In their only home preseason game, the Islanders iced what many consider to be the closet thing to their opening night lineup. For the first time, people were able to see how certain guys had chemistry with others, and more importantly, how good Rick DiPietro looks.
DiPietro made 25 saves, while Josh Bailey and Blake Comeau scored for the Islanders to help defeat the Devils 2-1, while just under 8,000 fans came out to the Coliseum for their preseason fix.
Doug Weight had an assist on Bailey's goal, making a nice pass from behind the net. The assist gave him three total in the two games he played. That's a great thing to see for a guy who has been injured for most of his stay here on the Island so far.
One of the things I was most interested in was to see how Scott Gordon was going to allocate the minutes among the defensemen. One look at the boxscore, and you can see that James Wisniewski led the way with 25:52, followed by Mark Eaton at 25:24 and Radek Martinek at 24:35. Newcomer Mike Mottau, getting his first game in as an Islander, logged 24:06 of ice time. The Islanders are going to rely heavily on Wisniewski to lead this crew. It appears that Gordon likes Mottau very much, and to be honest I have liked what I have seen out of him when watching him the past three seasons for the Devils as well. While the blue line may not have a huge amount of offense, they certainly are solid defensively.
Calvin de Haan played just under 10 minutes. I'm curious to see what the Islanders do with him, and to be honest while he has shown flashes of being a very good defenseman, isn't quite there yet. I won't say that his shoulder injury last season caused him to take a step back, but you can clearly see that he is still trying to work out the kinks, which is only normal for a 19 year old who suffers an injury like that. I really think he should go back to juniors, and something tells me the Islanders will agree with that.
The team did have their split squad in action once again, with the "B" team dropping their game against the Montreal Canadiens 7-2. Montreal had most of their NHL roster on the ice for that one. All but a handful of the Islanders skaters in that game were cut this morning and sent to Bridgeport, or released. I'll touch upon this later in the post.
The story out of Quebec City, however, was the battle between Nino Niederreiter and Mike Cammalleri. Earlier in the game, Niederreiter laid this hit on Cammalleri, one that he felt was unnecessary and illegal. After taking exception to the hit, and with the game getting out of hand, Cammalleri went after Niederreiter, essentially waiving his stick in his face, seemingly clipping Niderreiter. After that, while Niederreiter tries to skate away and with the referees watching, Cammalleri slashed Niederreiter on the back of his legs. Niederreiter did not return for the 3rd period with bruises from the slash. Cammalleri was thrown out of the game for his actions.
I don't really know what possessed Cammalleri to do what he did. Niederreiter is 6'3", Cammalleri 5'9". The difference in height is what probably made him go berserk like that, feeling that the hit was a shoulder to a head, but there is no place for that. The league is currently reviewing the situation, as they should. Many speculate that he will be handed down some kind of suspension. He should.
Unfortunately, I was not able to see the games and due to prior obligations, did not get to attend the preseason game at the Coliseum. However, some of my fellow Blog Boxers were able to attend or watch, and they wrote some good things. For more details of what they saw - which is a breath of fresh air for you guys and a break from my opinion - be sure to check out what they have to say.
Dee Karl of Islanders 7th Woman
Dominik of Light House Hockey
I'll add more as they post their stories from the game, so be sure to look out for that.
ISLES ANNOUNCE ROSTER MOVES: The Islanders announced on Saturday morning that they have trimmed their roster by 17. There are no surprises there. One thing that bothers me, however, is that all six players who were here on tryouts got cut. While that probably won't matter in the scheme of things, to me I felt that bringing in a guy like Dean McAmmond or Jed Ortmeyer on a two-way deal would have been a good idea. Meanwhile, there is no indication that they will even head to Bridgeport for a chance to crack their roster. So, it now appears that those players were just brought in to fulfill roster requirements for the preseason games. Oh well. Who knows, maybe someone ends up coming back in another couple of days.
NYI FYI PODCAST COMING: Sean and I plan to make a podcast this afternoon. Now with preseason games complete, we'll have some interesting topics to discuss now that we have actually seen the players perform on the ice and in game situations. Look for that at some point today. I'll be sure to post a link when it's up and running as well as a reminder.
-Chris
nyifyi@gmail.com
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