A LITTLE perspective please, suggested Bill Guerin to teammates who should take their triumphs one shift at a time on behalf of a franchise happy to sell one ticket at a time.
“Just play,” was the veteran winger’s advice Monday after the Islanders had just blown a three-goal, third-period lead for the second time in two games. “Just relax, get fired up or do whatever is going to allow you to get over it.
“The whole world isn’t focused on our game.”
One billion, 321 million Chinese could care less about the Islanders and unfortunately a lot of Long Island no longer does either. The Coliseum is as empty as has been the franchise’s attempts to get things right for 15 years. The team profile has sunk lower than a Denis Potvin hip check, what with still no movement on a remodeled Coliseum, or a player singularly worthy of the price of admission, especially now that Rick DiPietro is out for 4-6 weeks following another knee surgery.
For lack of better alternatives and interest from top free agents, the Islanders are going young, a plan which, considering they have had seven picks in the top five of the draft since last winning a playoff round in 1993, has grown old and tired.
What the current players are, however, is sincere. And if the Islanders are going to lose, it won’t be because they will be playing like they are waiting to do so. Last night they pressured the Rangers’ points relentlessly and forced two third-period shorthanded chances that Nate Thompson and Richard Park buried behind Henrik Lundqvist in a 2-1 Garden win.
The Islanders weren’t trying to get outplayed for two periods. But facing a second game in two nights against a rested club, neither were they trying merely to survive. No trap for the suburban team, except maybe owner Charles Wang falling into the one of believing he can get The Lighthouse project built without threatening to move the franchise.
The Islanders got a flawless performance from backup goalie Joey MacDonald and succeeded in shortening the ice, the only way they are going to keep this season from becoming unbearably long.
“We are trying to be a team that is hard to play against,” said coach Scott Gordon, who is also trying, in his first NHL job, to coach a team not hard to watch.
“There are not too many systems like this,” said Guerin. “In all the (NHL) games you watch, the forwards are always skating backwards trying to come back at perfect angles, but we’re consistently attacking.”
Having announced the intention to rebuild this time through youth, the only young draftee in the lineup with first-or-second-line upside is winger Kyle Okposo, the seventh overall pick in 2006. As long as nobody is coming to the Coliseum anyway, as long as one or two trades are not going to make this a playoff team, finishing 30th to draft the next potential franchise savior, center John Tavares, seems like the best survival plan for the franchise.
But Gordon isn’t going to last through any tank job. And if the Islanders don’t have many fans, they already seem to have a coach and each other.