Sports

In-the-right Islanders should let Nabokov go, after season

Until further notice, the Islanders are the aggrieved party in the Evgeni Nabokov fiasco, shunned and subjected to private and public ridicule from the 35-year-old goaltender without a country in which to play following his silly decision to stay home rather than collect a cool quarter million dollars to work on Long Island for 10 weeks.

General manager Garth Snow, either on his own accord or under orders from CEO Charles Wang (impossible to ever quite know), acted properly in suspending Nabokov, just as he had acted in the best interests of his team by claiming the goaltender off waivers before he could get to Detroit on the one-year, prorated $570,000 deal that had been reached with Red Wings GM Ken Holland.

Nobody cried foul when Nashville claimed Marek Svatos off waivers in late December after the Blues signed the winger following his departure from the KHL, and nobody cried foul when the Sharks claimed Kyle Wellwood off waivers earlier this month after St. Louis had signed the forward following his departure from the KHL.

But pretty much everyone cried flagrant foul against Snow for upsetting the natural order, whereby the Lordly Red Wings should get what they please — Exhibit A, lifetime contracts never contested by the NHL — while the tenement-dwelling Islanders are to remain in the shadows.

So the season is over for Nabokov, as it should be. The open question is whether Wang and/or Snow intend to hold whatever is left of the goaltender’s career hostage by tolling (freezing) his contract and therefore retaining his rights for next season rather than allowing him to become a free agent this summer.

The concept of an unhappy Nabokov at the age of 36 working for $570,000 as the physically unreliable Rick DiPietro’s partner is a disaster movie script. There is no point in forcing a player who doesn’t want to be on the Island and is willing to sacrifice $250,000 in order to prove that, to be on the Island, and certainly when the organization hasn’t invested so much as a dime in him.

The only purpose in tolling the contract would be to punish Nabokov. If that’s the route the Islanders take, they no longer will be the aggrieved party. If that becomes the decision, they would instead become villains and not victims by acting in a vindictive, petty manner in applying punishment that far exceeds the crime.

Wang and Snow are in the right here. Unfortunately, there is little reason to be confident they will remain so as the saga plays on while Nabokov does not.

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Apparently, our little corner of the hockey world is the only one that reacted with stunned disbelief to the Bruins’ failure to respond two weeks ago when Pittsburgh’s Deryk Engelland
smashed Marc Savard
into the boards with a forearm to the mouth that left the Boston center “woozy.”

How is it possible that an organization of such heritage, one that lists Cam Neely
on the letterhead as club president, could simply watch again — again! — while Savard was hammered again — again! — by the same team — again! — without a response?

It was no accident the Bruins were so psychologically weak they were beaten by the Flyers after taking a 3-0 lead in games and then a 3-0 lead at home in Game 7 of the conference semis last spring.

It’s not going to be an accident when this team of imposing ability and strength on the ice underachieves again.

They don’t care enough to protect one another. Or at least, they never cared enough to protect Savard, or to stand up for Savard, whose career is in jeopardy after he sustained another concussion last Saturday following a check from Colorado’s Matt Hunwick
.

The coach, Claude Julien
, has never seemed to see an issue. Neely? It must be studied corporate blindness from the suite above the rink.

The Big Bad Bruins ceased to exist a long, long time ago.

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If even an accidental blow to the head results in an automatic major and suspension, who would have been subjected to supplemental discipline in the wake of the violent, frightening, albeit accidental, collision between Brendan Shanahan
and Mike Knuble
at the Garden on Feb. 17, 2007 that left the Ranger with a concussion and the Flyer with a broken face?

Accidents happen, but checks on which the head is the intended target have no place in hockey, whether from the blindside, front side or back side.

It is up to the Board of Governors to give VP Colin Campbell
the mandate to suspend players guilty of committing such egregious fouls for a minimum of 20 games, with recidivists subject to suspensions of no fewer than 41 games for a second offense and no less than a full season for a third offense.

And it is up to the NHLPA to support these sentencing guidelines.

And it is imperative the NHL and the union agree on altering first shoulder pads and then elbow pads, so that they serve as originally intended, as protection, rather than as weapons to inflict damage, as they’ve evolved.

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Friday night’s All-Star Fantasy Draft proved once again how special NHL athletes are, for it is impossible to believe that any other sport’s players would have agreed to participate in such an event that challenged the stars’ egos.

It is the players who made HBO’s “24/7” what it was. It is the players who make the Winter Classic what it is. It is the players who agreed to carry this otherwise irrelevant weekend into whatever it can become.

It is the players, of course, who will be expected to take less next time.

larry.brooks@nypost.com