Has anyone else seen that NHL Network commercial with the coach who speaks in circles? There is one going around about his team lacking the ability to finish (Failed to put the biscuit in the basket and other analogies) and the latest is the same coach talking to his team about giving 110%, 100% of the time and how if only 50% gave 110% it would be less than 100% and well….you get the idea. My point is that these commercials were made for the New York Islanders.

How many times this season have the Isles gone into a game knowing they couldn’t afford to lose two valuable points, yet play uninspired hockey? I am really starting to lose track - but it’s up there for sure. Things are getting so bad now that the media talks amongst themselves about how they really need to wake up and establish their game - the one that made them so successful at the start of the year.

Having been the 23rd home game I have attended this season (yes, I actually missed three!) - I have started to notice how Nolan goes from his normal reserved self, to that of reserved yet awkwardly annoyed. He never shows us very much emotion and I don’t know if I like that or not. To me, as a hockey player - I prefer to see a coach wear his emotions on his sleeve. I know Nolan is very well spoken and makes himself crystal clear in what he expects from his players - but something isn’t working. I was talking with Ken Rosenblatt of Islanders Outsider on the way to our vehicles tonight, and I told him that I cannot understand why a system that is clearly flawed has not been adjusted at this point of the season. For the first time, head coach Ted Nolan actually admitted his systems may have in fact be flawed tonight - and will consider adjusting numerous aspects. My question is what made tonight’s game the deciding factor? Why not 20 games into the season when there was still plenty of season left?

I figured I would be a bit different tonight and not go off on a tangent about the things the team should have done better, at this point of the season anyone who follows the team with any bit of regularity knows their faults. The effort tonight should alert management that whatever possible trades are available as of tonight - need to be explored. The further this season gets, the less confidence that I have they are capable of making the playoffs. Something else that concerns me, the team is pretty much made up of players built from the same mold - so when someone goes cold, they ALL go cold. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked in the polar opposite, because not many of them have actually been hot for any significant stretch.

Ken and I spied Garth Snow heading down the runway to the locker rooms on our way out and I commented that Snow looked as if he aged a few years since he stopped playing. I noticed that his hair was getting very grey, so Ken said maybe he wanted to appear more distinguished. Maybe the way his team is falling apart has him languishing over the possible roster moves he needs to make. At last count we have numerous players who will be unrestricted free agents come July - but who can help us bring in help to this struggling team?

The team cannot afford to lose valuable points while teams trailing us and ahead of us continue to gain momentum. The Capitals, Boston and the Rangers all won tonight - making an already tight conference even tighter. Something needs to be done, and soon.

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Well - you could say I missed a bunch the past few days, but as I said over the weekend - my Grandmother passed away and I was unable to make any entries or attend the game Monday night. You could also say that I didn’t really miss anything at all I guess. I was trying to listen to the game via streaming radio on my iPhone - but it seems the new Apple firmware doesn’t like streaming as much as it did - it would work for a few seconds and then stop. I just kept checking the score on the Islanders site and got very annoyed at the resulting madness.

I watched the highlights and it confirmed my suspicions - I am glad I didn’t go. It looked like they weren’t playing smart hockey. I saw too many giveaways, too many poor shot decisions and an overall poor effort. I really would’ve liked to have been at Doolins pub yesterday for that chalk talk with the coaches as they broke down what they did right and what they didn’t do right against the Senators - I just can’t see them commending the team on many things they did right.

According to Newsday yesterday, 5 Islanders missed practice with the Flu - so maybe Influenza was the leading influence on their poor decisions?

Five Islanders — Rick DiPietro, Mike Sillinger, Bryan Berard, Andy Sutton and Ruslan Fedotenko — missed Wednesday morning’s practice at the Coliseum and are questionable for Thursday night’s home game against the Kings. Assistant coach Gerard Gallant also missed practice with the illness. Fedotenko and Sutton sat out Tuesday night’s 5-2 loss to Ottawa.

It’s apparently so bad in Islanders country - that the players have joked about wearing masks and using hand sanitizer as a means of protection. I could give them a word of advice, one of my Uncle’s was sick - yet it spread through my family like wildfire the past few days. I normally do not wash my hands as much as I did (shaking hands and whatnot), but I did and yet I still feel like I have a touch of the flu right now.

The LA Kings make a rare stop at the Barn tonight - should be a fast skating game, I will be there tonight taking photos and whatnot. I will post a recap and hopefully a pregame post sometime later on today.

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After all that worrying about DiPietro starting in tonights All Star contest, he came out strong and battled - all the while impressing those around him for his slick stick handling and puck movement. Ricky allowed one goal by Rick Nash not a minute into the period, but the East stormed back scoring 5 unanswered goals. We have seen goals by Campbell, Ovechkin (2), Stall and Markov - all absolutely gorgeous passing plays.

The funniest part was how the Versus guys were talking to Ricky in the first few seconds of the game - and unintentionally distracted him (thats what I will say anyway). Osgood must have been looking down the ice, envious of the way DiPietro was holding his ground against his fellow Western All Stars.

If Ovechkin keeps up the night - he will undoubtedly be the games MVP, who was worried about Crosby not being here again?

Personally, I feel that with DiPietro at this years All Star game representing the Islanders - it will open up the eyes of players who are not very familiar with the team or what Ricky brings to the game. They may give any offer from the Islanders this off season a better look than they may have prior to this. You can tell that DiPietro is opening eyes, and opening them wide.

Keep up the great work Rick!

Just a small update: Vokoun allowed goals by Nash (2nd) and Niedermayer in the second period. The West has outshot the East by almost 4 to 1 in the second. Kovalchuk was absolutely robbed twice in the second period by Nobokov - those were the best two chances by the East.

I had to run to my own hockey game halfway through the 3rd period - but not before seeing the game tied 7-7.

The 3rd period was the most active - seeing goals from both sides, although the East eventually took the lead for good on a goal by Marc Savard at 19:39. Your MVP of the game was Eric Staal - who had 2 goals and 1 assist. Rick Nash would have gotten the MVP in my opinion with his hat trick, had Staal not scored the game winner.

Well, that caps off an exciting weekend of events - although there are a few who think it could have been executed better. I am on the fence - I think certain aspects could have been improved because the skills competition was extremely boring. I read that the players knew the format for the “slam dunk” shootout for weeks - you think they would have come a bit more prepared or at least tried something they normally wouldn’t. In the end, the second day of the weekend was the only part that kept me interested - but even then it was lacking, not sure in what areas - just wasn’t as exciting as years past.

At least we are now able to get back into the swing of hockey - the trade deadline is fast approaching and teams that are on the playoff bubble will either move up in the standings or fall out of contention - that is the most exciting part of the year for sure.

Oh - and not that anyone is wondering, but my team won 6-3 - I had a hat trick and an assist.

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I don’t think there was a single Islanders fan not concerned from the start about the health of our prized goaltender Rick DiPietro. I was nervous that he was heading to the All-Star break, and even more nervous after the game last week where he appeared to injure his knee during the game. The last thing anyone wants is an injury to their goaltender towards the most important part of the year.

DiPietro has a certain style of play, one that makes his hips and knees extremely vulnarable to injury because he is a butterfly goalie with very quick reactions and side to side movement. It’s no surprise that Ricky excelled during the shootout portions of last nights skills competition. What was the surprise however, was on a last ditch effort to make a save on Minnesota’s Marian Gaborik - DiPietro appeared to hurt his knee on the play. He could be heard over the microphone he was wearing speaking to Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas that he couldn’t continue, he “blew out his whole knee there” but that he was “alright, just didn’t want to make it worse”. I looked at my fiancee and my mouth dropped. No longer was I interested in the remainder of the skills competition, but that of the health and well being of our Number 1 goaltender.

When I woke up this morning, Chris Botta who is in attendance with The Rick - had posted an update on his blog. On Rick’s health status:

I jumped over a few barricades I wasn’t supposed to and made my way to the East locker room. I found Rick and he told me he was “a bit sore.” Then he told reporters he was “sore but it’s nothing bad and I’ll be playing Sunday.”

As far as I could tell, he didn’t spend any time on the trainer’s table. About 45 minutes later I saw him at the NHL bash. He was in great spirits, posing for photographs for anyone who requested and meeting up with family and friends.

Not exactly the most clear cut “thumbs up” from DiPietro on his status, but everyone who follows him knows that he will play through injuries and that really scares me. I love his competitiveness sometimes, just not when it has the potential to affect the remainder of his teams season.

Thanks for the heads up Botta, I was going to fire off an email to you as soon as I heard that last night - but I figured the rest of the contingent was on point - keep us updated!

Updated 12:12pm

According to Chris Botta, in yet another blog update:

Rick is in tonight.

On his way to a private lunch in his honor, Rick told us he was feeling great by the end of last night and was counting the minutes until 6:00 pm.

Botta also posts the opinion of Mattyboy - one of Islandermania’s message board members and how he felt was DiPietro playing for himself first and the team second. Botta pretty much puts that theory down - and it’s worth a read. He also touches on the bit of profanity that slipped out of DiPietro’s mouth - purely accidental I am sure as it has to be hard to remember you are wearing a microphone. Botta says he will sit down with Versus to make sure it doesn’t happen again - likely referencing how the microphone was left on…..at a time it clearly should have been turned off given the circumstances.

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Well, we have seen the first event come and go, marking the first time a goaltender was involved in the relay race. Out of all the goalies, DiPietro was the only one to pot more than one goal and the only goalie to shoot from behind the goal line - as if in a game situation.

Fastest skater up next - West takes that event.

Elimination shootout - DiPietro stopped both shots he faced, but the West eventually took the round.

The young stars game was exciting, Osgood looked mighty uncomfortable out there, allowing numerous goals against from all sorts of distances and angles. The East took the first period and the West took the Second.

Next up, the “Slam Dunk” Shootout - where the players were supposed to show their flair and think outside the box. There were only two players who really took advantage of this - Ryan Getzlav and of course Alexander Ovechkin. The East wound up taking this round and eventually the entire skills competition.

Rick DiPietro stopped both of Gaborik’s shots - and appeared to hurt himself on the second play (something I had feared would happened from the get-go). He could be heard telling fellow goalie Tim Thomas that he hurt his knee, but that he was alright (Ricky was wearing a microphone for Versus). More on that story as it develops.

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It’s kind of funny if you think about it, the break just isn’t always a much needed breather for the players, coaches and other people involved in the league. It is also a break for most journalists, TV crews and yes - bloggers, although not quite ALL bloggers. Islanders PR man extraordinaire Chris Botta is down it Atlanta for the festivities, giving us a ridiculous amount of blog entries and updates since his arrival yesterday afternoon - so you may want to check that out. Chris pledges to give us constant updates on DiPietro’s every move as well.

What will you see from Islesblogger? Well - I am not quite sure to be honest. There was a death in the family last night so I am a bit bummed out today. This is also the reason why I may have had a shorter fuse than normal during the in-game posts because I had been going back and forth to the hospital since last weekend. However, if you have a keen eye you will notice a slightly updated sidebar.

What’s new exactly?

I added a recent comments block and a random image rotator from my gallery. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to switch to Wordpress, the widget system is really easy to work with - however you still need to play with CSS in order to get things the way you want. There are a few more things I may tweak this weekend also, so keep checking back.

I came across this handy schedule of events for this years All Star Break:

ALL-STAR BROADCAST SCHEDULE

Saturday:
All-Star Special - Meet The Players (NHL Network, 9:30 a.m., ET)
All-Star Special - Red Carpet Arrivals (NHL Network, 4;30 p.m., ET)
Dodge/NHL SuperSkills Competition (VERSUS, CBC, RDS, 7 p.m., ET)
On The Fly Final, Special All-Star Edition (NHL Network, 10 p.m., ET)

Sunday:
All-Star Special - Pre-Game Show, Live From The Locker Room (NHL Network, 4:30 p.m., ET)
2008 NHL All-Star Game (VERSUS, CBC, RDS, NHL Radio, 6 p.m., ET)
On The Fly Final, Special All-Star Edition (NHL Network, 10 p.m., ET)

What’s new in 2008? Per an NHL press release:

NEW YORK - TORONTO (January 24, 2008) — Six of the NHL’s most prolific and creative scorers will showcase their best moves in quest of a ‘perfect 10′ when they square off against All-Star goaltenders in the inaugural Breakaway Challenge, the signature event in Saturday’s Dodge NHL SuperSkills Competition at the 2008 All-Star Weekend in Atlanta (7 p.m., ET, VERSUS, CBC, RDS), the National Hockey League and National Hockey League Players’ Association announced today.

Three shooters from the Eastern and Western Conference will have two attempts to perform a highlight-reel trick while attempting to score. Shooters can start their routine from anywhere in the offensive zone and have full access to the offensive zone, including behind the net. NHL penalty shot rules do not apply. A panel of celebrity judges will evaluate each attempt and give a score of one to nine points. Scoring is based on creativity, execution and ability to score. An additional point will be awarded for a goal for a maximum total of 10 points per shooter.

Celebrity judges are former Thrashers captain and fan favorite Scott Mellanby, former University of Georgia and Atlanta Hawks basketball star Dominique Wilkins, actor Taylor Kitsch and broadcaster Bill Clement.

The Breakaway Challenge highlights the most sweeping changes to Dodge/NHL SuperSkills since the event’s inception in 1990. Also new for 2008:

‘YoungStars’ 3-On-3′

Rookie scoring leader Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and first-year defenseman Tobias Enstrom of the All-Star host Atlanta Thrashers headline the 16 ‘NHL YoungStars,’ who will face off in a three-on-three event over two periods of six minutes’ running time. Comprising the best of the League’s stellar rookie class in 2007-08, the eight-player Eastern and Western Conference YoungStar teams will be shooting against goaltenders named to participate in the NHL All-Star Game the following day.

A New ‘Obstacle Course Relay’

The opening event of the competition, the Obstacle Course Relay, will comprise two rounds (45 seconds each) of the obstacle course, involving three players and one goalie per team. The first player starts with a puck from behind the net and proceeds to stick-handle the puck through a line of stationed pucks set up within the face-off circle. When he is finished, the second player (positioned outside the blue line) will attempt to make four “saucer” passes over a barrier and into a net at the far side of the rink. When he is done, the third player will attempt to “one time” four passes at a target in the net. The final leg of the relay will see the goalie attempt to shoot four pucks into the goal at the other end of the ice.

A New ‘Fastest Skater’

The Fastest Skater contestants will face a different test this year. Starting from a standing position at the goal line, one skater from each Conference will race to the far blue line, a change from past competitions in which skaters completed one lap around the perimeter of the ice surface.

Returning to Dodge/NHL SuperSkills are the popular Accuracy Shooting, Hardest Shot and Shootout competitions. In Accuracy Shooting, Marian Hossa of the hometown Thrashers and Eric Staal of the Southeast Division-rival Carolina Hurricanes will compete for the Eastern Conference in a rematch of the 2007 All-Star SuperSkills competition in which the pair tied for the SuperSkills title by each hitting all four targets in five shots. Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara, who captured the 2007 Hardest Shot competition with a blast measured at 100.4 miles per hour, will attempt to defend his title for the Eastern Conference.

Scheduled to participate in the Breakaway Challenge are Eastern Conference forwards Ilya Kovalchuk of the All-Star host Atlanta Thrashers, Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who will face Western Conference goaltenders Manny Legace of the St. Louis Blues, Evgeni Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks and Chris Osgood of the Red Wings. Western Conference forwards Pavel Datsyuk of the Red Wings, Marian Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild and Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks will oppose Eastern Conference goaltenders Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders, Tim Thomas of the Bruins and Tomas Vokoun of the Florida Panthers.

The 2008 Dodge/NHL SuperSkills events will be staged as follows:

1) Obstacle Course Relay
2) Fastest Skater
3) Elimination Shootout
4) YoungStars Game
5) Accuracy Shooting
6) Hardest Shot
7) Breakaway Challenge

Complete SuperSkills event descriptions and official rules are available online at NHL.com. Player assignments for all events will be released when available.

The 2008 NHL All-Star Weekend in Atlanta will feature live national broadcasts of the Dodge/NHL SuperSkills event on Saturday, Jan. 26 and the NHL All-Star Game on Sunday, Jan. 27 on VERSUS in the United States and CBC and RDS in Canada. NASN and other international broadcasters will provide live coverage of both the Dodge/NHL SuperSkills event and the NHL All-Star Game to more than 115 countries and territories in Europe. NHL RADIO on Westwood One will provide exclusive national radio coverage which can be heard on stations around the United States and Canada as well as on XM Satellite Radio’s NHL Home Ice and NHL.com.

How many of you can picture Rick DiPietro firing pucks the length of the ice and stopping some of the leagues brightest starts in the shootout? I know I can, cannot wait to see that. It sounds like the NHL has really done a bunch to spruce up this event - an event that doesn’t really get the ratings it should.

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