Weekend Update: Isles Bring Back Gillies; Third Jersey; New Podcast

The Islanders kicked off a weekend that would bring plenty of news by announcing the return of controversial pugilist Trevor Gilles, agreeing with the forward on a one year, two-way contract.

Many wondered out loud if Gillies' antics leading to two lengthy suspensions would mean that the Islanders would part ways with him. While many folks enjoyed the bashing of the Penguins back in February, some voiced their displeasure for the way Gillies acted in injuring Eric Tangradi.

Personally, I was done with Gillies and really don't see any more use for him on this team. While it's nice that he's a fan favorite and the players might really like him, I'll point out that this is usually the case with tough guys all around the league. Gillies could have been replaced with many other guys who the fans and players would have loved just as much. For example, Zenon Konopka last season. People fell in love with him right away.

Gillies' deal means Konopka is likely out. Photo by C. Hessel

Now, the better hockey player in Konopka will most likely be sent away. It's not hard to be the superior hockey player in this scenario, but when it comes to having additional muscle aside from Matt Martin this should be coming in the form of Konopka, not Gillies.

Furthermore, don't let the two-way part of Gillies' contract fool you. He was on the same kind of contract last year and ended up sticking with the Isles for most of it when not sidelined serving suspensions.
I'm not trying to deprive the developing youngsters on the team of having a guy willing to throw fists around, but there are plenty of guys out there you can bring in who won't provide as much bad publicity, would be liked just as much and can play a semi-regular shift if need be.

To each their own, I suppose.

Third Jersey: There has been a lot of talk since the season ended that the Islanders are coming out with a third jersey to wear for various dates next season.

While nothing has been confirmed, there does seem to be some information available that leads many to believe that we will indeed have one next season, and it will be black.

I wasn't always a big fan of incorporating black into the Islanders color scheme for the sake of trying to produce a new jersey, however there are a few scenarios where I could see it working. Some fans have posted on message boards what they have heard it might possibly look like and have tried to come up with some designs based on that. Like I said, some things seem to work pretty well, others not so much.

While Sean discussed what he heard and his feelings of the idea of a black jersey in the latest podcast, I let it be known that this is so far down on the totem pole for me.

Many teams love trying to put black into their alternates because of the fact that it "goes with anything." I personally don't care so long as it's done the right way and as long as it doesn't affect player performances.

If a well known, respected player is going to be wearing it next season after being signed or traded for a pick in the upcoming draft, then I'm all for it. As long as the product on the ice is superior to anything we've seen for much of the past four years, they can wear what they want.

One Big Happy Podcast: As mentioned earlier and as promised a couple of weeks back, Sean and I got together this weekend to have our annual pre-draft podcast. In the past when on a time constraint, we would normally restrict this to just talking about the draft. But we were able to expand on our thoughts for this one, and talking about the draft went into talking about trade possibilities for the pick (or other picks currently not in the Isles possession), to talking about past drafts, third jerseys, some referendum stuff and a whole lot more.

Two hours later, we were finally content with ending the show. Hopefully, you guys enjoy the extra long banter. The podcast is split up into two parts.

You can download the podcast by going here.

-Chris

nyifyi@gmail.com