10 Reasons To Be An ISLANDER FAN Right Now!

Along with OTHER in the poll. I wonder if Dom could add a DP countdown to the front page?

:)

And this:

“What can’t Frans do… well… he doesn’t fight… and he doesn’t deliver bone crushing hits…” <—-Only because he dispenses mercy as well as Justice.

And Bravo to the whole post. CLAP CLAP!

All great reasons to be happy, and many of them interconnected. It’s Snow finding these guys in waivers, in trades, in FA, in the draft…. it’s Wang who will be signing their checks and hopefully building them their new arena on Long Island…. it’s the players themselves who are giving us all hope again.

There was no one single answer for me.

Everything just seems to be coming up Milhouse for the Islanders right now.

How did I know you would like his size? ;)

I was 20YO when the Dynasty got its first cup. I wsih you and all other Islander fans that were born after that era could have experienced that era. What glorious time to be an Islanders fan that was!

Good times and bad… the one thing that people kind of forget, and I think Dom has mentioned it recently, is that right before that first cup run there were some fans that were asking for Al’s head. Those 20 consecutive playoff wins were tempered by Lanny MacDonald and John Davidson… two things I’ll never forget was the shot that beat Chico when we thought we had the best team in the NHL… and then the double frustration when Davidson stonewalled a SUPERIOR Islander team to keep us out of what might have been the first of five.
But that’s how legends are forged… and that was seven years of some of the most incredible sport I have ever witnessed. I hope they start bringing those guys back again to associate them with this new core again… this time for real.

.. a case of manhattan special for christmas. There’s nothing better than the original Red Bull!

For one, I never really got on the Gordon bandwagon. The team never felt like a team. I had a bad Nolan hangover and I didn’t feel like drinking Gordon’s Kool-aid. Part of me is a little upset because I do feel that continuity is important… especially for an organization that doesn’t seem to be able to maintain it for more than two years at a time (in terms of the coaching position). But I was very happy when Snow put an end to the EXPERIMENT. .. and as I stated in the turn-around post when it was done… this team wasn’t built for, nor was it drafting towards Gordon. Jack has gone back to basics. He seems to have instilled some core values of PROFESSIONAL hockey to a young group of players…. and they are playing through a shitload of adversity. What’s not to like.
I expressed the reason for the anti-Wang turnaround a few days ago. I have never been a big Charles Wang fan. When he bought the team I was glad he did, but then three years later some of the mask started to fall off… and you could see that some of the moves were being made with the intent to develop that land… and that just grew to utter disgust for me. Once the Islanders lease is over I’ve always felt that they needed to move on. That acreage is just a cancer to this hockey team. The powers that be are going to milk it for everything it’s worth, and they couldn’t give two shits about the NY Islanders… never have, never will. If they wanted to have a successful hub there they would have built a light rail system 30 years ago.
Seeing that Charles is not going to abandon us to NHL management now that the LHP is as dead as it should have been 8 years ago (I wish he would have called me, I would have saved him MILLIONS) I have a little hope that he will see this through.
(prospects) I don’t feel that any of those kids are going to be in the NHL next year. The only one that is a sure bet for the AHL is Casey Cizikas. Lee and Donovan will still be in school, most likely putting them two years away from being NHL possibles… and Kabanov might be set adrift. YOU didn’t even mention deHaan… who I really can’t see getting a nod over Wishart or Katic and most likely one or both of them start next year in the AHL. deHaan is two to three years away, and that is a GOOD THING.
Lee, Cizikas and Donovan do inspire some nice dreams though… That should put us in a nice NHL/AHL depth position, where if they can attract maybe one or two upper tier NHL free agents, or use those assets in an off-season trade this team will be very close to being a CUP contender. There are still some big questions to be answered but this is the closest we’ve been to having long range hope in over 16 years.
I just thought that with all the crap going on this would be a good time to post something POSITIVE… because God knows, this organization can pull the rug out from under you in a heartbeat.

I love stories like this.

…and you have discovered the true value of desert hockey!

also all of the above.

ty JPinVA, great read as always.
k, now im done….i think

…. but (though I beleive in every one of those reasons) I voted for Snowy… so I’m hoping you will be forced to change your name to ReupGarthSnow. The Nolan to Gordon transition was hard for me… and the Mottau incident made it even harder… after that I never trusted the guy (my bad… I think)… but I think those feelings are being validated now… and it takes a bigger man to change course for the greater good… we haven’t had that in the front office for a long time.

that is really appreciated…. but I’m 45, and I think I learned more about hockey on this site from everybody else than I have in the past 35 years from any other source. It’s been quite a run.
This is one helluva place to share an idea… I wish there was a LIGHTHOUSE UN…Dom… do you think you could do that… world peace would be sooooo cool!

I really wanted to see what the BIGGEST factor was for each of us… and the fact that the younger fans here DID MISS the first time around is HUGE. I think that is something that Wang should embrace. We have a GLORIOUS past, for the first time in forever we have a PRESENT… and if he can handle the load a little longer he will reap teh rewards of our future.

because to me, the names Smith, Potvin, Bossy, Trottier, are all like gods to me, they’re revered that highly. Even though I never saw a game played from the dynasty years, I knew the names just growing up.

It is relatively rare that people say things like this online in general. With all the opinions people post on the Internet, people seem to turn from ever admitting when they change their ideas and opinions. I respect people who can look at things and, as they acquire more information, reevaluate their own ideas. I think it is what all of us should strive for.

A year ago people didnt know the Isles would have a 500+ MGL season

… but I don’t agree. Differences this year:
1. Going into next year with who they have signed is already a PLUS. Last year there were a ton of question marks on defense, many on offense and the standard goaltending questions.
2. I am much more confident in nearly 40 games of winning while the ever-increasing man games lost ticker hangs in the background.
3. Answers…. Moulson looks like he’ll put up 30 for the second straight year, proving 09-10 wasn’t a fluke. Tavares has improved his numbers, his consistency and his basic two-way play. Michael Grabner. Andy MacDonald, Travis Hamonic… these ANSWERS didn’t exist last year.
4. I just couldn’t buy into the blind leading the blind with a system that never seemed to work longer than 4-6 game stretches. Jack has gone back to basics and that has allowed their talent/effort to dictate wins and losses… and NOW they are winning more than they are losing.
5. The LHP is DEAD… and Wang seems to be resigned to REALLY look into all the options… there may not be any, but can not use “waiting on the TOH” as a crutch. He may wind up extending the lease, but I have a feeling that SOMETHING will be announced before the end of next season.
6. Garth Snow is doing things to make sure he has a hockey team next year…. we know the current first line will all be back. We can assume that grabner will be signed, so that’s two productive lines… and there has to be a third line in Comeau, Bailey, Nino, Martin, Joensuu, DiBenedetto, Ullstrom and/or Rakhshani. All of which are either signed or RFA’s.
That is a so much better place to be than where we were last year.

You poor SOB! The Lions too? To be honest, I watched some Lions this year, and they looked pretty damn good. They will challenge next year too if Stafford is healthy. Even still, they looked good with Shaun Hill. Suh is a beast as is CJ.

I hear you though…When every one of your teams is terrible, you get a full year of misery. It’s good to just be a fan of the sport or root for a good (out of conference) team as a secondary so at least you don’t spend the whole year miserable.

… I’m pretty sure I coined that one a few months ago… but I won’t claim intellectual property.
Secondly…. Montoya is another scrap heaper with Moulson, Grabner, Parentau and Gillies (yeah… Trevor Gillies) who have made significant contributions over the past two years. Garth Snow (and his staff) has done an EXCELLENT job identifying potential contributors and AVOIDING costly anchors.

Nice screen name, and nice EPL team. ;)

I think Montoya is a sign of the reality of 1) average goalies getting better, and 2) NHL goalie jobs being scarce. With the more standardized teaching and styles of goalies these days, you don’t see many who look all that “different.” So it’s hard to sort out who is even marginally better without having lots of data — even more than one season’s worth. (For example, what is the real Craig Anderson? The guy who bounced around before Florida, the guy who looked almost as good as Vokoun in Floriday, the guy who looked like Hasek in Colorado last year, the guy who slumped this year, or the guy who looks somewhere in between in Ottawa?)

Add to it that Montoya’s AHL stats were pedestrian and he was behind both their NHL goalies and another guy in San Antonio (he had some injuries too), and you can see why no one was beating down Maloney’s door for him.

So we’ll see. Promising start, and certainly better than the Isles’ non-Poulin performances before he arrived.

AWESOME!