The Sound Of Silence

Following their statement win against the rival New York Rangers, the Islanders returned home to face a Pittsburgh team that was right behind them in the division standings.  I read a tweet a month or so back (sorry to the author, but I couldn't find it) that stated, "It's exhausting keeping up with the Penguins."  This has stuck with me because, goddammit, it's so true.  Even after winning three in a row, the Islanders were looking at the possibility of being only a point ahead of the Penguins in the division standings (and with one more game played).  Considering the Isles were going into a back-to-back set of games - with a road game in Montreal to follow the contest against Pittsburgh - I personally had a bit of that "Geez, the Pens are still right behind them?" feeling amidst all my happiness.

In the latest example of their never-say-die attitude this season, the Islanders defeated the Penguins by coming back from down a goal in the third period.  Four (!) goals from Kyle Okposo powered the late game charge and gave another sellout Nassau Coliseum crowd an exciting evening.  The very next night, the road game against the Canadiens proved to be as difficult as most people thought it would be.  It was nice to see the "can't win them all" attitude that the team has helped bestow on the fans continue to prevail when such games happen.

The Islanders only had one game in the week leading up to the All-Star break.  It was an opportunity for the Penguins and New York Rangers to make up a game or two on the division leading Isles.  The Rangers continued their good play, winning both their games - one of which was against Pittsburgh.  The Pens lost their other 2 games as well, although they were able to get two points out of those games by losing in OT and a shootout.  The Isles took care of the struggling Philadelphia Flyers to earn their only possible 2 points.  When the players were finally headed out to relax for a few days (those that weren't going to the All-Star game, of course), the Isles had a 3-point lead over the Penguins and a 5-point lead over the Rangers.  Quite a lovely spot to be in with 36 games remaining.

Not only is the All-Star break the unofficial halfway point of the season, but it also kicks off every hockey journalist/sportscaster's dream season.  The NHL trade deadline is a little over a month away and it's time for those rumors and suggestive articles to start flowing.  The Islanders are in a position to try and upgrade their team for the playoffs.  However, as more than a few of those hockey writers have pointed out in the last week, why would general manager Garth Snow want to?  As Arthur Staple of Newsday wrote, "Snow is not remotely focused on adding any pieces to what he and his players feel is a fairly complete roster."

Nothing To See Here

Trade rumors and speculation are fun.  But even before the reports surfaced that very little is expected out of Islanders management on deadline day, I wondered if the cost of doing business at the trade deadline would be too high.  The Islanders (according to the entire Internet) could use a new backup goalie and a left wing for superstar center John Tavares.  I don't disagree with the possible need to replace goalie Chad Johnson, but I've changed my opinion on the need for a top-line wing to play with Tavares and Okposo.  And I don't mean the need for an all-star left wing like the Oilers' Taylor Hall, I'm talking about any available forward.

It's obvious any of the bigger name players will be pricey.  Isles fans have enjoyed watching young players Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson, Anders Lee and Calvin de Haan all year and trading away even one of those guys seems crazy at this point.  And rest assured, every other GM in the NHL would be looking at those young players in order to make any sort of trade.  Plus, Snow has a severe lack of upcoming draft picks, making the inclusion of young prospects even more of a lock.  He could look to use veteran players like Josh Bailey and Michael Grabner to land a forward, but really...why?

The Answer Is 91

I've personally come to believe that trying to give John Tavares a top left wing to play along side is ignoring everything he's proved to be capable of when it comes to linemates.  For some reason, people are forgetting what Tavares has done for many previous partners.  PA Parenteau, Brad Boyes, Blake Comeau and Matt Moulson (among others) all increased their personal scoring production while with Tavares.  One could argue that even Thomas Vanek's stint on Tavares' wing resulted in one of the best stretches of Vanek's all-star career.

Why would the Islanders want to trade away any good assets in order to provide Tavares with the type of player that he's already proved he can create on his own?

"Because the team will be even stronger if they did!"

With every passing victory, it's getting harder and harder to say the New York Islanders need to be stronger at their forward positions.  What are we looking for as fans?  To win games by five goals instead of two or three?  Bailey has performed quite well in his recent time with Tavares and Okposo, with 9 points over his last 9 games.  Is that not good enough?

Additionally, even if the coaches feel Josh Bailey isn't the best fit for Tavares and Okposo, switching wingers in and out has seen all of them perform (at least) adequately.  Head coach Jack Capuano has used this option a number of times.  The depth of this Islanders team is its main strength.  The biggest question right now isn't who should be traded, it's who will have to sit when Mikael Grabovski returns from injury.

We Need To Talk About Matt

If there's any move that would be feasible for Snow, it would be to replace current backup goalie Johnson with a more experienced netminder.  Johnson's signing was very good because he was inexpensive and was coming off a very good season.  More than halfway into the season, he hasn't shown the ability to return to those numbers.  His year with Boston is looking like the outlier and not the norm.  With all-star starting goalie Jaroslav Halak being closely monitored for the number of games he is to play, having a capable backup to keep Halak fresh for the playoffs is likely the team's highest priority.

Matt Donovan is going to be a decent (possibly very good) NHL defenseman.  In the handful of games he's played, he's played relatively well.  He must clear waivers in order to be sent to the AHL, so he's been stuck with the big team and scratched regularly.  He is the only tradable player on the roster that won't disturb the depth if he's gone.  Plus, he has value (hence the fear of putting him on waivers).  Johnson doesn't have nearly as much, but his cheap contract doesn't hurt.

If I'm hoping for anything on trade deadline day, it's this:

1. Trade Donovan and Johnson for a more experienced backup goalie.
2. Don't make any other trades.

Honestly, I'd probably come to terms with Johnson still being on the team after the deadline.  It's possible he improves in the weeks to come.  As long as Halak can rest enough to be as healthy as possible for the playoffs, the team can survive with Johnson back there for another 8-10 games.  After all, they've won 6 of the 11 he's started.

So enjoy the glorious silence of the upcoming trade season, Islanders fans.  For the first time in a long time, your team's management staff can sit back in their chairs and relax while every other team tries to catch up to where they've already been.

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Preparing A Statement

The Isles followed up their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad loss to the Edmonton Oilers with a not-as-terrible-but-still-terrible loss to the Vancouver Canucks.  The team was on their longest road trip of the season (seven games) and was struggling to a 2-2 record in the first four games.  It was a bit nerveracking, but having exorcised the Michael Bay demons, I let the excuse train pull out of the station without me and waited for them to return to the East Coast.  While still technically on a road trip, they practiced in their own facility (and probably slept in their own beds) before facing the Devils in New Jersey.

Islander captain John Tavares made sure the losing streak stopped by taking over the end of the game and winning it in overtime.  They followed that exciting win with a convincing one in Columbus over the Blue Jackets.  Regardless of their win-loss records, these were not insignificant opponents as both were divisional rivals.  It gave the Islanders enough points to jump to the top of the division.  All was well again in Islanderland.

But the final road game was against THE divisional rival.

The New York Rangers were playing the best hockey in the NHL over the last month.  They had won 13 of their last 14 games.  Of those 13 wins, only 2 were in overtime or a shootout.  They'd returned to MSG as the conquering heroes of New York.  The Islanders were merely that team in their way, apparently unaware of the the fury about to be unleashed upon them.

At least that's how the local media sounded.  The game hype ramped up quicker than you could say "Any one have that video of Dan Cloutier beating up Tommy Salo?"  I put my best smack-talk hat on as well.  The rivalry was finally fun again.  I wanted to take full advantage.

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I didn't want to write game articles.  No previews or recaps.  I would use this space as a personal journal for this (increasingly) happy trip I'm taking as a New York Islanders fan this season.  More importantly, I'm lazy.  Game-centric posts require deadlines.  I don't like deadlines (unless I'm being paid to like them).  So it shouldn't surprise anyone to notice that this is being posted nearly 24 hours after the game has ended.  Still I felt this game, with it being the most important game to date, deserved a running commentary post.  I'm not sure what it accomplished, but it was fun.

I wanted to make sure anything I decided to tweet during the game wasn't duplicated here.  I try to be funny on Twitter (most jokes fall flat, but meh) and more analytical here, but the two timelines do overlap.  If you happen to also follow me on Twitter my suggestion is to ignore any similarities to my timeline from last night and do not peek behind the curtain.

Here's my log, mostly unedited, from the time of puck drop yesterday.  The pics were added afterwards, but they're based on the emotional state I scribbled down at the time.

We're off.

First Period

7:05 - I'm not one to exaggerate, but it feels like Tyson-Spinks had less buildup than this game does in the NY area.

7:11 - I'm trying to convince myself that if the Islanders lose this game it's alright because they'd still be 3 points ahead of the Rangers.  Less than two minutes has elapsed in the first period before this thought occurred.  Some habits die really, really hard.

7:13 - Halak puck handling alert #1.  Nothing happened.  Which is why it's noteworthy.

7:18 - Every faceoff in the Islanders zone terrifies me.  I have watched a few Rangers games and, while they aren't very good at faceoffs overall, they always seem to have an offensive zone draw play that works when they win one.  It's like Bill Belichick diagrams their faceoffs.

7:23 - Rangers had one good shift in the Islanders zone, but so far the Isles have had plenty of chances.  Shots are 7-3 NYI.

7:28 - Shots now 7-6 Isles.  Seems things have turned a bit.  Actually, they've spun around completely.

7:31 - Let's check how the Isles' defense is doing in their zone right now:

7:38 - So the Rangers just hit the post three times on the same rush.  Two of the posts came on a single pinballing empty net shot attempt from Derrick Brassard.  Unrelated, here's a picture of Jaroslav Halak preparing for a game:

7:43 - End Of The First Period

Second Period

8:01 - Seems the Islanders have arrived.  And only a period late.

8:11 - Isles score, but it's waived off because Casey Cizikas was in the crease and hit Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist.  I agree with the call, but my irrational internal fan thinks different:

8:14 - Isles still being aggressive and getting lots of time in the Rangers zone.  Second period shots are 8-1 Isles.  They had a big shot advantage at one point in the first period, but it's a very different feeling than the first time.

8:16 - Visual representation of an Islanders forecheck when it's working as intended:

8:21 - The Isles break though on a goal off a rebound by Anders Lee.  I don't think Lee's combined goal distance is more than his wingspan.  But they all count.

8:24 - Rangers finally get a scoring chance, but it didn't do much to decrease my excitement meter, which is still pegged at "Boner-Causing" following the Isles taking the lead.

8:27 - The Isles go back to setting up camp in the Rangers zone and now hold a 12-4 shot advantage in the period.  Ryan Strome is having his mail forwarded to the space behind Lundqvist.

8:31 - Isles go to a power play and immediately hit the post.  Kyle Okposo is the Magneto of the NHL.

8:35 - The Isles don't score on the power play.  I now fear the upcoming make-up call that gives the Rangers the next power play.  Let's just say the Isles still haven't solved all their penalty killing issues.

8:38 - Luck again shines on the Isles as a bouncing puck goes right to Nikolay Kulemin in the slot and he wrists one past Lundqvist.  Feeling both excitement and relief at the same time is not natural.

8:41 - And here's that power play for the Rangers.  Even though the penalty killing has been much better of late, I still see this when the PK units come out for the start of a shorthanded shift:

It's the last facet of this team that ramps up the nervousness to prior-years level.  I still feel like something bad is going to happen and must mentally prepare for the letdown.

8:43 - OR THAT HAPPENS.  Frans Nielsen scores shorthanded on an arguably (ok, not arguably) soft goal.  However, us mere mortals shalt not judge.  It is Frans that shall be the judge.

8:46 - Islanders take a 3-0 lead into the final period.  Isles fans jubilant reaction to Nielsen's goal followed by their immediate reaction to the fact that the team now has a three goal lead with one period left might be the funniest thing so far this year.

Third Period

9:00 - Third period about to start.  The Rangers pulled Lundqvist and put in backup Cam Talbot.  Not having one of the best goalies in the league playing against your team is always a good thing.  However, the Isles still have 40+ seconds to go on a penalty kill.  Giving up a PPG early would be bad.  Giving up the first goal is how blown leads get started.  #analysis.

9:05 - The Isles kill off the remainder of the penalty, and the Isles fan universe exhales.

9:08 - So far, the Isles look pretty good, but definitely more cautious.  The difference is the Rangers look just as bad as they did in the previous period.

9:13 - Isles fans on Twitter are starting to ring their hands in anticipation.  But there's still 11 minutes left in the game.  By the time the game ends, #IslesTwitter will be inexplicably silent because every fan has rubbed off their own fingers and can't type.

9:16 - The Rangers finally get a good change and Jaroslav Halak comes up big.  Even when the team is making it easy for him most of the game, he's made the saves when needed.

9:18 - First recorded instance of Isles fans chanting at MSG.  That never gets old.

9:21 - The last few minutes have a very pedestrian feel to them.  Not saying the Rangers are giving up, but I think Martin St. Louis was ordering a beer from the bench.

9:24 - So far the Islanders have 42 shots on goal.  Seems they figured out the how-not-to-collapse-with-a-three-goal-lead thing.  Honestly, the third period had a very familiar feel to it.  Except it wasn't the Islanders getting shut down on every rush trying to come back against a better team.

9:27 - Things are so different this year that I've written the phrase "It's because the Islanders are really good" more than once and never sarcastically.

9:28 - MSG sounds like a Knicks game.  The Ranger fans who are left are trying desperately to not check their phones for any social media updates.

9:30 - I'd write more, but the Rangers went home 15 minutes ago and everyone is bored.

9:32 - Now there's an even LOUDER pro-Isles chants at MSG.  Nope.  Still not old.

Review

The game ended with the Islanders shutting out the Rangers at MSG, 3-0.  Some general hockey folks - specifically those who'd just been following the team from afar from the first half of the season - were writing some pretty flattering things about the Islanders.  There's always that defensive version of me that springs up, powered by sarcasm and pride and ready to put them in their place.

That wasn't the prevailing emotion, though.  I felt energized.  The team had been given the opportunity to make a grand entrance on the local and national stage and they came through.  Now the Islanders can continue with the rest of the season as the whole league pays attention.

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Defeating Michael Bay

Up until this year, I've been a passive defender of Michael Bay's films.  I understood what they brought to the table in terms of entertainment.  There'd be plenty of exciting shots.  Plenty of explosions and flames viewed through an abundance of spinning camera moves.  I enjoyed them for what they were and argued with other cinephiles about it.

When Transformers was released in 2007, I was downright giddy.  Not because it was Bay directing, but because I was a Transformers kid growing up.  Bad acting and unnecessary slow-mo shots of Megan Fox be damned, I was all in.  Why not?  I liked both Bad Boys films.  I love The Rock.  Give me my hero-angle shot looking up (and circling, of course) at Optimus Prime fighting Decepticons and it's all good.

Over the course of the first three films, the optimism waned but I was still invested in each movie when it came out.  Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen was pretty terrible from a story standpoint.  It made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  However, it gave us the best Optimus scene in any of the four films:

I won't bore you with all the super-dork details, but the gist is Bay's Optimus was a sociopath and homicidal.  Even so, this scene was the closest we got to seeing "our" Optimus.  Little nuggets of sentimentality like this popped up here and there in the first three movies.  There were enough crumbs sprinkled into the mess to feed my rants of justification to those who would speak ill of the films.

Then the fourth film arrived this year along with another Michael Bay-produced take on a childhood favorite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It was an assault on my personal nostalgia.  It felt like both Bay and Jonathan Liebesman, the director of TMNT, were daring us GenXers to try and find something to like about the movies.  They were aggressively awful.  I mean, THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

It was so bad in fact, that I was slapped into realizing how defending any of the films (including the previous ones) was such a misguided attempt at accepting a bad version of something I cherished.

This past Sunday, when the Islanders lost to the Edmonton Oilers (the NHL's current worst team), my reaction started off in that long-used excuse zone.

"Without those two terrible mistakes that gifted goals to the Oilers, they might have won."

"Scrivens stole that game for them.  The Oilers weren't even that good."

"I wasn't wearing my older Islander hat.  This new one doesn't have the good vibes yet."

"I wasn't drunk enough."

It didn't take long to give up on that whole train of thought.  As I've chronicled through this blog, our thinking as Isles fans has changed this year.  Fifteen minutes after the game, I felt most of the #IslesTwitter universe had properly moved on.  The great Arthur Staple of Newsday put it best:

5-2 loss. Put it in the book. Then burn that book.
— Arthur Staple (@StapeNewsday) January 5, 2015

What I did think about was how that type of game, the textbook "playing-down-to-the-worst-team" performance, has elicited three distinct types of reaction between this year, last year and all those prior seasons.  This year was a simple shrug.  Two (or more) seasons ago it would've been the excuse Baysplosion.  Then there was the 2013-2014 season.

Last year was the most disappointing season I've had as an Islanders fan in a decade.  The team had made the playoffs that past spring (albeit in a shortened season) and had a great series against the perennial powerhouse Pittsburgh Penguins (boom, alteration).  Losing the series was heartbreaking but man, the optimism juices were flowing.  Then Garth Snow took those happy feelings, placed them on his desk and let them sit there, unaddressed and slowly wilting, for the entire summer.

We're waiting, Garth...

He made no moves to improve the roster.  Truth be told, he made things worse by trading away one of his best prospects at the draft for a 3rd/4th line grinder.  When the team started the year playing rather mediocre hockey, the excuse robots were at DefCon 1 quicker than usual.  Snow figured doing nothing didn't work in the offseason, so he traded for Thomas Vanek and gave away one of the team's future first round draft picks.  Not only was the fanbase panicking, it seemed the GM was also.  Nothing worked.  The team continued into its November freefall and all hope was lost by Christmas.  It infuriated me as a fan so much that the luster of the 2013 playoffs was scraped away and any excuse-making I did made me hate myself even more.

The 2013-2014 Islanders were the Transformers 4/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of the team's recent history.  They made me stop defending Islanders management and players.  Even as the following offseason progressed and Snow made more and more roster moves, it was hard to know if the team was actually improving or if we'd simply witness another spectacularly exciting Baysplosion trying to cover a terrible narrative.

Now that it seems we've made our way out of this fiery Bayverse of Islander history, it's clearer to me how much of a shitshow not just last year was, but a vast majority of the last decade.  That sounds silly.  How could I not see how bad things were?  I think I did, but I was always at the ready with an excuse for it.  By the turn of the calendar from 2014 to 2015, I'd run out of those excuses.  Garth and the Isles had peeled all away from me.

When the credits rolled on Transformers: Age Of Extinction (and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for that matter), I had nothing to say.  I had just witnessed Optimus Prime punching out Grimlock and riding him into battle like he was Prime's personal gimp.  It was the last straw.  It was the Michael Bay equivalent of Garth signing Radek Martinek to fill out the defense corps.

"Really?  This is what's happening?"

Had things gone south again this year, it would've been impossible to muster up any new defense for continuing to be a fan.  Of course, I'd still actually be a fan, but I know I'd have devolved into one of those full-on cynics who are incapable of any sort of optimism.  Think Randy Quaid in Major League.

So far, this Islander team has played well enough that even when they lose a game to the worst team in the league, no excuses are required.  A year ago, I hated how they stole them from me.  Now, I'm happy to not need them any more.

P.S.

For the record, my favorite director is David Fincher.  A guy who makes moves about how cynical and masochistic people are inside.  I like to think a long-time, optimistic fan suffering through last year's Islanders is one way a person becomes that way.  Let's all hope that this new Islander team is moving towards a happier ending like Panic Room (where the good in people prevails) instead of, oh, almost all of his other movies where ambiguity reigns.

P.P.S.

For an amazing breakdown of "Bayhem", checkout this video by Tony Zhou.  If you like geeky movie talk about stuff like editing, direction, lighting and other technical aspects, his YouTube channel is fantastic.

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Big Boy Pants Shopping

About a week prior to the Christmas break, the New York Islanders got sucked into a media black hole originating in Edmonton.  The dumpster fire-level state of the Oilers franchise - a familiar one to us Isles fans - exploded after the firing of head coach Dallas Eakins.  The general manager Craig MacTavish insinuated that a full reassessment of the players could lead to a trade of anyone, including the top guys.  The best player on the team happens to be a top-line left wing, a position that Islander fans have been looking for their GM to fill for franchise center John Tavares.  The perfect storm of trade rumors spun up quicker than you can say "E5".

To be fair, I took part in the flurry a bit myself.  Trade talk is genuinely fun for any sports fan.  It's why sports trade rumor web sites exist.  No fan is immune to its appeal.  On the rare occasion when a team executive steps up and directly throws big names into the air, they become the Outbreak monkey.  The rumors quickly spread from there and not long after, we're all in an episode of The Walking Dead, just trying to survive the trade speculation zombies.

All teams have their fair share of rumor mongers.  Fans of bad teams want to change everything.  Fans of good teams want that final piece to guarantee a championship.  The common thread is that the team can be fixed (or solidified) with one magic trade.  Happily the Isles are one of the better teams this year, but there's a consensus that they could use a top left wing to play along side Tavares and right wing Kyle Okposo.  I don't disagree with the need for a top line left wing, which made it easy to understand why the supposed availability of someone like Edmonton's Taylor Hall - an all-star calibre left wing - caused such a reaction.

As fun as coming up with trade ideas for Hall was, the reality was I didn't want to see it actually happen.  Not because I didn't like the idea of having him on the Islanders, but because in the real world, acquiring a player like that would subtract a handful of good players who are providing important contributions every game.  No general manager, even the one responsible for the mess that is the Edmonton Oilers is going to trade away their best player without getting a boatload of players and prospects in return.

If the Islanders are going to transition into a contender, they do not make that trade.  Especially in December.  They have no leverage and, most importantly, no need.  They do not need a top line left wing.  They are winning without one.  Contending clubs do not make trades that impact the roster negatively.  And yes, getting Taylor Hall would have had a negative impact on the overall roster.

Big boy clubs don't act like that.  They wait until the deadline when they have more leverage and can get the best deal.  Luckily, Islanders GM Garth Snow didn't participate in any of the silliness.  All of the credible people covering the team said no trade was ever discussed.  From a fan perspective, I've come to appreciate Snow's patience.  It's a trait that annoyed many fans during the rebuild, but it's essential to a successful rebuilding and equally important to maintaining a competitive roster.

Not only did the front office not bother with silly early season blockbuster trades that would decimate the depth of the roster, but the players themselves did their part by winning back-to-back games (one on the road) against very good opponents in Detroit and Tampa Bay.  The latter game was one of the more exciting outcomes as the team scored two goals in 12 seconds to take the lead late in the third period.

Getting their big boy pants on is one thing, but making sure they fit properly is another.  After the thrilling win over the Lightning, they lost at home to the Montreal Canadiens thanks to a great performance by their goaltender Carey Price.  Christmas dinner didn't taste any worse because of that loss.  The Isles were still near the top of their division and one of the best teams in the league.  It was fun to see my Ranger fan family members for the holidays.

I was still heating up leftovers for my meals when the NHL returned from the holiday break.  I was enjoying my warmed up lasagne when the team took a 3-0 lead against the worst team in the league, the Buffalo Sabres.  However, like they did in back-to-back games earlier in the month, they would blow the 3 goal lead and lose (this time in a shootout - their first OT/SO loss of the year).  Seems the belt buckle on those big boy pants came lose again and the Islanders got caught with their pants down.

Buffalo is terrible, but they've won their share of games.  They've beaten a number of top teams.  Even though the loss was tough to accept, one of the central themes of this season was making sure the team reacted positively to such losses.  When the next game came around - this time against division rival Washington - they pulled up their big boy pants again and took a 3-0 lead in the 3rd period.  Then the Capitals scored.  Then they scored again.  Then again.  And here we were.  Pants down.  Again.

Speaking of "final piece" trades, the acquisition of Johnny Boychuk (and Nick Leddy) was a contributing factor to me starting this blog.  Those trades felt like "final piece" trades.  History will tell us if they really were, but for this game one of those guys were the right piece.  Boychuk scored in OT to win the game and averted a fan crisis after another squandered lead.  The big boy pants still don't fit, but they're back on and the team is adjusting the belt.

Which is better than I can do after all that lasagne.

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To Be Rid Of It

The journey to elite status for a franchise is never quick.  In order to get back to being a Stanley Cup contender (especially in the salary cap era), there's lots of heartache and despair to endure.  A number of teams have made the journey from irrelevance to contender, but the New York Islanders have have laid out quite the path for fans over the last 20 years.  One does not simply walk into the Final.

It's not too big of a stretch to imagine Isles fans as the hobbits of the NHL fanbase.  Small in numbers.  Proud but lacking importance.  Happy to live in their own corner of the world without wanting to be bothered.  When outsiders happened to come by, we'd try and tune out the ridicule until they passed.  When it got real bad, some of us would just want to disappear.

It was sad, of course, to feel like this about your favorite team.  Apathy takes root and it's grasp is tough to break free from.  Coping mechanisms like cynicism become reflex actions.  Just how ingrained this is in me became apparent over this past weekend.  The Islanders had suffered through their second 3-game losing streak.  After the first set of losses,  I wrote about the conscious effort I went through to fight these old habits.  I felt I was getting better at handling disappointing games.

Then the Isles took a 3-goal lead into the 3rd period in Minnesota and bad things happened.  I went to bed pissed, which was a regular occurrence in previous years and really snapped me back to a mindset I thought I'd left behind.  Another loss followed and I was living in flashbacks of Novembers past.  As frustrating as it was, it was also familiar.  Prior to the game against the Chicago Blackhawks, I attended a wedding that had plenty of Ranger fan friends and family members.  There was a lot of ribbing back and forth and lot of self-deprecation on my part.

In other words, the same conversations I'd had many times over the previous years.  It was as it had always been.  It was easy.  I embraced it.  Then the Islanders beat the Blackhawks and I thought to myself, "Well at least they were able to win that game."  It felt like all the other "nice games" the Islanders had surprised me with over the last 20 years.  It was how I processed wins that I felt in my subconscious shouldn't have happened.  A tendency I've had for as long as I can remember.

And I didn't want it anymore.

Transforming from an apathetic fan to one that's invested in expectation is a hell of a thing.  The Islanders had (if we're being totally honest) a shocking offseason and a great start to the year.  We were on our way and it felt different right from the start (hence the existence of this blog).  It was all going to change and I wanted to experience every part of it.

This also meant experiencing the tough stretches in a different way.  It's nearly guaranteed that the Islanders will face another losing streak (or 2 or 3).  Even the top teams go through slumps.  However, when there's such an easy response you can dial up at a moments notice, handling those slumps with positivity has proved to be as hard as giving up the Ring.

This adventure is focused on me as a fan and my support - my Fellowship - is the team.  They are on the journey with me, learning and growing as well.  However, they are also more experienced and sure of themselves than we fans are.  Kyle Okposo provided some needed Gandalfian wisdom after Saturday's victory (as quoted by NY Daily News beat writer Stephen Lorenzo):

#Isles Okposo: "We want to be on a curve that keeps ticking upward, but there’s going to be peaks and valleys in that..."
— Stephen (@StephenCLorenzo) December 14, 2014

#Isles Okposo "You’re going to have a couple of games where you don’t play so well and you blow a couple of leads..."
— Stephen (@StephenCLorenzo) December 14, 2014

#Isles Okposo: "But we have to realize that we’re a good hockey team and get back to playing the way that we play. And we did that tonight.”
— Stephen (@StephenCLorenzo) December 14, 2014

Guide us, o wise one.

I'm not sure how far we'll all get on this season's quest, but it's never been about winning a Stanley Cup (although that would be quite swell).  When it ends, I want my reflex action to be the positivity I currently must consciously conjure.  I want to be rid of the apathy and save the sarcasm for the minor moments of levity.  I just hope I don't have to toss any of my fishsticks memorabilia into a pit of lava.  That stuff seems like it's going to be worth something real soon.

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The Choice

Fans of perennially bad teams are the emotional lotto players of sports.  We faithfully buy our tickets every season in hopes of getting a winner.  Safe to say, we always end the season crumpling up our worthless tickets and throwing them into the trash bin.

This year (so far anyway) us Islander fans feel like we've finally hit a winner.  Following the victory over Philly in which the Isles thoroughly outplayed the Flyers, the team has continued to win regularly.  The interesting aspect of all the victories (five in seven games) is that a few key players were injured and as a result the team didn't play all that well.  Jaroslav Halak helped carry the team though the rough sea of roster callups and line adjustments.  The defense was especially affected as the team's ice time leader, Johnny Boychuk, was one of the casualties.  Other very important regulars (Lubomir Visnovsky, Travis Hamonic) also went down with injuries.  Out of the forward group, Cal Clutterbuck and Josh Bailey also got banged up and missed time.

In past seasons, such a recipe was a guaranteed disaster that would derail any positive momentum.  The caboose had exploded and the rest of the train was going to go with it.  Not this year.  Seems this team is more than capable of handling it.

The Islanders have the most wins in the league.  They are missing half of their top 6 defenseman and two important forwards.  Additionally, their top line isn't really producing at a consistent rate.  This streak is mostly about Halak, who was named the NHL's First Star of the month for November.  It's not hard to see how the team could navigate all the pitfalls of the season by leaning on it's balanced roster.  This will help preempt future anxiety for the next time the team has to deal with injuries and slumps.  That next time maybe Halak doesn't carry the team, but John Tavares and Kyle Okposo do.  Or maybe it's the SNL (Kid) Line or the top defense paring of Boychuk and Nick Leddy.  The players who will step up to carry the team when they need it could come from any place on the roster.  It's a comforting and alien thought for fans and has us thinking of bigger, shinier, silvery-er things as the season progresses.

It's not just us die-hards, either.  A number of articles were posted that dove into the Islander resurgence and the possibility of not just success this year, but long term.  The discussion is a fun one to have for obvious reasons, but it made me wonder about weighing the current season versus the next ten.

Would I take a Stanley Cup this year if it meant not winning again for 10 years OR would I accept a playoff loss this May in exchange for being a top-5 contending team - one that could maybe win multiple championships for the next decade?

It's a hell of a thing to think about.

If you ask the fans of the Anaheim Ducks or Pittsburgh Penguins, winning that one Stanley Cup was an amazing moment.  But in the years since, with all the ultra-high expectations and playoff losing, they probably have some conflicting feelings.  Since winning the championship, enjoying the regular season has been rather difficult because they all know it won't matter when the playoffs start.  And then the post-season arrives and it's:

Islanders fans have dealt with the awful play of the team for over a decade, so without expectations handling all that losing was just a matter of letting the apathy wash your pain away.  It's two different kinds of failure and honestly, I've had enough sports-related misfortune in my life to fill an empty Miami arena on a Tuesday in November.

Taking the "win now" choice, I'd have one glorious championship year that was bookended by two separate eras of differing disappointments.  I think it's a fair bet that a majority of fans would decide to take this.  It gives us a Cup, which is really all we want at the end of the day.  It may be hard to sit by during future seasons knowing that no matter how good the team is during the year, they will fail in playoffs.  This is a horrifying Groundhog Day-loop to be in as a sports fan.  So, at least having one championship eases the pain.  I'd rather be the Penguins or Ducks than (*shudders*) the San Jose Sharks or Vancouver Canucks.  This is the risk of not taking the single Cup.  You give up the one victorious year in hopes of winning a bunch in the future and it never happens.  The core players get too old or too expensive (a very, very important factor in the salary cap era of the NHL) and the prospect pool dries up because your draft position is awful.

Yikes.

Thinking through that side of the choice almost feels like the decision is a no-brainer.  Except when you think about what could be if the result of the rebuild goes really, really well.

Like, Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings-level well.

It's probably safe to assume that fans of the Hawks and Kings are living in a golden age.  Their team is always a top contender and nearly always performs up to expectations in the playoffs.  They're having their cake and eating it too and everyone loves cake.

It's a very tempting carrot.  More so now that we've seen the team play with success across a number of scenarios and with a decent army of really good prospects yet to arrive.  This outcome is a real possibility.  If it were not, the choice would be easy.  Yet the path is lit and we fans can see it laid out in front of us.  All we need to do is sign away the Stanley Cup this year and hope that path leads to at least one or two other ones at some point.

I've mostly defended Islander GM Garth Snow.  I felt I understood the financial restrictions of the team and realized this meant restocking the prospect pool with really good young players (read: cheap) that could form a good core for a handful of years before they've earned a big pay day.  It's the long, hard plan and I was prepared to let him attempt it.  I was massively disappointed in the 2013 offseason.  Following the wonderful playoff series against Pittsburgh, everyone and their mom seemed to know the Islanders were close to contending.  All they needed to do was sign some bigger ticket free agents or trade one or two of those prospects for a top player.  The proverbial "final piece".  When that didn't happen, I blamed both Snow and owner Charles Wang for not taking the next step.  Wang for keeping the financial chains on and Snow for not using the teams assets (cap space and prospects) to acquire those final pieces.

Skip ahead one year and all that has been rectified.  Spectacularly and wonderfully rectified.

Wang, undoubtedly helped by the sale of the team to new ownership partners ("Yay, new money."), opened up the team wallet and Snow targeted the right players.  He also sat back and took advantage of other GMs in bad situations to land Boychuk and Leddy.  The Islanders adressed every need and didn't compromise their current prospect pool.  They gave up more than a few future draft picks, but that won't affect the team for at least five years.  The team is stacked for the long-term right now.  That's quite a coup.  What else could you ask from your team's general manager? 

The Islanders have as good a chance as any team to be very successful over the next five to ten years.  While that is a most tempting thought, I personally think I'd take the Stanley Cup this year anyway.  There's quite a bit of luck that goes into winning one title (let alone two or more).  That's the x-factor that can't be ignored.  For me, it's the deciding factor.  Looking historically at teams like the Sharks and Canucks plus recent Montreal Canadien and Phialdephia Flyer teams show that one bad bounce or ill-timed injury can derail a playoff run.

I'm not sure I could take the "what if" disappointment if the Islanders were to end up like that.  I'd take the one Cup and happily, if not begrudingly, hold on to it for the next 10+ years while waiting for the next great Isles team to be built.

I mean, I've gotten pretty used to doing that anyway.

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Flipped

The Islanders schedule was well packed in the days since the last post.  Back-to-back games that were part of two home-and-home series made for an interesting, rivalry-building week.  Four of the six games were against two of the top teams in the conference, which gave fans and writers plenty of fuel to feed the "Are the Islanders for real?" narrative.  Seemed these games would give that question a definitive answer.

The Isles were able to defeat the struggling Florida Panthers, but it took a shootout to do so.  The next night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they played decent in front of backup goalie Chad Johnson, but couldn't offset the fatigue and some of Johnson's mistakes.  The team was noticeably tired by the second half of the game.  After watching them win five in a row, I was content to let the loss be what it was.

Take note of this reaction going forward.

Once they returned home and rested (and were in front of their starting goalie), the Isles welcomed Tampa to Long Island and returned to the level of play they'd been consistently achieving.  It was an interesting two games that were nearly mirror-images of each other.  The first game in Tampa, with the Isles on the second part of a road back-to-back, was a tough slog for New York.  They couldn't keep up and gave up goals as the game went on.  When the Lightning arrived at Nassau Coliseum, they were on the second part of their own road back-to-back, having played the Rangers at MSG the night before.  Tampa Bay was able to produce a competitive first period, but couldn't keep up much after that (just as happened to the Isles).  The win was enjoyable (as they all are), but in a different way than I'm personally used to.  The team had just won 5 in a row before losing that final road game.  Isles fans never take losing streaks of more than one game lightly, but as clock wound down on the home win, I wasn't as "high" on it as I'd been after other recent games.  I wondered why and discovered I cared more about the upcoming games against the Pittsburgh Penguins than I did about the Lightning games.  I expected they would play well when they returned home and they did.  My expectations have been reset with this team.  The Tuesday game at home against Tampa was my first tangible reaction to that.

Before the Tampa game started I knew that any loss wouldn't be taken well by the fanbase, but a win wouldn't really register with the hockey world, either.  Playing and competing with the elite Penguins in a home-and-home would.  I wanted that to happen more than a victory against Tampa.  My selfish desire to listen to and read the hockey web-verse raining praise upon my Islanders was turned up to 11 in the days before the first game in Pittsburgh.  I was Veruca Salt walking through this wonderful chocolate factory the Isles had built for us fans.

So of course there I was around 10:30pm on Saturday night, after the Isles had not only competed with, but twice defeated those powerful Penguins, soaking in Twitter timelines and game recaps as if they were my golden goose.  It was a much stronger feeling than what I felt earlier in the year after other wins.  Don't get me wrong, those wins were all fun to experience and I enjoyed the hell out of reading and hearing media folks giving the Isles a nice pat on the back.  However, these victories against Pittsburgh were perception-shifting events.  It wasn't just that the hockey media was giving the Islanders a nice round of applause, they were standing and demanding people start taking notice.  They'd become our bullhorn, amplifying the cheers of the Islander faithful.

By Monday, weekly power rankings had started to trickle out.  Strange things were afoot.  ESPN and The Hockey News both placed the Islanders at the top.  A number of other sites had them in their top 5, with specific mentions of the team's rise.  It was a fun day but the Isles had to play their next game Monday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.  In seasons past, an Islander winning streak was appreciated, but usually handled with plenty of caution.  When certain teams arrived during a good run, it became a foregone conclusion that the fun was about to end.  Historically, the Flyers were one of those teams.

The odd psychology of this season is why I'm writing this blog.  I'm wrestling with conflicting emotions and trying to understand them on a weekly basis.  Before the game, I was a bit sad actually.  It was a classic stopper game.  I don't think my brain had quite allowed for those gaps in hope to fully close, even subconsciously.  I didn't feel like I had enough time to enjoy the spotlight that was shining so brightly on the team.  As the game started and it again became apparent that the Islanders were playing very well, emotions shifted again.

"They are destroying the Flyers right now.  Steve Mason is having one of those epic goalie nights that happen sometimes so they haven't scored.  But this game isn't even close."

This was the first game in which I felt satisfied with the team losing.  I realize how trite and cliche that sounds.  I've said that many times before during the dark days of previous seasons, when the little positives during losing efforts were all I had to work with.

Fact is, when I thought or said that I was totally, completely lying.  Every time.

Even after the aforementioned game in Tampa, I was content but still disappointed.  I understood why they lost and accepted it.  That is different than being satisfied with it.  With this Philly game, it wasn't just that they played well enough to win.  That's happened plenty of times.  Even when they were the worst team in the league, they'd lose games where they competed and outplayed better opponents.  It's that now they are the better team.  They're not the inferior roster that has to hope the other team plays terribly.  Or that a puck bounces one way instead of the other.  Or that their goalie stands on his head to give them a chance to steal a game.  This time, it was the Flyers who were that team.

That's why I could say, for the first time truthfully to myself, that I was satisfied if they'd lost that shootout.  The New York Islanders have flipped the equation.

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