Underwhelming Effort in Calgary

I'm going to keep this one short. There was very little to take away from the Islanders' 2-0 loss in Calgary on Tuesday (9/27) night.

The good news, I suppose, is that it was only preseason and the Islanders dressed a team of mostly prospects and guys fighting for jobs. Additionally, goaltender Evgeni Nabokov looked fairly good for a guy who hadn't played a real game in, well, forever. He saved 15 of 16 shots in two periods of work.

The numbers pretty much tell the story: 13 total shots on goal for the Isles. 0 for 3 on the power play. No shots from Ryan Strome or Kirill Kabanov to even make Flames goaltender Henrik Karlsson sweat.

In a word: meh. But that's what preseason is for.

I don't know if it was the cross-continent flight or just a lack of NHL readiness by some of the guys on the ice, but I was hoping to see a better effort. Matt Donovan showed a bit, if I had to pick a player wearing white.

Compounding the woeful display were the injuries that struck Milan Jurcina (strained left groin) and Rhett Rakhshani (injured left knee).

The Islanders' top two lines, barring injuries, are basically set and have looked good this season. Defensively, Mark Streit has looked like a man on a mission after being named captain last week.

But if the Islanders want to be a playoff team this season, as Kyle Okposo told me they must be, they'll need to get a better showing from their role players than they had in this tilt.