The Islanders and Flyers finish off their home and home meeting today at 1pm at Nassau Coliseum. After losing in Philadelphia on Saturday today is a critical game for the Islanders’ season. The Islanders play within their division is awful and if they have any thoughts of the postseason they must find ways to win games in the Metro Division. The forward lines will be decided after warm-ups with either Peter Regin or Eric Boulton taking the final forward spot. The defense will remain the same as Saturday and in goal will be rookie Anders Nilsson.
I understand the need for Nilsson to play either today or tomorrow night against the Rangers, however I am not fond of the position that the coaching staff continues to put their young players in. Nilsson should have started last week against Florida. How can you continue to ask your young goalies to shine once every two weeks? It doesn’t matter if it is Nilsson or Poulin to sit on the bench for two weeks and then go play a critical game and shine is madness. The same can be same with Matt Donovan. The coaching staff needs to not put their young players in a position to fail. Calvin deHaan proved he can handle the spotlight; that he is ready for primetime and as soon as Donovan was removed from playing with the likes of Carkner and Martinek his game has improved with deHaan.
The same can be said with both Poulin and Nilsson. You cannot trot them out once every two weeks and expect a quality start. In my opinion I believe this is a recipe for disaster and I have to question it. We don’t know what Kevin Poulin is yet. He has the ability but his technique and fundamentals needs work. Anders Nilsson is not close to a finished product, he has the technique but does he have the athleticism to be a franchise goalie? One thing is for certain sitting them on the pine for weeks upon end is the equivalent to a baseball manager grossly misusing his bullpen.
I certainly hope I am wrong on this matter and perhaps Nilsson will step up and shine bright today. He without question has the talent to do so. I just feel that this staff has mishandled this situation and have really put a burden on their young players to swim when they might not be ready.
Without question this is an important game and perhaps I’m looking into this too much. I’m just trying to look big picture here and I have seen this happen countless times in many organizations. We all marvel at the success of Ben Bishop but fail to forget that he is on his third organization. I truly believe the Senators and Blues want a “do over.… Our young goalies have talent and potential but I just have a feeling that these skills will not be fulfilled until they are in another organization. As always for more on all things hockey please follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @DanDanNoodles78.