For an Islanders team in complete freefall, a team with three wins in 12 games and a coach with essentially one foot out the door, there was surprisingly little different about them yesterday. In fact, there was nothing new about them when the same group of players practiced with the same group of coaches blowing the whistle.
Nothing. Nada. Not a darn thing was different about the Islanders, with the exception of a few line changes and an increasingly darkening cloud hovering above their heads. While all indications may point to GM Mike Milbury shaking his team up with a coaching change or an exodus of player personnel, there was none of that yesterday.
While the work week may have started quietly for the Isles, it may not end that way, especially not with Western Conference elites like Nashville, Calgary and Vancouver next up on the schedule. The inaction can’t last, not when it seems that every game Steve Stirling coaches could be his last behind the Islander bench. And that goes for tonight against the Predators, too.
He’s no fool. Stirling sees the writing on the wall and simply lifted his cap yesterday and said, “It’s gray for a reason,” when asked about the constant calls for his head.
“My job is to win, and when you stop winning, changes occur. That’s the nature of the business,” Stirling said, adding, “I clearly understand that you have to do something.”
Milbury said over the weekend he will not “fiddle idly by” as the walls collapse around his team.
“The only thing I can control,” Stirling said, “is to come in every day, work hard, keep trying to look at solutions, try to dissect what went right, what went wrong.”
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Jason Blake (ribs) practiced but may not be ready tonight. Sean Bergenheim was recalled from Bridgeport . . . Brad Lukowich, who left Saturday’s game with what the team called a rib injury, left the ice early yesterday . . . Kevin Colley was officially taken off IR . . . Rick DiPietro and Garth Snow (knees) were placed on injured reserve.