Islander Tidbits

On Monday, the Islanders received word about the status of defenseman Bryan Berard. He will miss the next 2-4 weeks with a groin injury. He hurt the groin in the second period of Saturday's game against the Devils. Fortunately for the Islanders, Berard will only miss a handful of games with the way the schedule is set up. The team plays 5 games in the next 3 weeks. So it is possible Berard will only miss the 5 games and not much more.

As do many fans, I enjoy looking at power rankings that come out from the major sports media each week. The Isles shot up the lists of many power rankings. Here are a few of note:

http://www.tsn.ca/fantasy_news/feature/?fid=548 - TSN 12th
http://www.sportsline.com/nhl/powerrankings - CBS 12th
http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/powerRankings - Fox Sports 9th
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/powerranking - ESPN 14th

The team took a big jump in all of these from the last week. It is definitely a nice thing to see. Some weird things going on with ESPN's though in my opinion.

Right now, it appears that the team is going with the same lines as last week. The idea of don't fix what isn't broken. Still no word on Shawn Bates and his status for Saturdays game. We'll keep you updated on that front.

Check back for other news and notes as well.