am sure they wanted to give Poulin a break

Nilsson is away from home anyway, and Nabby will get all the ice time

are faster, bigger, more dangerous

what isn’t keeping up is equipment innovation and rules to protect the players

concussions are now an epidemic – Bettman can hide from it all he wants

same is true of downhill skiiing, luge, professional football, etc. – more fast, bigger, more violent = more dangerous

Do you want to put your career on the line by maybe letting someone on the ice too early?

…and such.

Looks like Ott was looking to start something
As the teams are heading to the dressing room Ott sees Laviolette standing there and stands right next to him instead of following the team down the tunnel and starts chirping him, Lavy shoves his way past him and heads down the tunnel

Darren Dreger @DarrenDreger 1m
As is the case with every incident. NHL will review clash between Ott and Laviolette. C.Campbell will determine if Lavy was in the wrong.

Jesse Spector Jesse Spector @jessespector 1m
Looks like Flyers/Stars will be way better for 24/7 than that godawful Rangers/Stars game.
9:08 PM – 21 Dec 11 via Twitter for iPhone · Details

I was laughing my as off

He clearly jumps out of his place in line and into Laviolettes path. It happens like two seconds before this video starts

that we are one of the softer teams in the league after you get past Martin and Hamonic.

But in the last game, right after Kane ran Montoya, the zebras spirited him off to the box really quick. There was no time for anyone to get him, because if you jump a player being led off by the ref, you’re going to look like a douche AND get some extra penalty/suspension time.

Every time Martin and Kane were on the ice later in the game, Martin made a point of physically exchanging holiday greetings with Kane. At one point, Martin took out Kane and Burmistov on the same hit. You can bet that at their next engagement, Kane will be feeling the love at the hands of Martin, Wallace (if still here) and Hamonic. What will be interesting to see is if the rest of the team tries to share the love, too. That’s where the ‘bring soft’ part comes in. I don’t think we’ll see it.

I wasn’t too thrilled with Cappy’s comments afterwards, but I understand he needs to be ‘politically correct’ in commenting about officiating.

the Ministry of Information would like a word…

But I don’ t think there is anything the players can do. Yes, they can go ahead and beat up on whoever runs their guy in the crease, but is that really a deterrent? Not only that but the Isles aren’t the only team with this problem. There are a lot of teams in the NHL that are seeing goalies getting run, and a lot of careers have been ruined because of it. I honestly don’t know if Miller is going to be the same ever again after the hit by Lucic. DiPietro got run constantly when he was first in the league, that led to his bad knees/hip/back/everything. Hell even Brodeur’s gotten run a few times, and you can say what you want about the Devils but they don’t really have a “soft” team. I’m sure that Lundqvist, Thomas, Luongo, et al have absorbed either incidental contact that has led to an injury or absorbed contact like Montoya and Miller in the past couple of weeks. This isn’t happening to just the Islanders and it isn’t happening because the Isles are a soft team.

I’ve always been one for you go out there and expect the refs to do their job and protect your teammates as much as the rules will allow. If they don’t do that then you have to do it yourself. I loved what Martin did to Fistric after the Nino hit. I even loved what Okposo did after the Nielsen hit even though that hit at least was clean. But when you have a cornerstone of your team (and the goalie is the cornerstone of any team in that if the goalie is weak the whole team is weak, no matter how good the defense or the offense is) lying on his back in the crease, with teammates, refs, and the opposition standing all right there is that where you really want to start a fight and risk an even more severe injury? I don’t have a problem with a non response right there at that moment. Would I have liked to see some big hits later on, yes, yes I would. However I also have to take into account that the score was tied in the third period and the Islanders had played well enough to win up to that point. And it was a win that they sorely needed.

Even if the Islanders were to run at Kane a few times, what would it have done? The play was over, there was an intermission before Kane got back on to the ice, and by the time he did it would not have made sense. In fact a few penalties would have gone against the Isles, maybe the Jets score on one of those power plays and we’re all posting on here how stupid the Isles are for taking that penalty at that time no matter the reason for it. If the game hadn’t been so tight I think then you would have seen something, but the way it was, I think the response the Isles had was better. We’ll give you the loser point and we’ll just take that extra point for ourselves boys.

I completely agree with everything you just said, and have been trying to say but could never put brevity to the thoughts.