The Islanders practiced today before shipping out -- with all three goalies -- for the back leg of their home-and-home with Pittsburgh.
The most notable development is Milan Jurcina is close enough to be a morning decision, while Andrew MacDonald took another maintenance day.
Below are other links about last night's game and the general state of the Islanders, as well as our weekly NHL Power Rankings roundup. It's interesting watching national media try to get a sense of this team, and generally being a few games behind the trends noticed by those of us who watch the team most closely.
Islanders Links & Etc.
Last Night: NYI FYI takes on the positives, but says a shakeup should be the next step; talk of evals by the visiting Bridgeport scouts too. ... Eyes on the Isles on panic. ... The Post on the strong goaltending (and DiPietro "closer to playing"), and what the rest of the team needs to do ... Newsday on DiPietro ... 7th Woman on the frustration .
- Hey, how come he never does that playing for us? Kudos to our own Keith Quinn for his job handling the recap of last night's game at IPB. Good read. (And don't worry; KQ has not bee waived.)
- Also at IPB, the reappearance of the video Q&A with Botta.
- The official site talks to Darius Kasparaitis about 1993.
- This is how the Top 25 Under 25 (which we stole) came about at Oilers blog Copper & Blue: Basically, a recognition that under 22 is prospects and hopefuls, and 23-25 is when you hope those prospects become foundational pieces.
- The Devils have claimed depth forward Ryan Carter off waivers from Florida.
- Finally, bummer of a tale about Alabama-Huntsville, left out of the conference reshuffle, losing its NCAA D-1 hockey team. Lots of background links there too.
Now on to our weekly "what are they saying? They're so wrong!" exercise...
Media Power Rankings
We've added in Fox since last week (and recalculated last week's average accordingly), and TSN's is generally an every-other-week thing, so their upward trend seems behind the times. Still no listing from Columbus though. :(
But take a look. These were before last night's loss:
| Outlet | Rank | Last Week | Their Commentary |
| CBSSports | 16 | 9 |
John Tavares is still on a roll with 10 points in his past four games and has had a hand in 10 of the Islanders' past 12 goals. |
|
THN (Proteau) |
18 | 14 |
Only Pens, Hawks have a more effective penalty kill than Isles (91.7 percent) |
| ESPN | 19 | 6 | Back-to-back losses to Tampa Bay and Florida bring the Islanders back down to Earth. Up next: a home-and-home against the Penguins this week. |
| CBC | 18 | 11 | Are the Islanders coming down to earth? The line of Tavares-Parenteau-Moulson is certainly not. They've combined for 22 points in six games. This could be a confidence-building or confidence-breaking week. New York has a couple dates with the Penguins and then the Sharks. Good test for the young Isles. |
|
TSN (Cullen) |
11 | 22 | It's difficult to be more top-heavy than the Isles, as C John Tavares, RW PA Parenteau and D Mark Streit have combined for 24 of the team's 37 total points thus far. |
| Fox | 14 | 24 | The Isles’ offense is better than the three combined goals in losses to Tampa and Florida. John Tavares has been one of the league’s best forwards thus far. |
| Average |
16 |
14.3 |
"Back to Earth. Sort of." |
Real Power Rankings
Our weekly "real" power rankings, courtesy of our own ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles (who is the one you'll find tirelessly compiling FIG picks in the game thread), conceived and delivers these week after week. They reflect games through Sunday.
Explanation of how he does it is in the original post. If you have any questions about it, leave them in comments and he'll likely answer. These are through Sunday's (Oct. 23) games:
| W | L | OTL | Pts | Pts% | PWR | ||
| 1 | Washington | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 1.000 | 2973 |
| 2 | Los Angeles | 5 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 0.786 | 2246 |
| 3 | Buffalo | 5 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 0.714 | 2226 |
| 4 | Chicago | 4 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 0.714 | 1998 |
| 5 | Pittsburgh | 6 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 0.700 | 1917 |
| 6 | Tampa Bay | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 0.500 | 1739 |
| 7 | New Jersey | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 0.583 | 1710 |
| 8 | Philadelphia | 4 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 0.643 | 1708 |
| 9 | Detroit | 5 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 0.833 | 1686 |
| 10 | Carolina | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 0.500 | 1670 |
| 11 | Florida | 4 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 0.571 | 1637 |
| 12 | Dallas | 6 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 0.750 | 1630 |
| 13 | Colorado | 6 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 0.750 | 1610 |
| 14 | Edmonton | 3 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 0.571 | 1531 |
| 15 | Anaheim | 4 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 0.571 | 1432 |
| 16 | Toronto | 5 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 0.786 | 1418 |
| 17 | San Jose | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0.500 | 1412 |
| 18 | NY Islanders | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0.500 | 1400 |
| 19 | Minnesota | 3 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 0.563 | 1344 |
| 20 | NY Rangers | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 0.500 | 1307 |
| 21 | Boston | 3 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 0.375 | 1276 |
| 22 | St. Louis | 4 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 0.500 | 1256 |
| 23 | Vancouver | 4 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 0.563 | 1237 |
| 24 | Phoenix | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 0.500 | 1196 |
| 25 | Winnipeg | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 0.357 | 1133 |
| 26 | Nashville | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 0.500 | 892 |
| 27 | Calgary | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 0.357 | 882 |
| 28 | Montreal | 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0.286 | 765 |
| 29 | Ottawa | 3 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 0.375 | 670 |
| 30 | Columbus | 0 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0.063 | 203 |
>>"Well there we're in sort of a gray area."
"How gray?"
>>"...Charcoal."