New York Islanders Post Game Blame Game

In the New York Islanders’ Post Game Press Conference, the unsinkable Jack Capuano had little new to report.

Its hard to fault Shannon Hogan or Jack Capuano for not having anything new to talk about. After Thursday night’s loss to the streaking Minnesota Wild, there weren’t any startling new flaws revealed. The same old stories abound. The Islanders can’t finish. The goal-tending situation is flawed.

Regarding the goal-tending I continue to be baffled. Newsday’s Arthur Staple has said numerous times that the team is going to go with the best goalie, but that is clearly not the case. Starting Halak over Greiss and even Berube at this point seems like sheer folly.

Greiss’ GAA is almost an entire goal better than Halak’s at this point. At least with Berube, we’re dealing with a small sample size. In seven more games Halak has let in exactly double the amount of goals Greiss has. That almost sounds like the difference between last place in the Eastern Conference and contending for a playoff spot…

Lastly, regarding John Tavares‘ production, I think the last thing anyone in Islanders country should be doing right now is criticizing the Captain. His production has been down this season, but who could blame him.

Forget the fact that we’re going to have a hard enough time trying to convince him to sign on to this car-wreck long term starting in July. Is it not enough that he has carried such a huge % of the offensive burden for this team since his first season out of Juniors? Anyone blaming John Tavares for the team’s problems is either misplacing their anger or bored of writing about the things that are actually wrong with the franchise.