Islanders News: IIHF World Championship begins

NHL playoffs continue with two games tonight out West, while over in Europe the 2017 World Championship gets underway today.

Islanders-Like Reads

• Bookmark this page for coverage of the five Islanders playing at the Worlds. [Isles]
• Mikhail Grabovsky talks, the Belarus Federation describes: “He is our only representative in the strongest hockey league of the planet, and a long-term contract with New York Islanders proved that Grabovsky is a real star. However, the trauma undermined his career.” [TVR]
• Brendan Burke’s dad takes a look at Kenny Albert’s crazy playoff schedule. [NY Post]
• Part III of the Hockey-Graphs GM report card, with how they voted and how most GMs aren’t as good or bad as they are made out to be. [Hockey-Graphs]

Not Here, But There

• The Smurfs won the only playoff game last night, 4-1, evening their series with the Senators. Boo. (No link. Who wants to read about that?)
• Okay okay Connor McDavid is a hockey divinity already but the Oilers should find him a stud winger. [Oilers Nation]
• So, like, there are a lot of ways to guess when Sidney Crosby might be back from his latest concussion. [Sportsnet]
• Tanner Glass hit a bunch of things and received cheers so he’s redeemed. [Puck Daddy]
• The Predators and Blues are back at it tonight, with the Blues facing elimination. The teams have built a playoff-level dislike for one another. [Tennesseean]
• Hockey oral histories are always excellent and this one about the Penguins-Flyers 5OT classic is no different. I was finishing up college, you better believe I stayed up the whole time and woke my roommate up with “Wow!”s when Keith Primeau ended. By the end of OT3, “the coaches’ popcorn was eaten.” [NHL]
• Penguins coach Mike Sullivan knows coaching. And slogans. [Post-Gazette]
• The 60 best names of the WHL bantam draft. [Puck Daddy]
• This summer’s top 30 UFAs, a sixth of whom are Capitals. [THN]
• So the NHL has a list of the “top 50” teams in history and fans can vote on the “top 20,” though the pool is basically most of the Stanley Cup winners from the last 60 years or so, and the ‘94 Oilngers are one of them. [NHL]
• Looks like kind of a bidding war between DU and the Panthers for coach Jim Montgomery. [Denver Post]
• When you’re covering a playoff series against the Islanders and your paper folds right in the middle of it. The story of how this corporate B.S. went down — including remotely wiping his phone in the middle of it — is stunning. [Lightning Insider]
• Sad business: Ex-NHLer Kevin Stevens sentenced in drug case. [Puck Daddy]
• The Vegas Golden Knights have a player! He’s got a contract and everything. [NHL]

World Championship

• The Worlds open today in France and Germany, where the U.S. faces the co-host nation. The U.S. team of course features Brock Nelson and Anders Lee, as well as another familiar face behind the bench as assistant coach. [IIHF U.S. Preview]
• With France as co-host of the World Championship, the country’s national team is trying to tell its citizenry that the program is now for real. [NY Times]
• And here’s a look at Team Italy, returning to the top tier. [IIHF]