Meet Dean McAmmond...

Last year, the Islanders made a huge mistake in not trading all of their potential free agents - Miroslav Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Mike Comrie, to be specific. It turned out not to be a big deal with Comrie, because he re-signed on the Island and played this year as well. Satan and Fedotenko were big mistakes. GM Garth Snow needed to realize his team was going to miss the playoffs and he had to sell off the assets.

This year, with injuries to Doug Weight and Mike Sillinger, the "tradeable veteran" pool has quickly dried up. In fact, with Mike Comrie getting traded today, Bill Guerin and Andy Hilbert are the only real names left on that list.

I assume Comrie was traded so early because there was a chance he gets hurt like Weight did (Comrie was already hurt this year a couple of times) and brings his trade-value to Zero.

It should also be noted that Ottawa was the first team to go buying last year, when they were in a slump and make a trade for Cory Stillman from Carolina. This year, Ottawa, on the heels of a 5-game winning steak, thinks they have a shot at the playoffs, so they moved quickly again.

This trade isn't great for the Islanders, to be honest. San Jose's 1st round pick will be bottom 5 (somewhere between 26-30) probably. Yes, Mike Green was picked there, and it's still a nice bargaining chip if they want to trade it on Draft Day to move up, but if I was Garth Snow, I'd have wanted Ottawa's pick instead (I don't know if Ottawa still has it).

I think they could've gotten a 1st round for just Comrie and not have to have given up Chris Campoli also. Granted, that was probably a big sticking point for the Senators, because Comrie won't re-sign there next year (or at least there is a chance he won't) while Campoli is obligated to Ottawa through at least next season as well.

Dean McAmmond is a servicable player. That's my way of saying he isn't bad, he isn't great, but he goes out there and delivers his best every shift. It just so happens his "best" isn't very good anymore - as in 3G, 4A in 44 games, compared to 51 in 73 in 2002. He also has an injury problem, never playing a full season besides the strike-shortened 1994-95 season (81 in 2007 with Ottawa is his most, then 78, 77, 73, and then in the 60s... very poor numbers over a 14-year career). He was hurt during the 2003-04 season with Calgary and didn't play in their run to the Cup Finals that year.

Anyway, I'm not going to sit here and berate the Islanders. They made the move they had to while the iron was hot. Comrie's been playing real well and there is a chance he gets hurt again, a chance Snow couldn't take. I just wish, for Islander fans' sake, that they had gotten a better draft choice and maybe one of Ottawa's few prospects instead of an aging vet with a history of injuries and declining stats.

Possible UFAs...

After a horrendous bout of what might be either rabies or food poisoning, I was going through a list of players who might potentially be traded at the March 4 NHL Trade Deadline. Traditionally, unrestricted free agents (UFAs) are moved if a team knows they won't re-sign them (as in Marian Hossa and Ryan Smythe).

Yes, sometimes players still under contract are dealt, much like the Aaron Ward for Paul Mara deal the Rangers did in 2007. Ward, a loud-mouth who won 2 Stanley Cups not on ability but by simply being on the right teams at the right time (Detroit in '02, Carolina in '06), was a locker room cancer worse than Sean Avery, and it was high time he headed for other pastures. Both he and Mara had time left on their deals. Those are harder to predict, obviously, and therefore I won't mention them.

I think it's obvious what the Rangers need: a solid defenseman and possibly a top-6 forward capable of potting a clutch goal. Let's also say that Florida might make the playoffs and won't move Jay Bouwmeester (if he is an option, he clearly becomes the number one target of many, many teams, including the Blueshirts).

However, here is a list of 3 defensemen that interest me as a Ranger fan...

3) Ville Koistinen, Nashville Predators - a solid player who had a real good year last year (17 points, 48 games, but was better than the numbers say) and is having a decent year this year. He will be 27 come July 1, therefore a UFA, and the Predators, solid on the blueline even without him, might be looking to sell him cheap. His one drawback is that he was a healthy scratch most of December, but he seems to have found a spot back in the lineup.

2) Filip Kuba, Ottawa Senators - A good defenseman although he doesn't get a lot of power play time (25 points, 1 on the power play). His 24 assists are misleading, as he had 11 in the first 8 games of the season, then slowed down. However, he has only played 36 games. He's a good player, and the Rangers might take the bait on him. He can't hurt the team, as he is much better than Dmitri Kalinin (and on most nights, Wade Redden), but he won't help them exponentially.

1) Cory Murphy, Tampa Bay Lightning - Recently waived by the Panthers and snatched up by their statemates (I'm going to go ahead and coin that word), Murphy is the power play specialist the Rangers need. He will be 31 at the deadline, and is in his second year in the NHL. Similar to Tim Thomas, he entered the NHL late after playing in Finland for 5 years (and the Swiss League for one). He was grossly misused in Florida, where Bouwmeester and Bryan McCabe get huge PP minutes, but Murphy is better than both of them when used correctly. Last year, he was an Even rating on a team that was outscored by 10 goals. In comparison, Olli Jokinen was a -19 on the same team, and Bouwmeester was a -5. 

Yes, Bouwmeester is a more complete player than Murphy (better defensively; better first-pass), but Bouwmeester might not be available, and Murphy would definitely be cheaper. The Lightning have him probably to just fill holes created by injuries and poor play so they can finish out the season, and I would definitely look for him to be available come March 4.

I won't dwell on forwards, but Mike Comrie, Steve Sullivan, Vernon Fiddler, Kyle Calder, Nik Antropov (highly unlikely that Toronto would trade him and that the Rangers would get another center), Keith Tkachuk, and Andy McDonald (same as Antropov) might be available. 

I will dwell on this though. Of upcoming UFAs from non-playoff-bound teams, I assume these names ring a bell: Jay Ward (currently in the AHL via Tampa Bay), Marek Malik, Dominic Moore, Jed Ortmeyer (Orty is injured, however). They are all Rangers from the year after the lockout. Think Glen Sather would be interested in another dream season like 2005-06? Is Steve Rucchin available?

Coming Soon...

To be honest, I was going to write a little entry here about how important Johnny Tavares would be to the Islanders, and how much pressure it is on an 18-year old who isn't really thinking yet that he will have to be a savior for a franchise, but Bryan hit the points pretty well on his last post. Since he's the Islander blogger, I'll leave it at that for now. 

I also hope that this isn't a point that we write about and look back on and realize it never mattered at all. In that bucket are posts about acquiring Marian Hossa and Mats Sundin, Mike Comrie and Miro Satan being traded at the 2008 trade deadline, Petr Prucha being traded, and Brendan Shanahan/Sean Avery/Jaromir Jagr/Marty Straka returning.

Yes, as a devout, lifelong Rangers fan, I wholeheartedly hope the Islanders get Tavares. For the past 3 years, I had hoped the Rangers tanked the 2008-09 season so that they could get the #1 overall pick, but now that they have no chance at being in the lottery, I really wish the Islanders get their chance.

* * *

By some divine streak of luck - aka my friend Tom texting me today - I will be at the Coliseum for the first time since the Rangers clinched the playoffs last year with a decisive victory.

In truth, it will only be my 4th game of the season, which is weird for me. Last year, I hit like 14 or 15 Ranger games (and one Islanders/Coyotes game as well). Most were at the Garden, but I traveled to New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Montreal as well to see them. This year, I saw "Opening Night" against Chicago (a victory), Avery's return against Dallas (a game in which my friend Tom passed out in the 2nd period, and the Rangers were playing so bad that I didn't wake him), and Petr Prucha's game-tying third-period goal against Pittsburgh in December (a shootout win). I'll probably be at 8, 9, or 10 games this year when all is said and done, including in Nashville in March.

Should be fun. I love going to the Coliseum for Ranger games. I like drinking in the parking lot and being in a 50/50 split. 

My hope is for some quality "Let's Go IslandersLet's Go Rangers!" chants (not a typo). My prediction is a Rangers overtime victory... not shootout... overtime! And as always, I predict Prucha scoring 2 goals.

World Junior Championships

Canada just won the World Junior Championships, just as we all knew they would. Congrats to the Canadian team for their victory. There are two Islanders-related points to be made here.

First, should the Islanders end up with the first overall pick, they'll clearly be selecting John Tavares, and if they don't, I don't know if I can follow them anymore. If they somehow talk themselves out of taking this kid, they're worse off than we all think. Remember, Tavares probably would have been the first overall pick last year, only he just barely missed the cutoff for the Draft and couldn't be selected. Tavares is just toying with the people at his level. He probably could step right into the NHL and play pretty well; given the Islanders' attendance problems, that's exactly what will happen.

Second, in response to the controversy over whether Josh Bailey should have played in this tournament... well, he probably should have. That's big-game experience in a big-time environment, and even if that experience won't be drawn upon for a couple of years, it's nice for your first-round pick to have that kind of background. Still, he scored his first goal while the tournament was going on, so it's hard to argue with that. You can look at it either way, but players only get to play in the World Juniors once. They can score their first NHL goal anytime. Not saying Garth Snow made a bad decision, but there's an intangible trait acquired from a tournament such as this that isn't learned losing night after night on the road.

Anyway, the Isles are already up 2-0 in Edmonton in another West Coast game. Zach likes these West Coast games, as he stated a few weeks back. Me, I can't stand them. I end up staying up too late and hating myself for it in the morning. But huge kudos go to MSG Plus for broadcasting these games in HD when they could easily choose to leave the HD equipment back at home. It makes watching these games a lot more bearable.

Oh, and Edmonton fans? Mike Comrie left the team six years ago. Get over it.

Happy New Year

Well, the Islanders were able to capitalize on what was a fine effort Monday night, parlaying the strides they made against the Rangers into an impressive 4-2 win against Florida. Here's what stood out to me.

- Mike Comrie is on fire. Over the past three games, he has four goals, two of which were scored in the final minute of regulation in close battles. He had a Gordie Howe hat trick in a losing effort on Monday night. And today, he contributed two goals and was on the ice for a third. It's taken Comrie a bit of time to get back into game shape, but he's been the best player by far over the past three games. Maybe all this talk of being "pain-free" actually has some merit.

- Disappointing crowd of 12,211 on an afternoon day when every kid on Long Island is off from school. You can blame the weather for some of that, but still. You'd like to see a better turnout for an afternoon matinee, especially since nobody does anything on New Year's until later on at night. Anyone who attended the game would have to be impressed with what they saw today.

- I missed the first 15 or so minutes of the first period, so I was surprised to turn on the TV and find Jiggs McDonald doing the game. After a while, I remembered that Howie Rose traditionally takes off when the Isles go out to the West Coast. And who can blame him? With no time off at all between baseball and hockey season, Howie's got to take whatever time he can. Anyway, it was great to hear Jiggs again.

And that's when it hit me. About a month ago, Jiggs McDonald and his wife were being detained in Thailand with a group of tourists. Nobody was sure what would happen, nobody knew when (or if) Jiggs would make it home. Now, not only is he home, but he's calling Islanders games and sounding like he's with the team as often as Howie or Jaffe. What a tremendous broadcaster and man. Those of us who grew up hearing Jiggs call Islanders games are lucky to have heard him for so many years.

- It was nice to see the Islanders put forth a great third period for once. Even though they were only playing Florida (a team Jaffe suggested wasn't giving their best effort), we got to see what might happen if the Islanders could string together 6o successive minutes of quality play. The Islanders got multiple odd-man rushes as the third period progressed; that none of them resulted in goals is no matter. This is the kind of third period the Islanders can build on; the problem is, they're traveling out to the West Coast and might be fatigued before long.

And thus, the Islanders end 2009 having played four good games in a row. Five out of eight points isn't a lot, but it's sure better than the first 20 or so days of December. It's a nice little run that hopefully can be improved upon as January unfolds.

We're obviously going to be watching the Winter Classic tomorrow, as should all of you. January 1 is traditionally a college football day, but hockey is starting to make New Year's Day all its own. Even ESPN.com has the Winter Classic as its headline story right now. Even people who usually hate hockey are sort of intrigued by this thing, so let's hope the Blackhawks and Red Wings give us a good show. I have no doubt that they will. For a lot of people, this is the first time they're seeing this Blackhawks team; I'll be pulling for them. Hockey's comeback in Chicago is one of the biggest stories of 2008, and I hope they can build on that with a big win to kick off 2009.

The Rivalry: Game 3

In response to Zach's post yesterday, I opined that last night's game would be beneficial for both teams. The Islanders would get to put their absolute best face forward against their most hated rival, while the Rangers would learn to push themselves against an opponent that would be playing them extremely tough. It would also represent a chance for both teams to take their frustrations out on each other.

And that's exactly what happened.

Within the first ten minutes of the game, Mitch Fritz took on Colton Orr and Mike Comrie sparred with Nigel Dawes. Both the heavyweight and middleweight bouts were spirited and impressive. They set the tone for a hard-hitting, tightly-played game. But it was the third period when the flood gates finally opened, and unfortunately for the Islanders, the Rangers were just a little better.

Still, if you're an Islanders fan, you have to be pleased with the way your team played, even with the latest Rick DiPietro distractions. And if you're a Rangers fan, you're happy with the win. Maybe you feel like your team could have played better and maybe they should have won by more, but these Islanders give teams fits. In a recent interview, Evgeni Malkin claimed the Islanders were the team that played him the toughest. And make no mistake about it, the Islanders were up for these Rangers, and vice versa.

What's really bad for the Rangers is that they now have a week off. They have no opportunity to build off this win. The Islanders, meanwhile, play Florida tomorrow in a New Year's Eve matinee game. If the Islanders play the way they played last night, they should easily dispose of the Panthers and head into 2009 on a relatively high note. It's just unfortunate that we won't get to see the after effects of these two rivals bringing out the best in each other yet again.

Islanders Win Game 2

Well, that was unexpected.

I sort of expected the Islanders to crap out at some point. Maybe I was just preparing myself for the worst. You sort of learn to do that every now and again when you support this team. But it didn't happen. If anything, the Islanders got stronger as the game went on.

The first period was some pretty awful hockey. In fact, let's forget it ever happened. The second was a little better, but the Rangers pretty much dominated play. It wasn't until the third period that things got going... or, to put it more appropriately, for the Rangers to shoot themselves in the foot.

Two horrendous giveaways on the power play led the Islanders to score two shorthanded goals. And while I'm still not convinced that their standing as the team with the most shorthanded goals in the NHL means anything more than that they take a lot of stupid penalties, those two goals were huge. That they came from the likes of Nate Thompson and Richard Park is quite telling. Because these are the players the make the Islanders a tough team to play against. Nobody's under the illusion that the Islanders are an extremely talented team, but when you're going against guys like Thompson and Park, you have to work a lot harder to win.

After those two shorthanded goals, the Rangers were putty in the Islanders' hands. The Rangers immediately started pressing, trying to make the perfect play. That never works. The Rangers got frustrated, as evidenced by Nigel Dawes dropping the gloves with Jeff Tambellini with less than ten minutes left in the third period. The Rangers ended up getting one to make things interesting, but the game effectively ended after the Isles' secondhanded goal.

So, who to blame for tonight's poor performance by the Rangers? Pretty much everybody. Michal Rozsival is going to get the blame for much of this loss - Billy Jaffe said it best when he said Rozsival was "guilty of not being effective" - but you can also pin some of this on the offense for not scoring, on Dmitri Kalinin for being Dmitri Kalinin, and on Henrik Lundqvist for getting beat on the second goal, which he easily should have had.

For the Islanders? Much of the team played well, even if the supposed "scorers" continued what has pretty much been a season-long vacation. The star of the show would have to be Joey MacDonald, who probably played the best game of his career. Islander fans needed to see this kind of performance out of Joey MacDonald. Going into the building of your biggest rival and coming within 100 seconds of a shutout is pretty special. Plus, his performance led to this post-game exchange between C.J. Papa and Stan Fischler...

C.J.: So, Stan, what'd you see out there tonight?
Stan: I'll tell you what I saw, and it was Old MacDonald's Farm! "And a save-save here and a save-save there, here a save, there a save, everywhere a save-save!"

Had they heard this, I think even the Ranger fans among us would have to say it was all worth it. And as someone who hears these nursery rhymes dozens of times a day, it made me particularly happy. Every MSG Plus broadcast makes me a smarter hockey fan, but a dumber person. And for that, I'd like to thank everybody involved in making the magic happen, from Howie and Billy to C.J. and Stan. You all do a wonderful job.

Anyway.

Jaffe brought up the dreaded "Ranger hangover" in the same sentence as "Thursday's winnable game against Atlanta". Gulp. Make no mistake about it, the Islanders will be destroyed by an awful Thrashers team. The Islanders have been pretty awesome lately, but it can't last forever. At least not as long as guys like Mike Comrie and Doug Weight aren't scoring goals. The Rangers, on the other hand, are facing a Tampa Bay team on Thursday that has won three straight games and are finally living up to their pre-season hype. It's about time. To be honest, the Rangers-Lightning game will be a better one than Islanders-Thrashers. But like tonight, it'll be a good night for hockey in New York.

It's Not The Arena

If I hear one more person complain about how the Islanders need a new arena to attract free agents, I'm going to puke.

As I write this, I'm watching a Vintage Game on the NHL Network from 1983. The Islanders are playing the Bruins in Game 6 of the Wales Conference Finals. The Islanders are winning by a score of 7-3 and the crowd is boisterious. As we all know, the Isles go on to win the game, the series, and their fourth straight Stanley Cup. But that's not the point.

This is the point. The Coliseum is every bit of a dump now as it was in 1983. Yet, people have packed the place at any point when the team has been good. It was full in the 80s. It was full in 1993 and it was full in 2002. It's obvious that if there's a product worth watching, fans will turn out in great numbers to watch it. Look at the Mets. Shea Stadium is the most awful stadium in all of professional sports, but they've set attendance records in each of the past two years. They've also attracted premier free agents, and these players would have signed even if CitiField wasn't on the horizon.

So, getting back to the Islanders, what's the problem? If it's not the arena, it's got to be something else. In this case, that "something else" is the quality of the team. Sorry to say it, but it's true. The proverbial elephant in the room for the Islanders is the fact that their "youth movement" is a misnomer. Their organizational depth is average; worse, there's nobody on the team that can really help bring this talent along for the long haul. There are a lot of teams with a lot more depth and a better plan to develop their prospects. That's just the way it is.

I'm not trying to be critical of the Islanders. That said, I'm sick of the excuses that always seem to pop up when things go wrong. When things went awry last year, it was because there were too many injuries. Never mind the fact that the Islanders were in ninth place or worse for the final six weeks of the season. It's not that they were screwed; they just weren't good enough. The same goes for the prior season's playoff against Buffalo. Maybe it's not what fans want to hear, but the truth is the Islanders are nowhere near the league's elite.

You don't need excuses when you win. And when you're winning, the good players want to play for you. Two years ago, Pittsburgh was a last-place team in a crappy arena on the verge of being shipped off to Kansas City. Now, they're one of the best teams and, as a result, a top destination for free agents. The Devils used to play in a half-empty dump, but still drew free agents because they're always competitive. Now that they play in a half-empty palace, players have the exact same level of interest. If the Islanders had just won the Stanley Cup, do you really think players would spurn the Isles because they play in subpar facilities? I highly doubt it.

Again, it's not the arena. It's the team. If the Islanders want to get the best players, they need to build slowly and wisely. This year, if they're in 10th place again at the trading deadline and they still have Mike Comrie, Mike Sillinger, Bill Guerin, and Doug Weight in the final year of their contracts, then they should suck it up and get what they can get for these players. As much as I love Garth Snow for going for it with the Ryan Smyth deal, the Islanders need to be smart. Within a year or two, they could be a very good young organization. They just need to know who to build around. That would be Kyle Okposo and Rick DiPietro, not The Lighthouse.

Where the Islanders Went Wrong...

When you title a post "Where the Islanders Went Wrong," you could conceivably take unlimited cheap shots at their collective abdomen, mentioning hiring Mike Millbury, any of his trades (turns out Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish aren't as talented as Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen), talking about how people with no money bought a multi-million dollar franchise, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I won't do that. I will rise above that level.

I also won't be talking about the signing of "character players" like Josef Vasicek and Jon Sim, and how we were told it's because of their heart and grit that they were signed, as opposed to the real reason that no one wants to play for the Islanders (except, for some reason, Bryan McCabe).

I want to talk about how Garth Snow messed up at the trade deadline this year.

I'm not anti-Snow. Sure, I thought it was a joke when Blogger Bryan texted me about them firing Neil Smith and promoting their back-up goalie (much like me texting him "Isles trade DP to Ottawa for Eaves, Corvo and 2 1st rounders"), but I think he isn't an awful GM, especially compared to Millbury. 

When he traded the farm for Ryan Smyth, he did what he had to do. The opportunity came up, he swung the deal. The grand prize wound up being a few weekday sell-outs and 2 extra home games, but he did what he had to because he felt he had a team worthy of making the playoffs.

This year, he completely dropped the ball. He had to have known Rick DiPietro was hurt, unless he wasn't watching Versus during the skills competition when DP said into his mic "Fucked up my hip." 

A bunch of his veterans, including key faceoff man Mike Sillinger, were hurt, and the ones that weren't should have been shipped out to make way for the future, not held onto in a pathetic, desperate, unintentionally funny attempt to make the playoffs.

The NHL is simple and cyclic (except for the Red Wings). Teams are bad, stay bad a few years, get high draft picks, sell off overpriced vets for more picks and prospects, have a few okay years, get good. Read the book on the Penguins (Fleury, Whitney, Crosby, Malkin, and Staal were all Top 5 picks). 

When teams are good, they don't stay good for very long because of what they sacrificed to be there. The Rangers won the Cup in 1994 and Neil Smith gave up a lot for that, even noting that they would be bad for a while when he did it, and they were. Tampa Bay won in 2004, then signed Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards to a huge deal. So big, in fact, that had to let their goalie go. They then paid 4 players so much that they couldn't sign or keep any role players (see: Pavel Kubina moving to Toronto).

Then, there are teams that are bad but won't admit it. Teams like the 1998-2003 Rangers, or the current Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs should have had a firesale, but their players wouldn't waive no-trade clauses (bad management in John Ferguson, Jr.) and then they played decent down the stretch, giving them slight, slight hope for a top-8 seeding. The Rangers thought they were always one big name away from glory, so they spent the money they had and it brought nothing. They never re-built from within until 2004, when the upcoming CBA gave them no choice.

The Islanders were a bad team last year, even when they were winning. Mike Comrie will never be more than a 2nd line center on other teams. Sillinger shouldn't be playing 19 minutes a night at age 36. Hell, at age 26 he shouldn't have been. Miro Satan is not a top-line winger or your go-to guy with an empty net.

Yet, the Islanders stood pat. They didn't sell for the future. A team like Ottawa would have loved Satan, who would have contributed more than Cory Stillman eventually did for them. Ruslan Fedotenko is a proven playoff performer, scoring both goals in the Lightning's 2-1 Game 7 win over Calgary in the '04 Finals. He could have been a useful player in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (instead of Vinny Prospal) or Dallas. Vasicek will never score 40 goals, but Nashville could have used him again (instead of Jan Hlavac) or maybe Calgary to give a pop to their offense.

They had no studs to trade away, no Smyth's, Marian Hossa's or Cristobal Huet's, but they could have fetched a 2nd and 4th rounder for Satan, and a 3rd rounder for Tank and Vasicek. This is a very deep draft, and those picks could have turned into something more than what they got for trading Marc-Andre Bergeron.

Islanders Trade Deadline Review

Sure, it's a few days late... but this sort of thing tends to happen when you don't start your blog until two days after the deadline.

Anyway.

In the days before the trade deadline, Garth Snow labeled the Islanders as "builders". As in, not buyers or sellers. I guess this was his way of saying that he had no idea what his team would be doing at the deadline, which is the predicament quite a few teams found themselves in. Given the constant change in the East standings throughout this season, it was impossible for any of the middle-tier teams to figure out what to do. That's one by-product of the widespread parity we've see in the East this year.

The other by-product, of course, is a large amount of teams making big moves. Since there are very few elite teams, the middle class of the NHL is very tightly compressed - and each of them thinks they're one move away from making a run at the Cup. We've seen it a million times in the past, and we'll see it even more in the future as the gap between the haves and the have-nots diminishes. Last year, we saw the Islanders go this route with the Ryan Smyth deal. Needless to say, it was fairly obvious we wouldn't see a repeat performance from Mr. Snow.

So what did we expect this year? Not much. Maybe a trade or two to dump a few of the team's many unrestricted free agents, but that's about it. And that's what we got. I've been a pretty big Marc-Andre Bergeron fan since he's been here, but getting a third-round pick for a player who spent a significant amount of time watching the Islanders from the press box is a great deal. So is getting a sixth-rounder for Chris Simon, a player who many people thought should have been cut immediately after his latest suspension. Sure, a sixth-round pick is roughly as vaulable as a Lotto scratch-off ticket, but one never knows what gems can be unearthed in the draft.

As for additions, the Isles only picked up one player, defenseman Rob Davison. And he's already playing quality minutes in clutch situations. It's tough to say where he fits in with the team's long-term plans, but I'll take Davison over the Drew Fatas of the world any day. He already scored major points with me by playing the same night he was traded, three thousand miles away no less. That's dedication. That's what Islander fans like. Davison already has a fan in yours truly. The trades the Islanders pulled off also means they have a (supposedly) regular spot for Jeff Tambellini in the lineup, and I must say it's about time. All this guy has done is tear up the AHL, yet he still can't seem to latch onto the big club. After watching the likes of Darryl Bootland, Chris Simon, and Tim Jackman produce nothing for the Islanders, they had better give Tambellini a real chance to show he belongs. It's hard to rebuild if you can't trust your young players to play at the NHL level.

The other big news to come out of the trade deadline is the re-signing of Mike Comrie. Yeah, it's only for a year, but still. Here's a decidely above-average player who actually wants to play on Long Island. How about that? Even the most optimistic of Islander fans saw Comrie as a one-and-done player, following in the footsteps of pretty much every good player we've had since the lockout. It'd be a stretch to say that Comrie's decision to stay will convince other players to do the same, but it certainly doesn't hurt. And say what you want to about Comrie, but since he was given the "A", he's been a force for this team. He even has three fights on the year, a very high total for a player not known for his physical presence. Again, maybe Comrie isn't the guy to build the team around, but he should be good for the young players thanks to his passing ability and overall hockey sense.

Even though the Islanders didn't really do much of anything at the deadline, they did make a great deal of progress. They got back decent value for some dead weight, re-signed their best skater, and cleared out space for some young talent to step up. Which certainly beats a huge firesale or an ill-fated deal for a rental player. Will these moves get the Isles into the playoffs? Tough to say. But they're no worse equipped to make a run than they were a week ago, and that's the most important thing.