Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Isles D and Goatending Not Good Right Now

November 20, 2013, 9:56 PM ET [41 Comments]
GARTH'S CORNER
NHL news by Garth • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The New York Islanders are in serious trouble right now. Their D corps doesn’t instill fear in the hearts and minds of enemy attackers. Who’s afraid of Thomas Hickey and Travis Hamonic? Injuries to key D Lubomir Visnovsky and Brian Strait are causing problems for the Isles right now.

Tavares and his team are 8-11-3.

They are allowing far too many shots against and are allowing too many goals against.
The Islanders goalies currently are ranked 28th in the NHL with a 3.23 GAA.

Kevin Poulin and recent Bridgeport recall Anders Nilsson are grinding it out until the injured Evgeni Nabokov recovers from his groin injury. Nabakov is 40 years old and his groin strain may keep him out of the lineup until late December, if not longer.

The Islaes are not outscoring their poor team D and bad goaltending right now. That’s why they are in the dubious situation that they are not scoring 4 goals a game to off-set their 3.23 GAA.


To make matters worse, Thomas Vanek has missed the past 5 games with his upper body (hand) injury.

Garth Snow may have to make a trade for a goaltender Poulin and Nilsson cannot turn it around quickly.



______________________________________________________________________











I was feeling nostalgic when I watched Clarke MacArthur feed Kyle Turris a beautiful pass for an amazing goal in the Senators-Wild game on Wednesday night.


When Sabres GM Darcy Regier and director of amateur scouting Jim Benning drafted Clarke MacArthur out of the Medicine Hat Tigers in the third round of the 2003 NHL entry draft, it was with two things in mind:

To add a fleet-footed, two-way forward who could kill penalties, score 20+ goals and create pretty plays.

Kinda like this....




Sexy. Silky. Shorty.

MacArthur strip-scored his bud Pommer, who got the goal back when he scored his 13th goal of the season just 59 seconds later.


See the guy that MacArthur torched at the point? Thats his former Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Amerks teammate Jason Pominville, who Regier and Benning selected out of Shawinigan in round 2 (#55 overall) of 2001 NHL Entry Draft.

Benning grades out an A+ for both MacArthur and Pominville, to say nothing of the high grades he deserves for identifying and drafting such NHL luminaries as Thomas Vanek, Ryan Miller, Derek Roy, Paul Gaustad, Brian Campbell, Dan Paille and others.

Sabres president of hockey operations Pat LaFontaine will be interviewing Benning for the vacant Buffalo GM job in the very near future. Benning spent 12 years in the Sabres organization, eight as director of pro scouting. In the summer of the 2006, he became the assistant GM of the Boston Bruins. His name was included on the Stanley Cup for the 1st time with the Boston Bruins in 2011. If LaFontaine cannot land Rick Dudley to be his next GM, I certainly hope that he hires Benning to be the new GM. Benning has a real keen eye for identifying young, dynamic talent and character players, like MacArthur and Pominville.


________________________________________________________________________




LA Kings GM Dean Lombardi updated the injury status of his starting goalie Jonathon Quick on Wednesday, The news isn't very good.

Quick suffered a Grade 2 groin strain in Buffalo last Tuesday night.

The initial prognosis called for Quick to miss 3 to 6 weeks. Lombardi said Wednesday that Quick will be out one more month, if not




________________________________________________________________________
Join the Discussion: » 41 Comments » Post New Comment
More from GARTH'S CORNER
» Hailing Taxis
» He With The Gold Makes The Rules
» Sedentary Seven
» The Sedentary Seven
» GadZuccs