The Islanders return home tonight to face off with the Arizona Coyotes. New York desperately needs to rebound after a disappointing loss at the hands of the San Jose Sharks earlier in the week. The Islanders slow start has to end as this team cannot bury itself in an early hole if it expects to make the playoffs.
Jaroslav Halak will be in net tonight and rookie blue liner Ryan Pulock will make his season debut. He will play in place of injured dman Nick Leddy. Pulock is expected to see time with the first power play unit.
Through four games the Isles look slow and boring and that starts with their play in their own end. The transition to offense and breakouts by the dmen have been deplorable. There is no way to sugar coat it. The only defenseman that has been able to break out of the zone with any regularity is Nick Leddy. Johnny Boychuk looks like he is skating with a piano on his back. The strong postseason that Thomas Hickey had has not carried over to the start of the season and Calvin de Haan is kind of just there.
However, the most alarming news has been the putrid play of Travis Hamonic. He looks lost through four games and right now I would rather have Stevie Wonder teach me how to parallel park than watch Hamonic try and breakout of his own end.
While the overall general play in their own end has not been horrible you cannot transition defense to offense without clean breakouts. This is on the forwards as well. Andrew Ladd needs to find the score sheet tonight. Of course they waived the only consistent line mate that he had all of the preseason but enough is enough. It is time to find the back of the net.
The forward group stays the same tonight as Mathew Barzal continues to sit in the press box. At some point if you are not going to play him then please just send him back to juniors. Islanders Head Coach Jack Capuano said that he needed to discuss Barzal’s future with General Manager Garth Snow.
Snow has done his best Loch Ness Monster impression and disappeared from the public eye yet again. Perhaps he is separating himself from the coaching staff in case the staff is terminated. I honestly do not know and that is just my opinion. One thing is for certain though. This team is on Garth. We all know this staff has its “limitations.” It was up to the GM to improve this roster yet here we are again in another version of groundhog day, complaining about the same issues.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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