Bailey, please lose that number

So it seems that Josh Bailey has a number — 27.

Bailey is wearing the number at the Islanders prospect camp in Syosset.

You know how we feel about No. 27. It should be hanging in the rafters of the Coliseum with TONELLI over it.

Was J.T. a Hall of Fame player? No, but other than the names currently hovering above the ice in Hempstead, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more beloved, harder working, more dynasty-critical player than John Tonelli. He worked the corners, he could score goals, he was a character guy - he was the whole package.

Quick story -- I was working in Manhattan a few years back and our company was relocated down to 28th and Park from Times Square. The first day there, my buddy and I went to a deli across the street for lunch, a real popular place where people lined up for chopped salads (I had a hero, of course).

So we're sitting at a table and in the middle of the line is Tonelli himself. I mention it to my friend, who is about six years younger than me and not a hockey fan at all. He has no clue who Tonelli is. I explain that the guy is my favorite player of all time, and he says I should go up and talk to him.

I've never been one to seek autographs or approach celebrities in public -- I figure they're people leading their lives like the rest of us, so why bother them? My friend says Tonelli is one of those people who is famous only to a select group of fans and is probably not accosted as much as one would think, and that he would probably appreciate someone telling him how much he was admired.

Just as I resolve to head over, Tonelli pays for his lunch and walks out. I figured that maybe he worked in the area and perhaps I would bump into him at lunch again, but I never did, and in my first year in the Blog Box I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. But you can be sure that if he's in the house when I am, I'll make a point of saying hello.

And telling him that No. 27 should be on a banner and not anyone else's back (sorry, Josh).

Nolan-Snow fallout continues

I've said before that it boggles my mind that there are Islanders fans old enough to have their own children who cannot remember when the Isles last won a Stanley Cup. Some of that is just the cyclical nature of sports -- even the Yankees have had their down years. Much of that has to do with the ownership struggles the team had to endure prior to Charles Wang purchasing the club, trying times that set the organization back at least a decade.

John Spano, the Gang of Four, the fishsticks logo, Mike Milbury, years of losing -- all conspired to drag down the once-sterling Islanders image. And while Wang has brought stability to the owner's box, he has been criticized for the "team approach" he favors and for giving Rick DiPietro a 15-year deal. So when the news broke that Ted Nolan was fired by Garth Snow -- in what both sides claim was a mutual parting of the ways -- you knew that it would be labeled as yet another example of how bad things are on Long Island.

And sure enough, Scott Burnside of ESPN has weighed in, calling the team a "laughingstock."
Newsday columnist Wallace Matthews -- who probably wouldn't recognize Bill Guerin if he bumped into him -- slapped together some nameless quotes from former employees and player agents to paint the picture of Wang as clueless, and that his hobby "happens to be the systematic screwing-up of a once-great hockey team."

Never mind that Wang more or less saved the team from leaving the Island, that he has been fighting tooth and nail to upgrade the Islanders' arena -- which besides being hopelessly outdated is saddled with the worst lease agreement known to man -- and has put a good deal of focus on community events to strengthen the ties between the team and its fans.

That DiPietro contract? Call it a trend, as NHL teams are locking up their top, young (amd most marketable) players long-term. Wang has also embraced new media in a way no one else has, from Islanders TV to my personal favorite, the Blog Box.

And yet you wonder if the Nolan news is received by players around the league the way Burnside portrayed it - another reason why not to play for the Islanders. Another example of instability from a team that plays in a dump.

But look closer at the move and you see that, given the direction the team is headed, it was inevitable and probably best for everyone, including Nolan. Snow did a terrific job of compiling extra picks at the draft and generally got good reviews (although not from many fans who wanted Nikita Filatov). The Islanders have a number of promising young players on its roster who need playing time to develop. So it's all about the future, and that's fine -- pick a plan and stick with it.

Nolan, with one year left on his deal, felt the team was close enough to win now with the addition of better, more experienced talent. Hence the philosophical differences. You can't blame him, he's a coach. Now he'll get a chance to coach somewhere else.

As a fan, you hate to see a quality coach leave, but there are plenty of candidates out there -- we'll see who Snow selects. The Nolan move also seems to indicate that this really is Snow's team and not so much directed by committee, which would be a step in the right direction; a team needs its GM to be the one to make the final call.

Hopefully, the rebuilding process won't be painfully long -- there's precious little juice in the arena these days and the on-ice product hasn't been terribly exciting. But when you talk to fans you know that they are genuinely excitied about players like Okposo and Campoli and Tambellini and Comeau and Gervais and want to see them play and succeed.

Maybe this is the core of a team that will contend on an annual basis. The team that will one day play in the Lighthouse, a state-of-the-art arena. The team that will bring a Stanley Cup back to Long Island.

Nolan's firing was a step forward. We'll see if it's a step on the right path.

Snow job: Nolan is fired

There were signs and whispers throughout last season, and into the draft, and today the Islanders made it official when it was announced that Ted Nolan will no longer coach the team.

Both GM Garth Snow and Nolan himself described the ending of the relationship as a matter of "philosophical differences." Snow wants to rebuild the team with youth. Nolan, who has one year and $600,000 left on his contract, wanted to be more competitive now.

As a blogger who has watched the team closely, especially this past season, I'm not surprised, but all along I held out hope that Snow and Charles Wang would make more of an effort to compete now (read: spend some more money on talent) while not abandoning the younger players, in the hopes that Nolan would stick around. That's not happening, and Nolan is now free to find employment elsewhere.

Nolan is a terrific coach, a class act and a good guy from all accounts. I think back to the ESPN fan satisfaction rankings that were published in April, which I wrote about here. Basically, fans of all of the 'big four' pro sports leagues ranked their teams in a number of categories, and in the coaching category -- described as 'strong on-field leadership' -- the Islanders finished FIFTH out of all of the pro sports teams.

In other words, Islanders fans who participated in the rankings had tremendous respect for the job Nolan was doing, ranking him ahead of the likes of Bobby Cox of the Braves and Phil Jackson of the Lakers. The only coaches ranked higher were Bill Belichick, Jim Leyland, Gregg Popovich and Mike Scioscia.

Presumably, the next Islanders coach will be on board with Snow and his desire to see the team's young talent develop and perform. The obvious names out there are Paul Maurice, John Tortorella (who is Dee's favorite, I'm sure) and Bob Hartley, all fired after last season. We'll throw Brian Sutter's name into the mix. The brother of Duane and Devils coach Brent took over as the coach of the Red Deer Rebels last summer; the team is owned by Brent.

Isles are gonna carry that Weight

So many different ways to go for a headline here. "The Weight is over." "Isles make Weight-y acquisition." "Dead Weight?"

We'll go with the Beatles reference and hope that Weight still has what it takes to actually carry the Isles now and again, now that he's here on a one-year deal and reunited with his buddy Bill Guerin.

Weight has been an All-Star in this league and has been one of the top players in the NHL, but is nearing the end of a solid career. He didn't do much last season, but the Isles figure he could regain some spark with Guerin and at the very least provide leadership and role model material for the younger players. He can start by coming to camp in shape.

Weight and Streit weren't the free agents I expected the Isles to get, but they make sense in their own way. With the eventual new contracts for Bergenheim, Gervais, Tambellini, et al, the Isles payroll will end up a couple million over the salary floor, and I'm on record saying the Isles owed it to their extremely patient and loyal fans to make more of an effort to be competitive.

But the situation is what it is. If patience is a virtue, Isles fans should have no worries about getting into heaven. Hopefully, they'll enjoy another championship before that happens.

The Streit Stuff

The Islanders got their puck-moving defenseman after all, signing Mark Streit, formerly of the Canadiens, to a five-year deal worth a reported $20.5 million.

It's a nice deal for the Isles, getting a talented backliner in his prime who isn't one of the big names, certainly, but a quality player who can only help what was a horrible power play last season, one ranked 29th in the league. Yeesh.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Lightning continue to give new coach Barry Melrose toys to play with, dealing conditional picks for the rights to Ryan Malone, Gary Roberts and Vaclav Prospal and signing all three, then signing 27-year-old Radim Vrbata, who scored 27 goals last season.

We'll see if the Isles can pick up a center and a left winger, perhaps players who could be considered first-liners? Maybe? Please?

Time to kick the tires

The free agency period begins tomorrow, and GM Garth Snow has already declared that the Islanders will not be a major player on July 1 but will only "kick the tires" on a few possibilities. Then again, Snow made it look like he was ready to adopt Nikita Filatov, he loved him so much, and we know what happened there. So maybe Garth is playing poker again.

In any case, none of the Isles' unrestricted free agents are returning, and according to NHLnumbers.com, with the Bates buyout the Isles' cap number so far is under $32 million, and that includes the Yashin cap hit. With a new salary floor of $40.7 million and a cap of $56.7 million, there's money to be spent. Figuring in the six players who have been extended qualifying offers and possible arbitration, you're looking at a payroll of around $36 million.

I'm not going to try and predict who the Islanders will end up signing -- other than to say that Jagr, Hossa and Sakic won't be headed to Hempstead. But here's what they COULD do...

Brooks Orpik, 27, would give the Isles some added muscle on the back line. I keep hearing that the Isles are looking for a puck-moving defenseman, but throwing Orpik back there with Witt and Martinek can only make Rick DiPietro smile.

Kristian Huselius, 29, went 25-41-66 for the Flames last season and was rumored to be on Snow's trade radar. Now it will only cost them more of Charles Wang's money, and Huselius would be a first-line left winger.

Brendan Morrison, 31, is a veteran center coming off some recent injuries who won't cost much more than the $3.2 million he made last season with the Canucks. Morrison and Huselius would address the Isles' biggest needs at center and left wing.

Figure that trio would add about $12 million to the annual payroll, bumping it to $48 million, right in between the floor and the ceiling. As a fan, I hope that's not a pipe dream.

Ted Nolan is in the final year of his contract. The Isles missed the playoffs and the fans -- who are being sold on the Lighthouse Project -- can't be expected to wait until then to get excited about this team. If the Islanders want fans in the seats, if they want free agents to want to come here, they need to change the culture to a winning culture, and Nolan is a huge part of that. Spend more and you will make more. Sure, Wang will still lose money in the end, but he'll make that up in spades when (if) the Lighthouse is finally built.

Eight million above the floor isn't too uch to ask. Then again, I don't sign the checks.

Starting tomorrow, we'll know which way the team is headed.

Bitterness abounds

Considering I root for the Mets, Jets and Islanders (God help me if I was a Knicks fan), it's remarkable how optimistic I am about my favorite teams and their futures. It's also kind of amazing I haven't either become an alcoholic or sniped anyone from a bell tower.

The similarities between Mets fans and Islanders fans in particular are notable in that each group is populated by some of the most bitter, negative people around. Mets fans are still stunned by the Collapse of 2007, which came a year after the Mets lost to the Cardinals in the NLCS and then watched that very beatable team go on to win a World Series.

Islanders fans have suffered through 25 years of championship drought, and in that time they have not only not won the Stanley Cup, but for significant stretches they were an absolute joke. Spano. Fishsticks. Milbury. Say no more.

As a result, Islanders fans have almost no confidence in the organization. Sure, they like Ted Nolan - what's not to like. But they can't stomach Charles Wang's unusual ideas about running a franchise, and they still see Garth Snow as the old backup goalie. So it's not surprising that so many fans are lamenting the loss of Nikita Filatov as if he was a lock to be the next Sergei Fedorov.

He's not, though. He's undeniably talented but small, so who knows how that will pan out. Snow gathered up extra picks and some of his second-day selections -- Kirill Petrov, Corey Trivino, Aaron Ness -- look like steals. We won't know for sure for a few years, but that hasn't stopped the naysayers from treating Snow like, well, Milbury. Which isn't fair.

What fans should be more concerned about in the short term is what Snow is going to do to help the team in 2008-09. He may have done an outstanding job of restocking the system, but other than maybe Josh Bailey (and that's a big maybe), none of the 2008 draft picks will make an impact next season.

And while the Isles aren't likely to land the biggest fish in the free agent pool, fans should expect -- maybe even demand -- that the Isles at least approach the league salary cap and go after some significant talent, particularly up front. There's no first line on this team, and it's tough to win too many 2-1 games.

All I'd like to see is an honest effort to bring in legitimate talent. I won't attempt to make a list. I actually am willing to trust Snow.

Then again, I am an optimist. Somehow.

A matter of philosophy

One of the most memorable and painful sports memories for me, as a Jets fan, came when the Jets selected Ken O'Brien over Dan Marino at the 1983 NFL Draft. I'll never forget Sal Marchiano, covering the draft for WNBC, asking a Jets fan at the draft for his opinion. The fan admitted he was surprised by the move before uttering the words that fans will take to their graves:

"The Jets must know something we don't."

Hmmm. Maybe not.

Islanders fans -- and, judging by the fan reaction at the Coliseum and the action on the message boards, the vast majority of fans -- are hoping tonight that Nikita Filatov does not become the Islanders' Dan Marino, the one that got away. If the Isles wanted Filatov, they could have had him at five, so they must not have viewed him as the sure thing, the dynamic goal scoring machine, which is how so many fans see him.

The reality is, despite the vast amount of information and scouting reports and video available to fans, the teams know a heck of a lot more than the fans and they have their favorites.

You wonder whether the Islanders would have taken Filatov at seven had he still been there, but that's a hypothetical question that will likely never be answered. Maybe the Isles took a chance that they could get Filatov at seven and pick up an extra second-rounder in the process, and when he wasn't there, they moved down where they knew they could get Bailey, a player they liked.

It's a moot point now. This is a draft that fans will point to forever, and we'll see in a couple of years whether or not it's a successful one. Will Bailey and the other picks end up as the core of a championship caliber team, or will Filatov go on to become the next Ovechkin? There will be plenty of people keeping tabs on that.

The pick is Bailey

Josh Bailey, center from Windsor of the OHL is the pick at number nine. Ranked as the 14th North American skater... word on TSN was that he was the player the Isles had identified all along. Maybe a bit of a reach at nine, with Hodgson and Beach and Boychuk available, but that was clearly Snow's plan. He liked a guy he knew would drop, and used the higher picks to acquire additional picks.

Not a strategy that fans love, but other GMs would applaud. Especially in a deep draft, you pile up picks and that gives you not just more players, but flexibility.

Bailey last season - 67 games, 29 goals, 67 assists for 96 points. Regarded as a two-way player and a good playmaker, especially on the power play. We'll meet him soon on the video board here.

The draft is a crap shoot, people. And it's only part of what the Isles need to do before the new season. There's always free agency.

The question is whether the Isles will try and trade back into the first round since they have so many second-round picks, and it is certainly possible. Again, in the end, if they can get two first-rounders and the player they wanted all along, the team will consider the draft a success.

UPDATE: Draft party host John Buccigross of ESPN just interviewed Bailey. He described himself as an offensive player who sees the ice well and has a head for the game, adding that the players he looked up to the most were Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic.

Asked if he thought he was ready to play in the NHL now, he said, "Yeah, definitely," and that he wanted to keep building up his strength. Bailey received a warm round of applause from the remaining fans -- the most disgruntled and disappointed have already, like Elvis, left the building.