The Penguins have only three players on their bench to the Islanders four by the final minutes of the third period in Friday night's match-up that featured countless brawls, fights and game misconducts (Rob McGowan)

The Islanders and Penguins went head-to-head in a Friday night grudge match that showcased several highlight reel goals, plays and above all, brawls and scrums that seemingly occurred after every play and whistle at both ends of the ice. Numerous fighting majors and misconducts were handed out, which inevitably meant that both teams were going to have to deal with the NHL disciplinary system.

“They stuck up for one another. It’s a close knit group in there,” said interim head coach Jack Capuano after the game. He repeated much of the same mantra that had been stated in the locker room after the game, although only a fraction of the team was available since so many had been thrown out with game misconducts before the third period concluded. The players felt they did what they had to do in order to play as a team. For a full story with quotes, head over to my other article from yesterday at The Checking Line: http://thecheckingline.com/blog/rob-mcgowan/new-york-islanders/pummeling-penguins-isles-win-9-3-fight-filled-match

As a result, Eric Godard of the Pittsburgh Penguins was handed an automatic 10-game suspension for leaving the bench to defend goaltender Brent Johnson after Micheal Haley skated down to go toe-to-toe with him at the Pens end of the ice after finishing his bout with Max Talbot. Trevor Gillies will sit out for the next nine games for his elbow to Eric Tangradi’s head and Matt Martin will sit for four games for attempting to deliver a cheap shot to Talbot at center ice in the second period, which set the tone for the rest of the game.

In addition to the suspensions, the NHL fined the New York Islanders $100,000 for letting things get out of control. After the win, Capuano was asked if the history of the two teams this season played into his coaching strategy before the game.

Islanders interim head coach Jack Capuano was not disappointed with the way his team handled themselves on the ice against the Penguins (OneTigerFan/Flickr)

“As a coaching staff we prepare our guys obviously systematically what we want to try to do to diffuse some of their strengths. And the players play the game. And you know what, obviously they had an understanding of what happened the last time we played and the players played the game and they did what they had to do,” said Capuano.

And although the players took matters into their own hands, Capuano didn’t disapprove of what happened on the ice.

“I have no problems. Like I said, it’s not like as a staff, I’m sure Dan (Bylsma) didn’t send Johnson down on Ricky and I’m not sending guys to do what they have to do. The players play the game and they take action the way they feel is necessary,” said Capuano.

Although that may be the case, the NHL clearly felt that Capuano could have done more to restrain his players from continuing to take action throughout the game. As a result, Charles Wang will have to open up his wallet for a decent amount of cash. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect anything like this to repeat in the near future – it’s a good thing for Wang that these two teams don’t meet again until April 8th.

The best thing for the Islanders to do now is move forward with a win this afternoon in Buffalo. The team clearly is playing for one another as a unit. The mayhem and demolishing of the Penguins will only hold value if they can carry their play into a regular opponent like the Sabres. The Islanders have the momentum; it’s time to keep the ball rolling.

-Rob McGowan

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Rob McGowan

This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.

Matt Moulson recently signed a three-year contract extension with the New York Islanders (HockeyBroad/Flickr)

Tonight is one of the biggest sporting events of the year as the Green Bay Packers are set to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl tonight, but that didn’t stray the Islanders focus away from winning an important game last night against a struggling Ottawa Senators team. Rob Schremp had a two-goal night while Grabner continued his hot streak, notching his 16th goal of the season. Frans Nielsen capped the evening with an empty-netter and Matt Moulson had the first goal of the game to give him a tie for the team-lead in goals with John Tavares at 18.

Moulson recently signed a three-year contract extension with the team. He was last year’s leading goal scorer and has continued the same pace through this season, playing well with long-time buddy John Tavares and winger P.A. Parenteau. The organization views Moulson as a crucial member to the core of the team and wasted little time in getting him locked up since he would have been able to test the free agent market this summer.

I found him sitting next to Parenteau and chatting with Trevor Gillies after the mainstream media scrum asked all of their questions for the post-game interview. All three were in high spirits after the game; a brutal one that had several fights and scrums and a six-goal first period. Moulson was kind enough to spare a few more minutes to answer some of my questions.

You’re fresh off a three-year contract extension with the New York Islanders. How does it feel?

“You know it’s great. This is where I wanted to be from the start. The negotiations, I told both sides, my agent and Garth, that this is where I wanted to be and that I wanted to be here for a while. I love being a part of this team. I love being a part of this organization. So I was just excited to finally get it done. It’s a weight off your shoulders.”

Where do you see this team going over those next three years?

“Hopefully to the Stanley Cup, (laughs) that’s the plan. We have a lot of great young talent here. Some great players and some great guys. Hopefully we can develop that into something special.”

What’s one thing that needs to change in order for you guys to take the next step?

“First it would help if we were a little bit more healthier for the year. But I think just being consistent game in and game out with our intensity and our play and our execution. If we can do that we are going to win a lot more games than we lose.”

Matt Moulson and John Tavares have been long time friends before either one of them made it to the NHL (HockeyBroad/Flickr)

You and John Tavares have been close friends for several years. Did he have anything to do with wanting to re-sign with the Islanders?

“Yeah, he came over my house, he was crying when he thought I was going to leave. So it was good for him. Obviously I’ve built a close friendship with him. A bunch of these guys I’ve built close friendships with. I’m not going to lie I do enjoy playing with him. He’s a great player and he’s going to be a great player for many years to come. Him along with a lot of the other guys, well, everyone in this room is a big reason why I wanted to be part of this team.”

Do you and Tavares have any friendly competitions on or off the ice? After tonight now you two are both tied for the team lead in goals.

“No we don’t really talk about it actually (laughs), we just try to score as many goals as we can and win as many games as we can. We tell P.A. (Parenteau) he’s the assist man. He likes to mix in a couple goals here and there. But I think we just have a good thing going with the three of us right now. Everyone always asks us that but I don’t think we ever talked about it. We just both want to score every time and win every game. That’s pretty much it.”

Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?

“I think the Packers right now. I don’t know why, I don’t really love either of the teams. The Steelers beat the Jets so, they were my team and I had them in our pool so I want the Packers to beat the Steelers.”

In a season filled with injuries and losing streaks, getting Matt Moulson locked up is one of the best things to happen to the team this season. The Islanders are very fortunate to have a player of his calibre here for the rest of the year and going forward.

-Rob McGowan

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This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.

Rick DiPietro's career has faced several injuries; this season he has worked hard to try to restore himself as a top NHL goaltender (xjowell/Flickr)

Rick DiPietro began his comeback from injury in the middle of last season but was then shut down as the year started to conclude in order to prevent any further harm to the fragile goaltender. He had only appeared in thirteen games over two seasons and is currently in the early stages of a fifteen-year contract. Being that he is the team’s franchise net-minder for many years to come, whether anyone likes it or not, Rick’s health has become a top priority and concern for the team.

DP started the season without an estimate of starts or any numbered expectations; the only goal was for DP to start and finish the season healthy. So far he is on pace to do that (knock on wood), although his recovery has been slow and steady.

DiPietro has appeared in 21 games this season with a 7-10-4 record while also posting one shutout. His GAA is 3.36 along with a .890 save percentage. There is no hiding that the Islanders are a bottom seeded team that has struggled to win hockey games this year, and DP’s numbers are indicative of that fact. However, some nights Rick has stood on his head and stolen a few hockey games. Others, such as the 3-0 loss to the Penguins last night, were not his best.

In last night’s loss to the Penguins, DiPietro was seen flopping through his crease early on in the first period. He also let up a terrible goal to Chris Kunitz, a backhand shot that bounced off his shoulder as he cut across his crease in anticipation of a pass for the Penguins 2-0n-1 rush. He admitted after the game that he was “cheating” to one side and should have been ready. The fact that he was involved in a one-punch knockout with Penguins goaltender, Brent Jonhson, didn’t help either. But you got to give kudos to #39 for willing to drop the mits (although he had it coming after dropping Matt Cooke) as well as to Johnson, who was seen giving DiPietro a pat on his crest after the fight for good sportsmanship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjdlEO0G154&feature=related (YouTube video courtesy of nhlboy88)

Rick DiPietro (RagingMike/Flickr)

But the season isn’t over, and DiPietro is likely to have a few bad goals continue to get passed him. 21 games out of 51 is not a lot, but it’s probably a number that many are pleased with after his previous two seasons. It’s also important to keep in mind that Ricky has a fragile, young defense in front of him. Travis Hamonic is in his first season out of Junior, having started the year with the Sound Tigers in the AHL. Dylan Reese has been a consistent AHL call-up; Jack Hillen lacks the size to be constantly effective in front of the net; veterans Mike Mottau and Mark Eaton are done for the season and Mark Streit hasn’t played a game all year. That leaves Radek Martinek, Bruno Gervais and Andrew MacDonald to handle a lot of minutes. Although the relatively inexperienced defense has proven strong in some areas, DiPietro surely could use a little more assistance when trying to shave off the rust.

DiPietro’s season is a success if he can get in around another 15 starts before the end of the year and win the majority. Islanders management has already kept DP out of the line-up for maintenance and precautionary reasons – as they should. He also has battled the flu this year as well as a mild groin strain. Other than the typical injuries every player faces, the twenty-nine year old goalie appears to be alright and should be able to accomplish that task.

Nathan Lawson should also be returning soon as the Islanders number-two goalie on the bench which should allow rookie Kevin Poulin to be returned to Bridgeport for further proper development. For one thing,  DiPietro’s absences on the ice have allowed the organization to display their depth between the pipes.

But so far DiPietro has taken some major steps in the right direction.

**Friday 5:41 PM Update**

It would be fitting that the New York Islanders announce that Rick DiPietro will be out 4-6 weeks with a facial fracture and knee swelling less than 24 hours after I wrote this article. But never the less, these are the breaks. It will be much harder for DP to reach my predicted expectations and adds several more question marks heading into the future.

A number that a lot of bloggers and fans placed on DiPietro’s starts for this season, in order for him to start a comeback that signified he had enough gas left in the tank to make it over the next decade, was a minimum of 20. He’s only at 21. Settling for close to the minimum is never a comforting feeling.

More to come…

-Rob McGowan

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This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.

Josh Bailey was drafted 9th overall in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Islanders (sykora93/Flickr)

Josh Bailey was selected 9th overall by the New York Islanders in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, a choice that would cause plenty of discussion, different opinions and at first, harsh criticism of the relatively new General Manager, Garth Snow.

It was Snow’s first taste of the first round at the NHL draft since the previous year’s first round pick had been traded in the Ryan Smyth deal to the Edmonton Oilers. Snow dropped from the 5th overall selection, to 7th and then 9th while adding picks in the later rounds. Most notably, Snow passed on physical blue-liner, Luke Schenn who was taken by Toronto. But by the end of the day, many were saying that Garth Snow might have stolen the draft since he managed to get several highly rated prospects and even took Kirill Petrov with a third-round gamble.

But Bailey was the player that the Islanders had wanted all along and was immediately rushed into the NHL at eighteen years old. He could have been returned to his junior team; the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL. It had been speculated that he would have been named captain and would have had another full season of Junior hockey under his belt. He ended the 2008 season in Windsor with scoring 29 goals and 67 assists for 96 points. The only player to have more points than Bailey that was taken from the OHL in the same draft class was the first overall selection, Steven Stamkos. So keeping the young forward in an orange and blue jersey seemed promising.

He finished his rookie season with 25 points and followed up his sophomore season with 35 points. Last year he seemed more comfortable at the wing position and went on an impressive streak where he was seen on the stat sheet in what seemed like every night. This year has hardly been the same.

With Tavares hurt early on after the first game of the season, Bailey was forced to step up his game in order to keep his team competitive. He had three goals and three assists for six points in his first five games played, combining with Blake Comeau for a deadly duo every time they were on the ice. But the strong start was followed with an invisible shield; he went on to go scoreless in his next thirteen games, prompting a demotion to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. It was a last minute move; Bailey’s waiver-free two-way status would have been erased if he played one more game in the NHL.

Josh Bailey lines up for a face-off while playing wing, a switch that was made in attempt to spark his offense (MVerminski/Flickr)

With the Sound Tigers, Bailey tallied six goals and eleven assists for seventeen points in only eleven games played. The player that they had always wanted was starting to show that he could score the clutch and timely goals they thought he would and was playing with strength, energy and passion. In addition, the theory that his hip pointer injury that he suffered in early October was still nagging him and hampering his play had been pretty much put to rest with his impressive stint in the AHL. It was time to call him back up for another shot. He went pointless in his first game back but then recorded a three point night against Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils. Things were starting to look up for the 21-year old center.

There have been spurts here or there for Bailey, but he has only amassed another six points (one goal and five assists) over the last seventeen games played. The Islanders cannot send him back down to Bridgeport without placing him on waivers and another NHL team would be sure to take a chance on the young forward. Therefore Bailey is likely stuck with the Islanders for the rest of the year and is forced to find his way out of a slumping season on his own.

Could this have been avoided? Probably. An easy guess would have been that Bailey’s development would have began smoother had he been sent back to the Windsor Spitfires. At the very least, in a 2009 season where the Islanders were destined to finish last and select John Tavares, the Islanders should have sent the 18-year old to the World Junior Championships. Instead, they opted to keep him with the team instead of putting him in a competitive environment where he would have been striving for a gold medal; an experience that surely would have been rewarding regardless of the finish.

There is another hiccup with this season for Bailey; this is the third and final year of his entry-level contract and the February trade deadline is slowly creeping forward. Garth Snow has made decisions in the past with players that were given time to prove themselves but never were up to the task, such as Sean Bergenheim and Jeff Tambellini. But would Snow trade a player that is considered a core member of the youth movement that still may eventually break out into the second-line forward they expected him to be? If not, how long does Snow extend him for when he has to worry about re-signing Kyle Okposo as well as several others?

It clearly hasn’t been an easy road for Josh Bailey and a very uncertain future lies before him.

-Rob McGowan

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This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.

Surely the Red Wings organization, as well as its fans, cannot be happy about losing a veteran (and former all-star) goaltender that would have definitely helped their hockey club. But the pick-up by Garth Snow comes at a time where a reliable back-up was needed.

After Dwayne Roloson had been traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the back-up position altered between Kevin Poulin and Nathan Lawson, the latter being the goaltender that was preparing to assume the new role for the rest of the season. But then the starts were split between the two goaltenders since DiPietro went down with a grown strain. Since his return a few nights ago, DiPietro has only appeared in two games and has been an occasional healthy scratch for maintenance and recovery.

In last night’s 5-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres, Lawson went to the Islanders locker room with about three minutes remaining in the first period with an injury to his leg. Although there hasn’t been an official announcement on the severity of Lawson’s injury, he did not return and Kevin Poulin was forced to finish the game. The win went to Poulin since he finished the game as Lawson now continues to wait for his first NHL victory.

Nabokov’s presence will probably force him to wait even longer. It is expected that Lawson and Poulin will be sent back down to Bridgeport unless DiPietro continues to experience injury trouble down the road. If that’s so, it is assumed that Lawson would be the first one called up to sit on the bench with Nabokov between the pipes. It’s a smart move by GM Garth Snow; a veteran goaltender will be available in aide of DiPietro and Poulin won’t be forced to play in the NHL earlier than expected. Although Poulin has shown tremendous potential with his quick reflexes, there are several areas of his game that could use some work, such as his rebound control.

The pick up also continues to support the decision of trading Dwayne Roloson. Nabokov’s cheap and affordable salary is a lot less than Roloson’s contract and will expire by the end of the year. However, it is my understanding that according to the current CBA, Nabokov cannot be traded by the deadline since he was acquired in a waiver wire pick up after singing a contract with another team.

The former San Jose Shark will keep the Isles competitive and may even help them move up in the standings. Although a top-five pick is always a nice thought, the team needs to show signs of improvement with each year of the rebuild. Anywhere out of the bottom five would be a nice start and Evgeni Nabokov will certainly help those chances.

***UPDATE*** 3:01 PM

Sources are reporting that Evgeni Nabokov has chosen NOT to report to the New York Islanders. Therefore, unless the Islanders decide to put Nabokov back on waivers he cannot sign with another NHL club this season.

I am not expecting the Islanders to place him back on waivers since he is clearly making a statement that he would rather risk not playing in the NHL than joining their organization. This will also lead to rumors on whether or not Garth Snow will pursue another veteran back-up goaltender.

-Rob McGowan

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This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.

Okposo will make his season debut tomorrow night (JDBPhotography/Flickr)

Twenty-two year old Kyle Okposo is slated to make his season debut with the New York Islanders tomorrow night on Coliseum ice when they face the Washington Capitals. Okposo had been reportedly practicing with the team over the past few days after having spent some private sessions with Bernie Cassell, the team’s Skill Development Coach. He has missed every game so far this season due to a shoulder injury that was suffered during the pre-season that required surgery.

This news comes at a great time as the team was on a bit of a roll before hitting a few bumps in the road, recently losing 5-2 to the New Jersey Devils on Monday. The Islanders were winning games and taking points out of others, including two overtime losses to the Colorado Avalanche and the Vancouver Canucks, but have hit a skid of 5-4-1 over their last ten.

Okposo will add some power behind the Islanders offense over the second half of the season (sykora93/Flickr)

Okposo supplies the team with leadership, skill and grit, as he is a strong and reliable power forward; an element that this team has lacked on offense all year long. There are plenty of guys that go hard to the net, such as Matt Moulson and Trent Hunter (who is still injured), but not many do it as polished and consistently as Okposo. Perhaps KO will be able to light a fire under Josh Bailey and get him back on the score sheet or pick up his scoring touch if placed on a line next to the red hot John Tavares. Okposo will eventually provide relief to a team that is limited offensively.

However, KO has missed more than the first half of the season; a rusty performance is likely at the start as well as time being necessary for #21 to get himself back on track. But regardless, having a player of his calibre certainly is an improvement on any roster. Plus, Okposo had made big strides in his development last season. He improved his point total from his rookie season by 13 points, (19 goals and 33 assists) but was a whopping -22. Granted, it’s not easy keeping a positive +/- on a team that is at the bottom of the standings, but Kyle will have to pay a lot of attention to working on his defensive game. It will be key for Okposo to try to build off of last season’s success as much as possible over the remaining 39 games.

-Rob McGowan

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Rob McGowan

This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.