Islanders Hits/Blocks/Faceoff Leaders; 28th in Power Rankings

"I'm on a roll / I'm on a roll this time / I feel my luck could change." ~Radiohead, Lucky

If these past two weeks have been the bottom for the 2010-11 Islanders, it's landed them near the bottom of the standings, the bottom of multiple media opinion rankings, and 28th in our Power Rankings. If the bottom isn't yet here, there will be plenty of Radiohead songs that apply to their plight.

For the fun of it, before we get to the media and power rankings, here are individual leaders in some stat categories that aren't tracked reliably, but may be less tainted by rink bias than usual since the Isles have played so few home games:

Hits: Martin (36), Konopka (29), Comeau (22), Jurcina (22), Martinek (20), Wisniewski (20), Sim (18). Yes, Matt Martin has only played six games but is credited with the team lead in hits by a wide margin.

Blocked Shots: Eaton (30), Mottau (23), Martinek (20), Jurcina (18), MacDonald (17). Zenon Konopka and Matt Moulson are the leaders among forwards with 13 blocks each. MacDonald has only appeared in 7 games, the final one abbreviated by injury.

Faceoff Win% (min. 79 draws): Konopka (59.9% on 232 draws), Tavares (56.4% on 149), Weight (52.4% on 105), Nielsen (48.4% on 194), Bailey (44.3% on 79). It's still very early, but John Tavares' improvement over last year is encouraging. Shorthanded (generally tougher draws to win), Konopka is 31-26 while Nielsen is 13-12. No one else has more than 14 SH draws.

Survey of Media Rankings

Power Rankings

In a methodology that was explained in last week's post, these are "real" power rankings (i.e. based on weighted results based on which teams each team has beaten) calculated by LHH user ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles. He answered questions about them in last week's post, but you can always ask again here. (Note: They do not include last night's OT game between Detroit and Phoenix, won by the Wings 3-2.)