All right. Let’s play Final Jeopardy:
The answer is “Duds.”
I will bet all of my money on this one, Alex.
“What is the synonym for the Islanders’ new black third jerseys and the team that wears them?”
Correct!
It has, unfortunately though, ceased to be a laughing matter on Long Island, where promises have proved as empty as the Coliseum on those nights the Rangers don’t fill the arena with fans of their own.
The Islanders finally have crossed the line that separates objects of pity from objects of scorn, once again the worst team in the NHL and this time without any excuse other than the franchise’s ineptitude that runs from the top down.
Over the summer they have their hands out. During the winter they have their hands up.
Two victories since the middle of October before yesterday’s win over a Devils team that makes more of less offense than any team in the history of the world; the worst goal differential in the league; just one win on the road; shut out at home five times.
Of course that would all change if the taxpayers footed the bill for a fancy new arena.
Of course that would all change if the Islanders could only come up with a few extra second- or third-round draft picks.
Garth Snow, the general manager who is just too clever by half, wasted an encouraging 3-1 getaway by monkeying around with his club’s goaltending situation, having coach Jack Capuano audition Evgeni Nabokov in the hope the team might be able to pry a high draft pick in return for him.
Because in the philosophy of this management that constantly pushes the goal line back, hypothetical picks for the future have greater value than two points in the present.
Who cares about the paying customer paying the freight for this woebegone operation?
Ted Nolan and Scott Gordon were flawed coaches, but at least the Islanders had an underdog, junkyard dog mentality to their game when those gentlemen were behind the bench, regardless of the fact the currency could not be sustained and the players ultimately stopped responding to them.
That identity has been lost in the early months of this season under Capuano, who has a team that isn’t talented enough to play the talent game it seems to favor and is nowhere near gritty enough to consistently compete in the dirty areas of the ice.
Suddenly Blake Comeau can’t play for this team? Kyle Okposo is told in advance he will be scratched for three games?
It is impossible to know how these early weeks might have evolved if Al Montoya, such a pleasant surprise seven years after the Rangers selected him sixth overall in the draft (and credit to Snow for picking up the goaltender last year on the — what else? — cheap from Phoenix), had been permitted to remain in nets on merit.
But there was Nabokov to peddle and there was Rick DiPietro, a shell of what he might have been with that albatross of a Charles Wang 15-year friendship bracelet hanging around the franchise’s neck, to put an end to rational decision-making.
There are good people in that Islanders’ room, players who care. But the operation has long ceased to carry a credible major league tag.
This isn’t about money or lack thereof. This is about incompetence. This is about the duds they’re trying to sell you at the Coliseum.
The authentic ones.
* So let me get this straight: The NHL has effectively done nothing to help Wayne Gretzky get the $8 to $9 million he is owed by the Phoenix ownership that went bankrupt, but he is expected to play in an outdoor alumni game in Philadelphia that the league can promote by using his name?
Sure.
Gretzky told The Post on the eve of his 50th birthday in January he would play in an alumni game for the Rangers when the Winter Classic is held at Yankee Stadium.
Yet somehow it is news the Great One is not playing in Philadelphia?
Not here.
* OK, Cornell vs. BU at the Garden last night.
Hall of Famers Ken Dryden and Joe Nieuwendyk are 1-2 as the two greatest Cornell products to play in the NHL, but which member of the Big Red is weaving the third-best career — the Islanders’ Matt Moulson or the Sharks’ Douglas Murray?
The best of the holiday season to BU’s Chris Drury, one of the NHL’s great competitors whose game was reduced to a whisper the last couple of seasons by knees that had no more to give and who could not leave the game on his own terms.
* NBC’s Thanksgiving Parade host Matt Lauer: not a hockey fan.
But if he thinks the Boston Brewers were playing the Red Wings on Saturday, did he expect Hart Trophy winner Ryan Braun to take the opening faceoff?