The Islanders
have a few big things to be thankful for so far this season. Their new Arena deal at Belmont, strong play at home in Brooklyn, a blistering offensive output
supported by their 1st and 2nd lines while Mathew Barzal continues to improve,
impressing everyone in the NHL.
Today, our New
York Islanders announced a five-year extension for improving D, Scott Mayfield ($1.45M average
per year – Staple) that will run through the 2023-24 season. The 25-year-old Mayfield
(34th overall selection in 2011 NHL Entry Draft) has 2 & 8 for 10 points in
29 games and a -1 rating with the Isles this season. Mayfield obviously made an
impression in his 65 NHL appearances and 2 playoff games, earning a spot with the big club to start
the season based on his gritty, puck-moving style of play. Mayfield has
obviously shown enough to Garth Snow to join fellow BST, D-Man, Adam Pelech to seemingly be
in the future plan on Isles blue line for the foreseeable future. Both are
talented, physical and driven players that should help add depth to the back
end with more experience.
Per release, “Mayfield
has also played 223 American Hockey League games with the Sound Tigers, totaling
12 goals, 38 assists and 411 penalty minutes.
Prior to his
professional career, Mayfield attended the University of Denver, where he
scored 29 points (seven goals, 22 assists) and collected 192 penalty minutes in
81 games over two seasons. Mayfield also played two seasons with the Youngstown
Phantoms of the United States Hockey League. In 111 career USHL games, Mayfield
totaled 38 points (17 goals, 21 assists) and 304 penalty minutes.”
While it’s not
a popular move with some, I like it. Like Pelech does from the back-end, I feel
Mayfield has some value to add in transitional play on defense to the team
moving forward. I also feel, like Pelech, it’s a steep learning curve to ask a
pair of young, inexperienced defensemen to bear on a team struggling to keep
the puck out of the net.
Since that big
Arena news, the Isles have managed to all but fall apart as a squad and now
find themselves just out of playoff contention (CAR game-at-hand) for the 2nd
wild card spot in the east. After a 4-3 OT win against the Kings in a December
they would rather forget, the Isles continued their slide, going 1 & 6 that
started off with a loss to Detroit on 12/19. Other than a 5-2 win (and 1st
career hatty by Barzal), the Isles lost to the Ducks, Sabres, Jets, Avalanche
and Bruins getting outscored by a dismal 34-18 margin in that span coming off a
strong 15-7-2 mark at the end of November. As a team, they are 2nd worst in the
NHL with 143 goals against in 40 games (ARI 145) and 2nd worst on the PK with a
74.6% rate of success. Only Edmonton is worse with 70.8%. And that’s even after
the Islanders rank 3rd offensively with a 3.38 goals per game average.
Sebastian Aho was
added to the Isles in the absence of experienced blue liners like Boychuk (Lower,
week to week) & de Haan (indefinitely). With the recent
struggles, it’s hard to expect any of these guys to make a significant impact
with the team so off the mark. New York’s net minder tandem of Halak and Greiss
have been streaky and have just not played well enough game in and game out. Especially
when you consider how the defense has left them alone regularly to face
adversity in odd man or shorthanded situations.
Even their
potent offense has sputtered recently. The 3rd and 4th lines are struggling to
contribute and effectively negate the top lines of the opposition and spark offensively. Garth
Snow has only responded with internal shake-up attempts. To restart the
offense, Josh Ho-Sang was sent down on the 12/15, Shane Prince recalled on the
20th and Tanner Fritz on 1/1 with Anthony Beauvillier being sent down and Steve
Bernier returning to the BST recently. It seems their organizational depth is just not
enough to pull them out of their current nose dive.
After the 6-1
loss to COL and seeing his head coach ejected, John Tavares was quoted as
saying, “It’s embarrassing to be losing like that. Can’t take for granted
playing in this league every night.” It seems Doug Weight has found himself in
his first real series of challenges since taking over head coaching duties in
the later part of last season. “Adversity is hitting us between the eyes right
now as a group. We have three really big games and we have to figure it out. We
have to get back our mojo, our fierceness that we seem to have let drift.” In
my opinion, Mojo = Accountability. If Weight doesn’t have the horses, its once
again incumbent on management to make the moves to keep the team in the thick
of the playoff race.
The Isles are
now 20-16-0, 6th in their division and 9th in the east. To
me, it seems this team has lost their focus, direction and confidence in their
overall game. I am finally sad to say they may be losing their captain in the
process. BST recalls won’t fix game or glaring defensive weakness. I say again,
change is needed and Garth Snow is on the clock.
The season is almost
halfway over and the Isles must overcome this “Bomb Cyclone” hitting the north
east, win on the road and start their comeback against the Metro Flyers (4 points back) tonight
in Philadelphia, then Pittsburg (1 point back) and Devils (2nd in
division) before their 5 day NHL break.
Anders lee isn’t
worried. “I think for sure our attitude could be a little bit more strong. Guys are unhappy with what’s gone on
. . . so we’re going to change it.”
Give em’ hell
Anders.
Isles Notes:
1/1 Per Arthur
Staple, “Isles send Anthony Beauvillier and Steve Bernier to BPT … Recall
Tanner Fritz from BPT.”
12/28, Per
Arthur Staple, “Isles have placed Johnny Boychuk (lower body) on IR and recalled
Sebastian Aho from Bridgeport. Boychuk considered week to week as of now.”
Per Eric
Hornick, “Sebastian Aho will become first #Isles to make NHL debut
this season and only 2nd in 2017 (JHS). Aho is first #Isles to debut in his
draft year since Nino in 2011.”
On 12/24,
Mathew Barzal named 2nd Star of the Week, scored his first career hat-trick
agains thte Sabres on 12/27 and was named 2nd Star of the Month
Per Brain
Compton, “John Tavares has not ruled out re-signing with #Isles before end of
season.”
Per @garik16, “Score
Adjusted Corsi over each NHL team's last 15 games: The #Isles come in at 31st
Place. Yeah, they've been the league's worst team.”
The Isles Bellows
(USA), Salo and Koivula (Finland) are participating in 2018 WJC.
Per Randi
Marshall, “On finances: New York Arena Partners - group includes #isles, Sterling and Oak
View - will finance the entire project - $1 billion total. They'll get a 49 yr
lease and will pay $40 mil in rent.”
“And finally,
be patient. Building in NYS takes time. There are environmental reviews to do,
infrastructure work that's going to need to happen, and plenty of steps between
now and a season opener at Belmont. Be patient, stay involved, but watch what
happens...”
“Cuomo mentions
#isles and Belmont in
State of State - Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin get round of applause "for
believing in NY." Nikolay Kulemin one other player (de Haan)and in suits
and ties there too. "Welcome back to Long Island" Cuomo says.”
NHL open to
Islanders playing games at Nassau Coliseum.
Per Arthur
Staple, “Charles Wang's name came up often at today's press conference.
"Nobody should take anything away from Charles, because frankly, the
Islanders wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Charles.’ -- NHL commissioner Gary
Bettman.”
Team USA
Olympic News:
Rosters
announced.
No comments:
Post a Comment