The Islanders continued their dreadful stretch of play with a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets last night. The goaltending was still an issue, the defense is still a major issue but I want to talk about another issue lurking within this team; its' heart.
When Eric Boulton is your best forward YOU HAVE MAJOR problems. Nobody is hitting, nobody is finishing checks, nobody is playing with any fire or urgency. They look like a team that has quit on their coach. But what would a firing solve? Doug Weight would take over. The same Doug Weight who is coaching the horrific freak show that is the powerplay.
Last year win or lose you could say the Islanders were never out worked. Sure they made mistakes but at the end of the night you could say they put in a solid hard blue collar effort and gave it everything they had. I'm not seeing it now.
I keep hearing that the Moulson trade screwed up the teams' chemistry. I call shenanigans to that one. One trade should not make a team stop skating, or hitting, or finishing their checks or fighting in the corners. And if for some reason this trade did hurt the teams "feelings" well then we have the wrong players and we have the wrong leaders on this team. And for all the Moulson fanboys he was benched his last game in Buffalo so how is that going right now?
There is something clearly wrong with this team. They have lost their mojo, but more importantly they lost their work ethic which is one of the harshest thing anyone can say about a team. Let's see if they can turn it around in Montreal tonight.
I will be joining Mike Augello on the Metro Buzz podcast which will be up tomorrow so please check it out. I will be at the Sound Tigers game this afternoon and will have a prospect report up tomorrow. As always for more on all things hockey please follow me on twitter at @DanDanNoodles78.