I respect your opinion but respectfully disagree. This season isnt on injuries. Thats exactly what these clowns want you to believe.
- Cptmjl

Fair enough.

Of course they are all around the stadium up and down the streets a couple by the huson river as well or is that the east river? Either way don't fall in
- Vukota

I won't fall in but some ranger fans might get wet, if it's not frozen

Driving to my buddies in merrick and then he is driving from there with another car load behind us
- Vukota

Nice.

Nice.
- Isles316

You on the bus as well?

Who is more believable Obama and his state of the union or SNow and his state of the Islanders?

Who is more believable Obama and his state of the union or SNow and his state of the Islanders?

Who is more believable Obama and his state of the union or SNow and his state of the Islanders?
- mighty13duck

I think Snow at least believes what he is doing is going to work one day. I doubt that either Obama, or whoever it is that is going to be the Republican responder, really give a sh*t about anything but getting themselves and/or people on their side elected and re-elected.

I think Snow at least believes what he is doing is going to work one day. I doubt that either Obama, or whoever it is that is going to be the Republican responder, really give a sh*t about anything but getting themselves and/or people on their side elected and re-elected.
- dcb1

you are probably right.

Who is more believable Obama and his state of the union or SNow and his state of the Islanders?
- mighty13duck

Does anyone even listen to what that dope is saying?

You on the bus as well?
- Vukota

Yea we got a party bus. The guys in my section. More room if anyone wants in

on NBCSN Isles rangers rivalry. Maloney talking about how he hates the isles and their free chili

I respect your opinion but respectfully disagree. This season isnt on injuries. Thats exactly what these clowns want you to believe.
- Cptmjl

This season's incredibly unfortunate, because you can see what could be with this team if they weren't forced to score like 5 goals to win every game...all because of the completely foreseeable issues of goaltending and defense.

on NBCSN Isles rangers rivalry. Maloney talking about how he hates the isles and their free chili
- mighty13duck

Fack maloney. The guy is so ridiculously stupid I cant even get mad. Every time hes on tv he makes the Rangers look bad.

I just don't think Poulin has it, never saw anything special about him tbh. In all honesty Schneider should be an Islander right now and if we had any other GM in the league he would be here over Clutterbuck.
- mighty13duck

How do you figure since Vanc did NOT want Nino??

XxNYIxX

How do you figure since Vanc did NOT want Nino??

XxNYIxX
- XxNYIxX

If that was the case which I don't think any of us have proof than you find a way to make it happen when you have a good young goaltender available and you're a team that has issues in net for years like the New York Islanders.

This season's incredibly unfortunate, because you can see what could be with this team if they weren't forced to score like 5 goals to win every game...all because of the completely foreseeable issues of goaltending and defense.
- UIF

Thanks. I get tired of beating a dead horse and repeating myself. Hence the post you replied too.

If that was the case which I don't think any of us have proof than you find a way to make it happen when you have a good young goaltender available and you're a team that has issues in net for years like the New York Islanders.
- Cptmjl

Sorta like responding to:
"we had no choice, there was nothing that could be done"
with
"well...he still shoulda"


I agree that as a GM, his job is to 'fool proof' the team, but I have to say the nature of that trade with NJ was very odd. I have to think there were at least a few teams that could have offered more than what Jersey gave up.
I don't know what Snow 'could have' gotten for Nino, but for all reports, Schneider and Bernier were not two of those options.
I suppose Snow likeley overestimated just how effective Poulin might be and also felt that he could milk one more season out of Nabby once whatever goaltending options evaporated.

No matter what, it is indeed a failure on his part to evaluate and prepare.

Sorta like responding to:
"we had no choice, there was nothing that could be done"
with
"well...he still shoulda"


I agree that as a GM, his job is to 'fool proof' the team, but I have to say the nature of that trade with NJ was very odd. I have to think there were at least a few teams that could have offered more than what Jersey gave up.
I don't know what Snow 'could have' gotten for Nino, but for all reports, Schneider and Bernier were not two of those options.
I suppose Snow likeley overestimated just how effective Poulin might be and also felt that he could milk one more season out of Nabby once whatever goaltending options evaporated.

No matter what, it is indeed a failure on his part to evaluate and prepare.
- keaner17

If you have a strong D, you can get away with mediocre goaltending. If you have an unreal goaltender, you can afford to leave him out to dry a few times a game and he'll still bail you out. Having mediocre goaltending along with shaky D and playing a system that's all offense all the time? Predictably, that leads to a ranking of 29th out of 30 teams in goals against/game at 3.29.

We can come up with all of the excuses in the world. But one of those three things should be, or should have already been, addressed. Get a good goaltender, fix the D, or play a much more defensive system that compensates for the lack of defensive abilities. I think the team's been remarkable in its ability to score goals to stay in games and make up for all of the soft goals and defensive breakdowns. But there's only so much they can do to overcome that GA/G number. And I don't think it's a great surprise to anyone that the team struggles to keep pucks out of the net. It was an obvious weakness in the playoffs last season, and was a painfully obvious area that needed to be addressed in the offseason.

If you have a strong D, you can get away with mediocre goaltending. If you have an unreal goaltender, you can afford to leave him out to dry a few times a game and he'll still bail you out. Having mediocre goaltending along with shaky D and playing a system that's all offense all the time? Predictably, that leads to a ranking of 29th out of 30 teams in goals against/game at 3.29.

We can come up with all of the excuses in the world. But one of those three things should be, or should have already been, addressed. Get a good goaltender, fix the D, or play a much more defensive system that compensates for the lack of defensive abilities. I think the team's been remarkable in its ability to score goals to stay in games and make up for all of the soft goals and defensive breakdowns. But there's only so much they can do to overcome that GA/G number. And I don't think it's a great surprise to anyone that the team struggles to keep pucks out of the net. It was an obvious weakness in the playoffs last season, and was a painfully obvious area that needed to be addressed in the offseason.
- UIF

Well, my hope was that we'd get a goaltender and top pairing dman. Acquiring the latter can often be a tall order, if not nearly impossible. So the fail would have been not finding someone that could at least play top four minutes.
I also felt that IF Nabby returned, we needed to start 60/40 Nabby over Poulin and gradually work to a 60/40 Poulin, giving us time to develop. Unfortunately we started with our typical 80/20 Nabby and then were forced to go 100% Poulin.

Coming into the season with THIS defense, I felt we'd have trouble, but wouldn't have a huge drop off from last season. However if you told me at the beginning of the year that Nabby would miss half the season and three of our top four dmen would miss SIGNIFICANT time, I'd tell you we were screwed. So in light of this teams present incarnation, injuries and all, yeah..we were doomed without those additions. I think there was never a real effort to IMPROVE the team as opposed to maintaining the status quo for another year.

This goes into my theory that we're simply biding time until Barclays. So a lot of this seasons failure falls on Garth since it's his job to make the team better, but the ultimate doom of this team was indeed the injuries to Lubo, Hamomic, Strait and Nabby. No team is going to lose their starting goalie and top two dmen for most of the season and look defensively sound, especially with Jack Capuano calling the shots.
So I agree that having a coach who was unable to adjust to the losses the team sustained and a GM who failed to plug the holes did little more than make everyone observers to a sinking ship.

I think Vanek is horrible. The only way he is worth keeping is by building a solid blue line behind him because he doesn't play D and and gives more away than welfare. Let's call him welfare for now on
- mrock

this is one for the ages...i can only image the comments that follow...seriously top 5 dumbest things ive read on this site

this is one for the ages...i can only image the comments that follow...seriously top 5 dumbest things ive read on this site
- LetsGoIsles

Yeah, I left that one alone...too easy

First let me say this so you guys don't go berserk ... I'm not a fan of Snow and I want an experienced GM. However, I don't think Snow could have anticipated all the injuries to the defense this year. We knew the D was thin, but to lose their three best defenseman made them horrible. Nabby is a different story. There was no way he was going to play more than 60 games this year. I think everyone saw his injuries coming.

My biggest complaint about Snow is that Cappy is still the coach.
- JimmyP

this

AM I the only one who doesn't have tickets tomorrow?
- mighty13duck

looks like it...

where is everyone sitting?

First let me say this so you guys don't go berserk ... I'm not a fan of Snow and I want an experienced GM. However, I don't think Snow could have anticipated all the injuries to the defense this year. We knew the D was thin, but to lose their three best defenseman made them horrible. Nabby is a different story. There was no way he was going to play more than 60 games this year. I think everyone saw his injuries coming.

My biggest complaint about Snow is that Cappy is still the coach.
- JimmyP

Agreed 100%
I still say Nabby was a fallback for plans that fell through. Otherwise his contract would have been extended earlier. I have to think there was SOMEONE mgmt had in their sights but ultimately couldn't get.
Hindsight is great and a few people did indeed call the disaster early on, though I think some would have yelled 'iceberg' no matter what we did.
Most teams in the league are thin at defense. Very few teams could sustain those losses and certainly with an inferior coach, we aren't one of them.

I would not spend a dime on this team until Cappy is off the team and the other waste products who we all know is off the team