Hockey Bits: On the Islanders, Kings uni's, study of defensemen 'off' hands

Is that Kopitar?!?

The league in general should listen to this advise but the Isles surely would benefit greatly from this.
Another bad season for the Isles could ultimately lead top the demise of the franchise on LI. A finish ahead of bothe rags and Devils, coupled with a Playoff birth could do wonders for the Isles business is many ways

I can’t believe how long it took for someone to embrace green after the Whale left. I’ve never forgiven Norman Green for betraying his surname in the chase for making the North Stars none more black.

Colors are good. Black is even good — it’s just already been done.

He wants a clause in his contract that says he doesn’t have to wear them or he ain’t signing. Or at least that’s what Eklund thinks ;-).

Any one of the pr*j*ct*ns looked fine to me — I think this just reflects that weird things usually happen. Someone will miss major time with an injury, or someone will have lady luck frown upon him, etc. And then Nino will score 20 goals!!!1

Last year’s totals… 229-264 (-35)
My pr*d*ct**n(just in case)… 240-215 (25)
My reasoning….Marty Reasoner + Mark Streit – Zenon Konopka – Joensuu + Montoya + Poulin – (where do you begin)
Tavares line will benefit from another year of Tavares maturity. I’m looking for 35 from JT and 75+ from the line.
FNGO will benefit from a full season of Kyle Okposo. That has 65+ goals written all over it.
The Comeuver line of BC, Bailey and Rolston will benefit from a consistent RW to compliment the two younger forwards. Comeau will probably lead the line with 20+ goals again, but Bailey will chip in something close to 20 and Rolston should get to double digits… a small percentage of replacement time with (Martin-Haley-Ullstrom or Rakhshani) will probably get the line up over 50 goals.
That’s over 180 goals from the top three lines. The real bonus will be a fourth line (or 3B) of Martin-Reasoner-Nino. Unlike fourth lines of the past, this line will create offensive pressure. They may not finish with the frequency of the other three lines, but they will spend a lot less time in their own zone. All four lines will do that. I’d also give them 20-25 goals.
That should be 200-210 goals from the forwards. I think this group of defenders will put up between 30-40 goals. Streit will probably lead the charge with ~15, and AMAC and Hamonic chipping in 7 or 8 each. Add a few stragglers from Wish, Eaton and Juce, plus some pachinko specials from various fill-ins… and there are easily 11 more goals for the good guys.
You also have to factor in that they were scoring at a much higher pace after the turnaround… and once the defense was simplified, and goaltending somewhat solidified the GAA went down significantly.
This is how we should measure success this year. For Arbour it was a +100 goal differential in his second year. For Capuano a +60 goal diff should be an attainable goal for the year.

So I guess I make a very bad European.

I still don’t know how I’ve been able to miss some of them.

On the excuse-making front, I lost a good chunk of time trying to find how the hell you spell the name of that damn Finn from Detroit.

Could be a problem. I know that a number of people are complaining about salary cap room for next year now. I think they have 12mil or something to sign 6 players next year(2 d-men, 4 forwards), and 2 of those players include Coburn and Carle as free agents. I think they may be in for a bit of a nose dive over the next couple years.

Of course for me, the study would pretty much start and end with: “Do they have Frans Nielsen? Yes or no?”

Belak was still playing too, wasn’t he?

 Isles add Donellan to strengthen squad: Per a tweet from Katie, the Isles added Sean Donellan … bit.ly/osC09q #NYI #NHL #Isles

I see those guys all the time in the gym…I’m gonna keep an eye out for Donellan.