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Puck Luck & Focus Update Tues 2:36 pm

October 6, 2014, 11:03 PM ET [8 Comments]
Dee Karl
New York Islanders Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
2:36 pm 10/7: After much thought, the tough decision was made to send Anders Lee to the Bridgeport SoundTigers along with Ryan Pulock.

This is not sitting well with many Isles fans, but they have to realize that while Lee may have done more in camp than some others, he is still young and decisions need to be made. Jack Capuano said he will be an Islander for a long time. And I don't doubt that. But for now, he's in the AHL.

This is not a Nino situation. Hopefully the fans will not make it into one.

12 pm 10/7: Well, it's true. Carkner and Visnovsky have been placed on IR -- officially. Love the idea that Isles Twitter mentioned "and no one went crazy."

Also, falling in line with what Jack said yesterday regarding the start of the season,
Richard J. Zimmerman ‏@RichJZman · 56m56 minutes ago
#isles @StapeNewsday Oct Nov schedule Isles playing tough WCnf teams hope Isles get off to good start, then pull away from pack in Dec


Jack also said on XM that the new depth on the blue line will relive minutes from Hamonic and Hickey while there are those who are banged up. When asked how much of an impact "successful champions" will make on Jack's squad, he quickly noted "Our guys are winners too." Hard work and character are what defines the Isles squad. This coaching staff wouldn't have it any other way.


11 pm 10/6: The islanders have been receiving more media coverage for the right reasons today than they have in a long time. That’s what happens when a team improves exponentially overnight -- or over a Saturday afternoon in October.

As coach Jack Capuano told Butch Goring today on his radio show, the media had picked the Isles to be bottom feeders again. “We want to prove them wrong.” He also wants to play for the people in the seats, especially this season. The team has a singular focus: winning. Now that they are better defensively, with health and “a little puck luck” they will prove themselves.

Previous seasons have seen the Isles have difficulty getting out of the gate. Although I don’t remember it ever being as bad as the year the Leafs went “O for October.” Jack is calm. “You can’t panic. It’s imperative to get off to a good start. If your health is good, your conditioning is good, you can pull ahead in the second half.” Hopefully, they won’t have to. They’ll already be there.

“We respect our opponents, but we fear nobody. This group has the mindset ‘We’ve paid our dues. Let’s go out and execute our system. We have to get off on a good start, but it’s one shift, one period, one game at a time. I don’t look ahead.”

Building chemistry in this group will be important with the added pieces from other systems and Jack believes they can trust in each other. Let’s hope so.

While Jack was on with Butch Goring, Garth Snow made a radio call as well on @FAN590 with @BradyAndWalker. He admitted that he had been pursuing Boychuk and Leddy for “a significant amount of time.”

“I thought we addressed our forwards and our goaltending starting in the Spring. We feel we solidified that position fairly early in July. Then adding Grabovski, Kulemin and Cory Conacher has been excellent in camp for us, so we made a lot of additions at forward and goal. On Saturday we made two big transactions that will help our blue line.”

Garth was asked about the risk/reward of acquiring Johnny Boychuk with only one year left on his contract. “We obviously gave up significant assets. We’ll do everything we can to sign him. Every team in the league has pending free agents and we’re no different.” I don’t believe this will by a Ryan Smyth or Thomas Vanish situation.

The goal is a playoff berth, “It really doesn’t matter what seed you are. When you get in, anything can happen….So we obviously are keeping our focus on ending training camp the right way. We’re going to play these 82 games and we’re going to take them one at a time.” Just like Jack.

While Halak and Johnson are an upgrade over the previous years’ goaltending, Snow was quick to say Nabokov did the job well, but they ran into problems with his injuries and the time he lost leaving them with inconsistent goaltending.

Snow is proud of his young developing players, Strome, Lee Rheinhart. “For us, the strength of our organization is our prospect pool and it’s a great luxury to have.”

While Garth was praising his prospects, another radio host had some interesting complaints. Jim “Boomer” Gordon on SiriusXM NHL Radio, an Islanders fan at heart, became quite passionate today when discussing this year’s acquisitions. “Six guys on opening night are guys you had to go and get. Where are the ones who were developed in your organization? I wish the Islanders were using guys from their own development. In a seven year rebuild, I don’t understand why this team needed to fill a roster with other team’s cast offs. Teams that go out and band-aid -- this never seems to work.”

In all honesty, it was a good question. SIX acquisitions after working on growing their own? So the nudge in me took this argument to the top where I was promptly informed “We could have up to 12 home grown, drafted players in our line-up Friday.” Well, okay then.

Speaking of Friday, Art Staple has run off the list of wounded: Visnovsky, Pulock Carkner, Grabner and deHaan. Grabner and deHaan were placed on IR retroactive to late September. Kevin Czuczman was “loaned to the SoundTigers” leaving Reinhart with the club as an insurance policy should Visnovsky not be ready for the weekend. Staple took an educated guess at Friday’s line-up: 89-91-21, 84-29-18, 12-51-86, 17-53-15. Defense pairs: 2-55, 14-3, 37-8 and an extra 46. But if Visnovsky CAN play, put 37 with 3 and 14 with 11. Staple feels Pulock has missed too much camp time and will either be on IR or a bus to Bport.

It was a long day of notes.
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