The Islanders’ defense counts four players on the All-Star ballot – more than any other team in the league. That fact didn’t impress GM Mike Milbury, however, who recently downgraded his defenders to “chumps.”
“I didn’t put them on the All Star ballot,” he said during a 30-minute, top-to-bottom ripping of his team last week.
The criticism marked a reversal on the part of Milbury, who was patting himself on the back after the Islanders raced out to a 7-3-1-0 lead in the first month of the season, asking, “Who put that defense together?”
For better or worse, this is Milbury’s defense.
Going into last night’s match against the Lightning at the Coliseum, the Islanders had won only one game in their last eight tries. For the third straight game, they did not skate in the morning.
After the past three weeks, nobody is more embarrassed than Milbury about the play of the rearguard’s top four – Adrian Aucoin, Kenny Jonsson, Roman Hamrlik and Janne Niinimaa. Which is precisely why Hamrlik’s tenure with the Islanders will probably end soon, and why Eric Cairns could also be on his way out.
When asked this week which of his players have played hard during the losing streak, coach Steve Stirling named gritty winger Arron Asham and only two members of the defensive corps.
“When you’re losing, it’s hard to point out good guys, that stuff,” Stirling said. “Kenny’s had a couple of good games. Janne’s had a couple of good games.”
Niinimaa appears to be trying, looks very much like he cares and has shown – especially in the corners, with his man’s back turned to him – that he takes the losing personally. When the Isles’ power play was sputtering, going seven games without a goal, Niinimaa snapped the streak with a right-point blast.
Hamrlik, however, was still looking for his first goal of the year, going into last night. Jonsson was also without a goal for the season, and Aucoin had only one goal to date. Radek Martinek, who boasts a team-worst minus-7 rating, also had not scored, while Cairns was leading them all with two goals on the year.
Tonight the Isles will face the Devils – a team they were attempting to mimic when they faced off in a 4-0 loss in September. Long gone are the comparisons between the Isles’ defense and the vaunted six-man unit in Jersey, as the Isles are merely trying to plug all their leaks up front and on the blue line.
With two of their next three games against the Devils, the Islanders have a tough road ahead – which continues with next week’s whistle-stop trip, in which they will travel by train to face the Rangers, Flyers and Capitals.