1) The Islanders' hiring of Scott Gordon, former head coach of the Providence Bruins, fits right in with Garth Snow and Charlie Wang's interesting (yet ridiculous) plan. Let it first be stated that Snow waited far too long to hire a coach for a team already in dire need of some organization.
Courtesy of Newsday.com
Secondly, This guy was the only candidate that didn't have any experience in the NHL. But, as Snow has shown us in the past, he doesn't like to do things conventionally.
Let's give him a little credit here before we rip him like usual. After all, Gordon led Providence to 55 wins last season, a total earning him AHL coach of the year. Snow clearly wanted someone to nurture his "fragile" young players, and believed Gordon would be the best man for the job.
Putting everything aside, it's no secret that Gordon has quite a tough task on his hands. This season, he'll have to mold a team that isn't anywhere close to competitive just barely into a non-embarrassment in order to secure his job for at least one more campaign. As I wrote in a previous post, the Islanders simply don't have the personnel to go near the playoffs, let alone a championship.
Garth Snow got his owner to believe in his "youth movement" when he fired Ted Nolan and brought in Gordon. Now the questions are: Can he get his fans to believe? Is there any reason to root for the Islanders anymore? Will the club eventually win a playoff series?
My view is that Snow should've gone with someone with more experience, like John Tortorella. Tortorella's hard-nosed approach would've perhaps whipped this team into [acceptable] shape.
That being said, I'm not going to count Gordon out yet. While the Islanders certainly won't make the playoffs season (although they may beat the Rangers five times), if Gordon can show Snow how to build a better team through acquisitions that aren't named Bill Guerin as well as the elimination of the draggy, boring play that killed the Isles all last season, New York may just have something with its new coach.
2) I like the Rangers and all, but doesn't anyone else feel like they're overdoing it a bit with the jersey retiring?
This season, the Blueshirts will send to the rafters:
Adam Graves - yeah, ok, we get that the '94 team was special. And he looks special in that Sharks jersey:
Courtesy of Hittheice.com
Andy Bathgate - This guy's #9 will also be enshrined. I don't really have much to say about this, other than it's nice to see someone not from the '94 club be honored.
Harry Howell - Seems weird that a player -- while he did serve as Rangers captain and was a defenseman -- whose career high for goals in a season was 12 be raised eternally above the Garden Ice.
Courtesy of nhl.speedera.net
In fact, just the other day, I was watching the program MSG Vault. Hosted by Al Trautwig -- you might have heard him calling Women's Gymnastics at this summer's Olympic Games -- the show profiles the oldest clips MSG has (and often, as was the case with the episode I viewed, brings in Stan Fischler to offer analysis).
In this episode, the show detailed a night in (I believe) 1967 on which the Rangers honored Harry Howell. The program noted that Howell was New York's captain during a time when the Rangers were essentially a bad team in the Original Six era. After the ceremony from that fateful night was shown, Fischler was brought on to offer his analysis of why Harry Howell did NOT have his jersey retired.
Apparently, Howell was not-so-loved by the New York fans, and his "stay-at-home" mentality evidently didn't have the flare that won championships.
A different view was likely proposed in this year's executive meeting to discuss how many jerseys the Rangers could retire at once.
3) Mats Sundin. I'll make this one quick.
Courtesy of larrytt.com
Who wants a ping-pong career?
In the words of Stan Fischler, this guy brings new meaning to the words "prima donna."
He wants to play for the Rangers, but he doesn't. He wants to play for the Leafs, but he doesn't. He wants a lot of money, but he wants to stay at home. Training camp is just around the corner, Mats! I'd say what you need is for us to fit you up with a nice old Atlanta Thrashers sweater -- that's the apt punishment for holding out this long!
Courtesy of deadspin.com
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
