The Islanders have just traded the 26th overall draft pick, 37th, 62nd and the 92nd to Columbus for the 16th overall and the 72nd pick.

Picks now in the fold (updated follwing De Haan trade):

(Round 1) 1st Overall (John Tavares)
(Round 1) 12th Overall (Calvin De Haan)
(Round 2) 31st Overall
(Round 2) 56th Overall (Formerly belonged to Boston)
(Round 3) 91st Overall (Formerly belonged to Pittsburgh)
(Round 5) 122nd Overall
(Round 6) 152nd Overall

It appears as if there is a plan in action here, or could the Lecavalier rumors be true?

In all seriousness, who do you think will fall into the Islanders lap at the 16th pick? Do you feel they will make a trade to move up even more? Interesting situation going on here in the first round.

Time for a poll!

 Loading ...

While we are at it here is another good question:

 Loading ...

No Comments »

John Tavares at the podium!

No Comments »

We’ll call this a semi live blog. The NHL just made all the people responsible for making the selections introduce themselves, as you may have heard live on TV. Now, they are thanking Detroit and Pittsburgh for their great play in the finals and making some final announcements.

I will continue to update as it happens.

An aside, I will be unable to provide many links to anything outside of my own site for the time being because the internet is HORRIBLE again this year. Worst case scenario I will continue to update from my phone.

Ok – let me get them in while I can. Doug Davidson over at Isles Official’s Outlook has a live blog going on, join in on the discussion!

As has been the norm, Dom over at Lighthouse Hockey has numerous post and discussion threads going at the same time. I wish I could give him a hand today or even get over there to comment, the net slows to a crawl if I navigate anywhere other then here to click “update”.

Chris Botta is blogging from the press box over at his site live from Nassau Coliseum – check it out

It’s just about t-minus ten here. Anyone out there getting excited?

7:15pm Gary Bettman comes to the podium to a bunch of boo-birds. He butchered a French introduction – I give him an A for effort.

Just got a text that Logan thinks Duchene is a certainty – we shall see bout that Logie.

7:18pm Here we goooo!

7:19pm John Tavares!!!

Thank the lucky stars! After all that silence, like a vacuum the Islanders pick who they should’ve just announced from day one! Roger Farina made it on the jumbotron, ‘Grats Rog

Ok, being we have a gap until the next pick, we are gonna run down to talk to Tavares. Hopefully I can get some pics.

No Comments »

The Bell Center has the most outrageous scoreboard. I had to snap a picture, it’s massive and in High Def

No Comments »

Ok, so we are all here sitting in the arena. Seems there was really next to no follow up to the planning on the Islanders part. We knew sitting in the media risers would be next to impossible. We have spent about an hour getting lead all over the place by NHL officials, each of whom didn’t know what to do with us.

We chose to sit in an unused row of seats near the media risers.

We have internet, which is a plus – but there isn’t anywhere to power laptops over here.

Not having a very good start of the 2009 Draft.

Is this an omen?

I am officially pissed off.
44

No Comments »

Being I have an iPhone 3GS now, I figured I would test out the video function just in case we need to use it here at the draft. Don’t mind the horrible narrative and accent.

About to leave Le Hotel and head over (across the street) to the arena shortly. I will have another post up in a few,

No Comments »

The bloggers have landed, I repeat – the bloggers have landed.

Tom Liodice of The Tiger Track, Doug Davidson of Isles Official’s Outlook and Ken Dick of TavaresOkposo Netare here beside me. As of right now, we are all feverishly working on our first posts from the same hotel room across from the Bell Center (waiting for the second room).

The good news though, free wireless in the rooms here at the Marriot – which makes things easier. Hopefully we don’t experience what we did last year in Ottawa – horrible connections in the media risers. Montreal is a first class venue, hopefully they have their stuff together.

Funny anecdote, the contest winners of the Draft contest for the Islanders – the entire group was on our flight. We told them to be ready to be interviewed and harassed by us.

We are gonna go grab food and work on some more stuff in a bit! Stay tuned.

1 Comment »

I try not to read between the lines sometimes, honestly I do. This little blurb today comes from an interview with John Tavares on Greg Logan’s blog today. I will use it in reference to Garth Snow being quoted as saying he was looking for a player that would fit into the mold of what the Islanders are trying to build and also fit in with the local community. Fast forward to today on Logan’s blog:

“Obviously, I’ve heard about it and, at the end of the season, them chanting my name and stuff,” Tavares said today at the draft media luncheon. “Obviously, [the fans] don’t make the pick. The team does. I know the Islanders are looking to improve the best way they can. If they feel I’m the right guy, it would be a great honor, and I’d be happy to be a part of the community and the fan base, as well.”

Things that make you go hmmmmmm…

More cannon fodder I know, but it is stuff like this that makes me ridiculously excited for Montreal tomorrow.

Thoughts? Post em in the comment section!

2 Comments »

It’s that time of year again. I’ve been bad at pumping up the draft this time around – especially because I WILL BE THERE again.

Well, we all know how my draft wish ended up last time around, hopefully this year now that we have the number one overall selection, things will end a bit differently.

In the hopes I get this right, let’s just reuse most of the first paragraph of that post last season:

Not since the likes of one Zigmund Palffy have I been more excited or intrigued by a player like John Tavares. It’s not because he is the next Canadian sensation – (although it helps), but it’s because of the way he makes skating and other hockey skills (save for that pesky alleged defensive zone ineptitude) appear natural and free-flowing. Everything I have heard of Tavares, I have liked. He knows what pressure is like and feels that the New York Islanders would be a great team for him. He is excited about the prospect of returning glory to our storied franchise, digs the history behind the team, LOVES Long Island (although Hedman loves the women…) and wants to jump headfirst into the NHL.

Tavares is a sniper, plain and simple. He is the guy that just has a nose for the net and finds himself time and space to get open and put the puck in the net. His faults can be augmented by strong play by his linemates. So what, he may be less then stellar in his own end – the kid can score. He has broken tons and tons of records and has excelled as he progressed from level to level. He has been in the spotlight since he was 14 and been touted as a potential first rounder since then.

I know Chris Botta already used information from McKenzie’s article on TSN, but I have had the tab open in my browser since it came out. Several quotes like

“I don’t envision us moving the (No. 1) pick,

“That’s the plan right now,” Snow said. “Don’t you think (the suspense) is a good thing? Don’t you think that’s the way it should be?”

He said suspense, think about a PACKED Nassau Coliseum with thousands of screaming fans not knowing who the selection will be, but praying for John Tavares. Do you think they are excited for Victor Hedman or Matt Duchene? Each of those players will be great in their own right, but do you honestly feel all the hoopla is for either of them? As of yesterday, the Islanders have given away over 18,000 free tickets to their Draft Party. That is a staggering number. With all the fallout from trading down from number five, to seven and then to nine for Josh Bailey at the very small draft party last year, I am going to be estatic that I am in a different country if things do not happen this way this time around. Charles Wang won’t even have to pay for demolition of the Coliseum to pave way for his Lighthouse Project, the place will be torn apart one section at a time for free Friday June 26th at around 7:15pm.

When prodded about how long he has known who he would pick, Snow replied:

“Well, when we won the draft lottery (on April 14) I was asked if I knew who we were going to take,” Snow said. “I said at the time that I had a pretty good idea but that I wasn’t firmly committed to it until we went through the process of doing our due diligence on all the top guys. Let’s just say the process re-affirmed what I thought back then. We want the same guy now that we wanted back then.”

If the consensus pick was John Tavares, their pick is Tavares.

Yes, the Islanders did due diligence in interviewing all of the top three. They had each player visit Long Island and spend time with Garth Snow, current players and even alumni. In the end, the player who spent the most time here, made a large impact on management and Doug Weight? John Tavares.

However, McKenzie gets the following warning out of Snow near the end of the page:

“Honestly, and this isn’t an indication of who we’re taking or not taking, but we can’t be concerned with public perception of what people think we should do,”

Public perception is funny, should we take any hints from what he says then at that point? Misdirection for the purpose of confusing your opponents is one heck of a way for a GM to make a name for himself. If you aren’t going to listen to fans and then have 18,000 of them show up – why should we even listen to your rhetoric? It’s a two-way street Garth.

I have been saying Tavares or Bust for months – I still feel that way right now. It may even make people forget that they passed up on Nikita Filatov last season, a player that most likely the same fans were just as excited about.

11 Comments »

Remember all the rumblings earlier this off season about the Islanders bringing in an assistant coach with Islanders ties (not literally ties that go with a suit…)? It turns out that the rumors were indeed true. Dean Chynoweth whom played defense for the Isles from 1988 to 1996 (per the Media Guide) and amassed our goals and had 18 assists in 241 games is expected to be named an assistant to Scott Gordon sometime tomorrow. This is all following his sudden departure as head coach of Swift Current in the Western Hockey League.

Chris Botta had stated he felt this was going to happen earlier today, but he was just trumped by Greg Logan whom received solid confirmation through a “knowledgeable NHL source” (Does anyone else think Botta told Logan….?).

This now leaves only one of two open positions for the assistants from the previous season to return. Scott Gordon is well on his way to changing the dynamic of this team. I am going to go out on a limb here and say Chynoweth will be in charge of the defensive aspect of the game – being he was a defenseman, so hopefully our penalty kill will get a boost.

No Comments »

In case you missed it, New York Islanders general manager Garth Snow was a special guest on NHL Live on XM Radio this afternoon hosted by Deb Placey and Billy Jaffe. You can listen to the interview online – which is split into two parts here and here.

In the first part, Deb and Billy pestered Garth for information full well knowing he wouldn’t budge on his stance. The spoke a bit about the pressure Garth must and is feeling knowing that the fan base wants them to pick John Tavares. They spoke about the draft party and the staggering 16,000 tickets given away so far – Billy even mentioned if half show up it would still be a huge turnout as the tickets are free. They also spoke about the contest where fans were chosen at random after submitting who they felt the team should select with the number one pick. Garth said the response from the contest was huge and really gave them a sense of how important the pick is in the pursuit for the Stanley Cup.

In the second part, they spoke about the number of picks the Islanders had at last years draft and then how many great picks they have again this year. Garth brought up how many in the media world felt that the Islanders were the winners of the 2008 Entry Draft and that he is prepared to select some great players again this year. They went on to discuss the status of Rick DiPietro – whom will resume skating this August and will be ready for training camp. Deb spoke about DiPietro being stressed from sitting around so long and asked Garth how he felt Ricky would be mentally. Garth said he felt the rehab has been going well and that he will be ready in all aspects. They finished up by talking about when they would leave for the draft (Tuesday) and then finished up by talking about Pittsburgh, Chris Osgood, the Wings and then some other stuff that I wasn’t paying attention to.

I am starting to get excited about the draft, I cannot wait until the morning of the 26th as we nervously sit around the airport waiting to leave!

1 Comment »

You know, sometimes when the going gets tough – the tough have to get going. That’s pretty much what’s been going on here in the last month or so. I have been experiencing a hell of a time in my personal life, I won’t go into details but it’s been a trying time. I have lacked the drive, creativity and patience to actually sit down and figure out what to write about – but I think I am ready to come back.

Last night I had the pleasure of watching 3/4 of Game Seven at the residence of one Steve Carlson of Slap Shot fame. While sitting around during the pregame, Dee Karl aka 7thWoman took everyone’s prediction of the outcome. Naturally, Doug Davidson and myself picked Pittsburgh to win in overtime (double overtime for me) but at least we still picked right. I like Detroit mind you, Chris Osgood helped turn the Islanders around in the late 90′s – but enough is enough up there in Motor City. Not to forget, the Penguins are chocked full of ex-Islanders (and a Long Islander to boot) that I was hoping would get the chance to hoist the cup. Most notably, our most recent captain – Bill Guerin.

Dom over at Lighthouse Hockey tends to think along the same lines as I do (more often than not actually). This time, Dom states he felt this may have been Guerin’s last shot at winning Lord Stanley’s Cup – and I agree. Looking past all the hooplah during the March trade deadline that had Billy G going in all sorts of directions (and then none at all for a time) – the trade worked out pretty good for the old war horse.

Check out the video for just how great Guerin felt in this (possible last) moment of glory in his great career:

On behalf of all of the New York Islanders fans, I would like to congratulate Bill Guerin and all of the other former New York Islanders players in their Championship win last night. It was definately a great hockey year, right down to the bitter end.

1 Comment »