Friday, February 18, 2011

Gotta Stay Away

In my continued absence, the Islanders have been on a roll.

Until last night (2/17), that is.

As I strolled past a television with ESPN playing, I noticed the Isles in an early 3-0 hole. They eventually lost 6-3 to a stronger Boston Bruins team, ending their four game winning streak.

Despite the loss, some positives have emerged of late.

The Islanders announced the signing of winger P.A. Parenteau to a one-year contract extension on Thursday. I would say that behind Michael Grabner, Parenteau has been the surprise offensive pickup of the year for General Manager Garth Snow. Coming into Thursday’s action, Parenteau had recorded 14 goals and 21 assists. Though it’s sometimes en vogue to criticize Snow, he really perfomed nicely by adding those two offensive pieces. In his official statement, Parenteau said that he was happy to be on Long Island and part of the Islanders organization.

On the scoring front, I noticed that while the goals haven’t quite yet flowed, Kyle did record a three assist game. For his truncated season total (remember, he missed the first 44 games) Kyle is at two goals and 7 assists.

Moving on, though it may not have been exciting to many others, Al Montoya made his Islanders debut recently. The former Rangers draft pick had played in five NHL games, all with Phoenix. The bad news is that due to circumstances beyond their control, the Islanders have used six (!) goaltenders this season. I don’t think anyone expected to see names like Montoya, Mikko Koskinen, or Nathan Lawson on the roster in 2010-2011.

Finally, I missed a wild game against Pittsburgh. Not only did I lose out on seeing my home team score 9 goals, but there were several wild scraps that resulted in well over 300 combined penalty minutes in the contest. The melees also resulted in suspensions for Trevor Gillies and Matt Martin, though I have no idea whether they were warranted or not. I’ll have to review the game footage at a later date.

So, to sum up, it seems that I have missed some pretty wild stuff. I hope the scoring continues. And if the winning keeps up, I'll gladly stay in exile for another month.

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