New Podcast Posted; Sunday Evening Notes

As promised, Sean and I got together today and recorded our first podcast of the new season. The show can be found here.

We encourage you all to not only download this weeks episode, but subscribe so that you can get the subsequent installments as well. There are links on the side of the podcast site that tell you how to do so. As two loyal listeners pointed out to me tonight (thank you John in DC and jkeitz from Twitter), you can also subscribe through Google Listen or Dr. Podder for those of you who might not have iTunes. I am not familiar with either, or how they work, but for those of you who are tech savvy, by all means do so. Also, for anyone who knows other ways to download the shows, please do not hesitate to e-mail us about them so we can inform our other listeners, or leave a comment for all to see.

Today was a really good time to record a show seeing as the team just finished their preseason schedule, and also cut 17 players this morning. We were able to discuss items like that, which was a good change of pace. Don't get us wrong - we love doing the offseason shows like the free agency special or the training camp primer - but they are nothing compared to actually talking about the team and the performance on the ice. We were excited, and you can feel that it is the eve of hockey here in New York with the cold air finally arriving.

Now that the season has officially arrived, we encourage you guys to click around and visit some of the links that are here. Be sure to check out our NYI FYI home page and sign up for the newsletter, which should begin rolling in the next week or two.

SUNDAY EVENING NOTES: With teams having only until Wednesday to finalize their rosters, expect some movement. While there have been no rumors of the Islanders possibly making any moves, keep one eye open. There are supposed to be some decent forwards hitting the waiver wire. One forward, Michael Grabner, Sean and I spoke about in the podcast. He was unable to crack Florida's lineup to start the year, and in order to go down to the minors needed to be placed on waivers. I am a little surprised that Grabner is being placed on waivers, despite not having the strongest camp, and would be equally as surprised if no one claims him. Top-15 picks being placed on waivers does not happen very often. Still, he can be considered a bit of a project, but he did score 11 points in 20 games last season in Vancouver.

A couple of teams still have salary cap issues that need to be resolved by Wednesday. The most notable ones are the Boston Bruins and the New Jersey Devils. The Devils are believed to be shopping Colin White, Brian Rolston and possibly Jamie Langenbrunner. Bryce Salvador was once considered as the most likely player to be banished, but he is battling through some concussion problems. It remains to be seen what happens there. The word surrounding the Bruins is that they could possibly end up demoting Michael Ryder depending on if some of their younger prospects impressed them enough. The first week or so of camp there was a lot of talk about this, but not as much in the past week. Has Ryder done enough to redeem himself, or is he on his way out?

As far as defensemen go, there is the Sheldon Souray watch (we needed someone to painfully keep track of once Kovalchuk signed, right?) as people look for Edmonton to possibly put him on re-entry. Word out of Edmonton is that they still have hopes to trade away the disgruntled blue liner, but everyone knows their situation and is not offering them anything of value. We'll see what happens there. Shane O'Brien was put on waivers by Vancouver, and there is some belief that he will be claimed by someone, perhaps even the New York Rangers.

Some Isles fans are wondering what we are in store for when it coms to claiming players, but will we be putting any players on waivers? We already waived one player, defenseman Dustin Kohn. He seems to have gone unclaimed (so far) and will most likely report to Bridgeport. The Islanders still have eight defensemen on one-way contracts, leaving people to wonder about the status of Bruno Gervais. The fact that he was sent to Quebec City to play with the "B" team (and didn't have a great game, either, by many accounts) might tell us something. The real questions here are 1) do the Islanders feel comfortable having two defensemen as healthy scratches and 2) how confident are the Islanders in Radek Martinek's ability to stay healthy? If they are pretty confident, then they may have no reservations about waiving someone, or even trading them for someone elses spare part (like Ryder).

The only thing we know for sure is not to expect the Islanders to claim any of the defensemen. The search for blue liners ended with the signing of Mike Mottau.

Many of the players already on waivers have to either pass through or be claimed by 12 noon Monday, so we won't be waiting long to find out the landing place for those who have already hit the wire.

CAMMALLERI HEARING: Mike Cammalleri has a conference called with the league scheduled for Monday morning to discuss his incident with Nino Niederreiter during the Isles-Canadiens game on Saturday night. We'll keep track of any news of possible suspensions (there should be one).

-Chris

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