Islanders News: Fan confidence in the front office is still decently high

Well, we’ve got some reading to disperse today, but it’s heavy on the NHL’s website’s content and there’s not too much to report on locally. However, onward and upward.

But first, here’s Josh Bailey and his family enjoying yesterday afternoon’s Mets game.

Islanders News

• The only thing going on around here technically doesn’t even involve a current Islander. Former Islanders goalie Robin Lehner, who won the Masterton Trophy this June for an elite season coming back from mental health and addiction struggles, had his engraving on that trophy botched... horribly, horribly botched. [LHH | Newsday]
• Dom Luszczyszyn, who perhaps could’ve benefitted from a pen name, did his annual polling of the fanning public to see how confident fans were in the front office of their own team and that of the others in the league. The Islanders came in at 23rd. This is really a league-wide article, but it mentions the Islanders by name, so it counts here today. [The Athletic]

And that’s it in anything new related to the Islanders. Though our friends in the southeast have this to look forward to:

Elsewhere

• After these listmakers left Mat Barzal out of their list of Top 20 NHL centers, you may be inclined to discard their opinions, but here’s how they ranked their Top 20 Wingers. I skimmed over the list but haven’t given it much thought yet at this point. [NHL]
• And, like they did with the centers, they offered 5 players who were on the cusp of making the list. [NHL]
• Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen implied in a Finnish interview that he’s asked Buffalo for a trade and also apparently became the second player in less than a few months to say playing there sapped their love of the game. (Ryan O’Reilly lost his passion for it before his trade to the Blues.) [Yahoo]
• Kevin Labanc publicly declared that he signed the cheap deal he signed to try to give the Sharks more cap room to build up for another run at the Cup. [NHL]
• Chris Kreider’s future, with or (most likely) without the Rangers remains uncertain. [NHL]
• The Devils had themselves a great offseason, but folks should probably pump their collective brakes when it comes to expectations for them this upcoming season. [Yahoo]
• Nick Foligno only wants players that are “fully on board” with the Blue Jackets on his team. I think that’s a good attitude to keep, as long as good players are fully on board with the Blue Jackets. [NHL]
• Where fighting was once the norm, it is now the exception. Fighting in the NHL dropped to historic lows last season. [ESPN]
• This comes up every year in early August, in part because NHL news is slow and in part because the NHL reeeeeeeally enjoys its past — Wayne Gretzky’s trade from the Oilers to the Kings on 8/8/88 shaped hockey history, especially in California. But it rocked the city of Edmonton, and hard. [Sportsnet]
• Vince Dunn, a defenseman who stepped into a full-time role as a rookie with the Stanley Cup Champion Blues, earned himself a good reputation in the city of St. Louis. So much so that St. Louis rapper Nelly took some time to hang with him while his tour stopped in Toronto. It’s getting hot in herre. [NHL]