Islanders News: Okposo's slump, Strait/Nabokov skate, Strome praised

Before a tough western road trip begins later this week in St. Louis, the New York Islanders conclude their homestand tonight versus the Penguins. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are now 1-2 in NHL scoring. So no problem.

Islanders Reads

• On Kyle Okposo's scoring slump, and also: "I believe in the group that we have," Capuano said. "There are some guys that obviously don’t have the numbers that they’ve had in the past. We have to have secondary scoring." [Post]
• Brian Strait and Evgeni Nabokov skated yesterday. [Isles File$]
• The Blue & Orange Army of Section 329 got a sit-down with Garth Snow, Jack Capuano and Andrew MacDonald last night. No big revelations, of course, but scroll through the @Section_329 Twitter timeline for some observations. (e.g. Capuano sounded frustrated with player performance. Snow is impressed with how Strome is playing and knocking on the door to get into the NHL. The group sang a Josh Bailey song to AMac, who Snapchatted it to Bailey.)
• I like this because it about sums up what fans can objectively say about Peter Laviolette: "if you want this team to have someone who has both won a Stanley Cup and lost one, he is the perfect guy for the job." [Hockey This Week] (I say that because I've yet to see a single HIRE LAVIOLETTE proponent explain what Lavi would do to fix things, other than be a different voice and a reminder of taking a playoff series loss to seven games instead of six.) Good piece overall there though.
• As noted yesterday, Ryan Strome took home some AHL awards (video of his November points here), and Griffin Reinhart and Adam Pelech are a cut away from making Canada's WJC team.
• What about the big boys' tournament? Here is a look at which Islanders are Olympic hopefuls. [THW]
• A common plea these days: Recall Ryan Strome! [EOI]
• You don't actually need another version of what went wrong with Rick DiPietro, but statistical comparisons between him and Steve Mason are kind of fun. [B/R]
• A little about Isles prospect Jesse Graham. [EOI]
• And some of the other prospects [Isles official site]
• Last night we mulled the relationship between coaches and GMs in individual player deployment, so this Japers' Rink piece on the Martin Erat misfit in Washington adds more fodder to that theme.
• A little more on the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame class, and all the love between the Weights and the Guerins. [NHL]
• FIG Picks: Leave your First Islanders Goal picks for tonight over here. The leaderboard thus far has been updated here, at the end of the last FIG thread.

Elsewhere

• In a shock, Flyers/Comcast/Conglomerate Inc president Peter Luukko resigned. He must have been in charge of finding a goalie.
• Sticking with the Flyers, Steve Mason keeps a road blog.
• "He was a junior B goalie trying to tell me how to fight. He was always just degrading me. Not to be a (wimp), but he was a bully," said Scott Parker of Bob Hartley, while supporting fighting.
• Maybe Alain Vigneault just pisses off good goalies? He sat Henrik Lundqvist for a second consecutive game. Naturally, the Smurfs lost 5-2 to Winnipeg. End controversy?
• The Sabres were this close to recalling Patrick Kaleta before he tore his ACL and ended his season.
• USA Today hockey writer Kevin Allen received his Lester Patrick Award and wrote some great tales about what it means to him.
• Needing roster room, the Devils finally put Adam Larsson on IR. [NHL]

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