The Islanders have dug themselves into a whole again. After beating the Blackhawks 5-3 Tuesday night the Isles were thrashed by Atlanta last night 6-3. The obvious cry from fans will be the quiet trade deadline the Isles had. Others will now blame the goalie situation that has some players upset according to Katie Strang. However a great piece by Domink of Lighthouse Hockey debunks that excuse as, well just that an excuse.

All that aside the Islanders are still just six points out a playoff spot (three wins away) and with 18 games left still have shot (STOP LAUGHING). Three wins would put the Islanders where they'd like to be, in place for that eighth spot. Unfortunately for the Isles though their next three games are against Boston, Philadelphia and St. Luis. Boston is not the worry so much as Philly or St. Luis (although after the 6-3 beating every team should be worrisome.) But the Islanders match up well with Boston , a team they have gotten points from every time they met. The Islanders will see Tim Thomas for only the second time this season since Rask started the other two match ups. As well the Isles get to greet an old friend, Miro Satan, at the Coliseum. Thomas and the Bruins are coming off a 3-2 win against Toronto Thursday night, which would their first home win since the Winter Classic and Tim Thomas's first win since January 21^st.

The following two match ups wont be as Islander friendly as Saturday's matinee. The Islanders roll/stumble/crawl into Philly Tuesday night for their last trip to the city of Brotherly love in the 09-10 season. The Islanders lost 2-1 on 1/30/10 in Philly after coming back and making the game interesting. They have not beaten the Flyers since February of 2008 and now will need to win to keep fans hopes alive. The Flyers will battle the Sabres and Leafs before looking to take on the Islanders. The Sixth place Flyers will be without net minder, Ray Emery, which makes no difference since all three Flyer goalies have beaten the Islanders. The Flyers have lost only three of their last nine games going into their match up with Buffalo this evening.

Finally the third match up will be with a good Blues team looking to make the playoffs. Sitting at 10^th in the east just a point out of eighth, this is a team New York Hockey fans don get to see to often. The last time the Blues and Isles met the Blues beat the islanders 4-1 which included the following goal which made just about every highlight reel in the hockey world.
The Blues come to Long Island this time, after having week off after their match up in Colorado Saturday night.

The next three games will be far from easy and at this point may seem damn near impossible to win. Your guess is as good as mine if they will win but these next three are important. If the Islanders fall behind six points out of the eighth seed they most likely wont recover. The next three will indicate us whether we should be watching the standing s or watching the lottery board.

Katie Strang is tweeting that both Andrew MacDonald and Trent Hunter are going to be out with Injuries. Hunter will miss 1 to 2 weeks with and upper body strain now leaving room for either Matt Martin or Jessie Joensuu to return to the ice for the Islanders. The bigger injury is MacDonald, who will miss 4 to 6 weeks with a broken foot. To replace him is recent acquisition, Dylan Reese, who was picked up from Syracuse before the trade deadline.

For all the talk last night the Islanders (and Rangers) remained silent during today's trade deadline.

The only move by the Islanders occurred yesterday afternoon when Garth Snow sent Andy Sutton packing to Ottawa for a late second round pick, which originally belonged to San Jose. The move was most likely made to add picks in the upcoming draft and to make roster space for developing youngster Dustin Kohn.

The goalie hype reached its peak last night as Chicago's goaltender woes were on display last night at the Nassau Coliseum. Roloson was the prime net minder that was thought to be on the way out and rumors spread that a deal was in the works with Philly. No deal was ever made, some have said that snow was packaging several other players to ship off. Today was the slowest Trade deadline in some time and the Isles will head into the final 19 games with the same roster that beat up the Hawks last night.

 The Islanders have traded Defensemen Andy Sutton to the Ottawa Senators for San Jose's 2nd round 2010 draft pick. Last year before the 2009 trade deadline, the Islanders traded Chris Campoli and Mike Comrie to Ottawa for Dean McAmmond  and a 2009 draft pick. So, it seems like Garth Snow and Brian Murray have made some good deals

Also, more teams have great interest in Roloson who will start tonight vs the Hawks as a showcase and is likely to get dealt sometime before 3pm tomorrow. Philadelphia is interested in Roloson as Ray Emery is injured and is looking to deal for him. The Islanders have recalled Dustin Kohn from Bridgeport to fill Andy Sutton's spot. I personally don't think that the Isles are done trading.

Even with Rick DiPietro out, if Garth Snow fines a good deal and agrees to it, he will probably get the green light to trade. Most of the Martin Biron rumors have sparked down, and the Dwayne Roloson rumors have sparked up. It will be interesting to see what goes down in the next 24 hours left before the 2010 trade deadline.

After a two week break for the Islanders due to the Olympic Break, the Isles will resume their season tonight at the NVMC vs the Blackhawks at 7pm. Tim Jackman, Josh Bailey, and Jack Hillen will play tonight after being on the IR for some time. It should be a good one tonight and the Hawks are one of the teams that may look to acquire Roloson.

More Coming...

According to Newsday, Jack Hillen who suffered an Alex Ovechkin slap shot to the face January 26th, will be back in action Tuesday when the Isles take on the Hawks. Also, Isles enforcer Tim Jackman who took a punch to the eye by Sens Matt Carkner on New Years Eve, is expected to return as well on Tuesday. Jackman sufferd a broken orbital bone and will be wearing a visor. Forward Josh Bailey will also return after missing some time due to an injury.Islanders Defenseman Mark Streit will return to NY tomorrow from the Vancouver Olympic games. Also, the Isles have signed Bridgeport Defenseman Andrew MacDonald to a four year extension. The Canadian defenseman has played 38 games this season totaling one goal and four assists. He seems to have been fitting in with Islanders head coach Scott Gordon's system very well.

Rumor update:

It seems that the Islanders may be interested in Oilers foward Shawn Horcoff. In 56 games played by the 31 year old with the Oilers this season, his stats are 9 goals and 14 assists totaling 23 points.I'll try to confirm.

As I flipped through the channels late last night, I stumbled upon MSNBC's post game show for the Quarterfinals game between Canada and Russia. Canada won by a whopping score of 7-3, former Islanders coach and GM, and now NBC hockey commentator Mike Milbury expressed his frustration at the Russian team by saying this:

"I was shocked that it was this one-sided. And I was really disappointed that these guys came with their euro-trash game. It was just, no heart, no guts, no nothing there to back it up. I mean Alex Ovechkin was an average player tonight. I know they're going to bounce back, but to be that poor and to be that intimidated physically by the Canadians, that really shocked me."

Milbury's co-hosts were jaw dropped at the poor usage of words. One of panelists, Bill Patrick, responded by saying "Did you really say euro-trash? Did that come out of your mouth?"

Apparently, Milbury has an extensive history of these gaffes. He referred to former Islander Ziggy Palffy's agent Paul Kraus as a "moron way over his head" (oh no, he didn't stop there); he later notes that "It's too bad [Kraus] lives in the city. He's depriving some small village of a pretty good idiot." Even more recently in this Olympic tournament, he compared the German team to a "fire hydrant" getting peed on.

As I turned away from the television to ponder on this for a moment, I thought to myself "what was NBC thinking!?!?!"

But It's not like Mike Milbury has ANY hockey credibility anyway... This is the man who ran the Islanders into the ground!

During his tenure in the Islanders' front office, he threw away young players who have turned out to have remarkable careers. These include defensemen Zdeno Chara, Wade Redden, Bryan Berard, Eric Brewer (whom Milbury described as "playing like he's sniffing glue"), Darius Kasparaitis, and Bryan McCabe; goalies Tommy Salo and Roberto Luongo (about whom Milbury quoted "We're rolling the dice here a little bit...He is a class act and a kid I know we would have been happy to ride with. But hell, I've gotta send him off."), as well as forwards Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, Tim Connolly, and Raffi Torres. Subsequently, Milbury threw away 2001 second overall pick Jason Spezza as part of the Alexi Yashin trade. Milbury has also come under fire for his draft day decisions such as choosing injury liability and goalie Rick DiPietro first overall in 2000 over Dany Heatley or Marian Gaborik.

No word has been given by NBC on whether Milbury will apologize or not. I just want to see if we will get any more childish, unprofessional sound bytes in tomorrow's semi-final games.

Until then, GO USA!

 Written By: Nick McGuire

I am Nick McGuire and I am a new blogger of islanders hockey blog. I am a big Islander fan and I support them all the way. It is a pleasure to be a part of this blog. I am always on top of Islander trade rumors so I will update this as soon as I hear something. All I know as of now is that the Isles are most likely shopping Roloson. As we know, their plan was to trade Biron before the deadline but he has little value because of his 4-11-2 record. However, Roloson's record is 19-13-6 and  that's pretty good for a soon to be 41 year old next season. As of now, the Hawks seem interested in Rolie. The Isles could go either way. They could trade Roloson or they could trade Biron. It doesn't seem likely that they would trade both. Also, the Isles are shopping D Andy Sutton who is a 6'6" 245 pound 35 year old defensemen. In 54 GP this season, he has 4 goals and 8 assists. The teams that are interested are New Jersey and also the Hawks, but rumor is that the Bruins are looking for a defenseman as well.

So far this season, the Isles are 25-29-8 heading into the Olympic break with 58 points at the 13th spot. Lately, the Isles have had offensive trouble. Could they get a 2nd or 3rd liner for Sutton or Roloson? Maybe. Also, keep an eye on Jeff Tambellini who has been a healthy scratch for the most of the season. He will either be put on waivers, or maybe Snow will throw him in a package deal. Well see. If I hear anything more, I will post.

Just like NBC, the NHL needs to wake up. At this morning's press conference, which turned in a public negotiation, IIHF President nearly begged Bettman to commit to the 2014 games. Gary Bettman and the will wait to make a decision on the leagues participation in the 2014, A. to see how it will benefit them financially and B. wait until they have a sound CBA in place.

So will they or wont they that is the question. To me it sounds simple, the fans love watching it and the players love participating in it. The answer seems simple enough, the NHL should take part in 2014 Olympics. However it isn't that simple, The old grump owners don't like to shut down, risk injury to key players and more importantly lose money. I guess it's fair in a way and no one can blame them for not wanting to miss the playoff because their star forward is out with an Olympic sized injury.

But if the NHL does not want to go with simple logic, how about some of these scenarios. Should the NHL decide not to go they will now be forced to compete with the NBA and THE OLYMPICS for viewers, think about. Not to mention the mutiny they will have on their hands from players who will disregard what they say and head off to Russia and play for their country. Alex Ovechkin has already said he will play for Russia even if the NHL isn't participating in the Olympics. "Nobody can say to me, 'You can't play for your country in the Olympic Games,'" Ovechkin told ESPN back September. He will play whether you like it or not and will most likely not face any sort of internal disciplinary action since Caps owner, Ted Leonsis, is on Ovies side. Also noting that Ilya Kovalchuk and Evgeni Malkin have also said that they will play regardless of the NHL's decision. This opens the flood gates for the NHL's top talent to stick their middle finger to the NHL and say "were playing in the Olympics." Should be fun watching minor league hockey on TV for two weeks in 2014, it will make for some high NHL T.V ratings and some money making hockey.......JIP.

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-Islanders asistant Captain, Mark Striet, nearly lead his Swiss team to victory over the Canadians last night in a 3-2 shootout loss.(NBC Olympics)

-EA Sports brings you the top five plays in the NHL 10 community.(EA Sports)

-Our old friends at the Long Island Press bring us the "Five Keys for Islanders Playoff Drive."(Long Island Press)

-Reports are surfacing that Roloson and Sutton being looked at by several NHL Teams.(@NewYorkIsles)

-Sound Tigers get set to take on the rival Wolf Pack tonight in Hartford.(Sound Tigers)

-Hey XM radio subscribers catch this sundays match up against Hartford on XM's NHL Home Ice station.(Sound Tigers)

-Domink from Lighthouse Hockey rips the "fast food" Olympics a new one and makes the case for the return of the World Cup of Hockey.(Lighthouse Hockey)

Wow it's felt like years since I last wrote on this site. This is just a quick post of some interesting articles and videos to kill some time during the Olympics. (Side Note: will have more pieces up in the coming days about the Olympics, but check out Olympic Hockey Blog for the best coverage and most in depth coverage of Olympic hockey.)

-Newsday writer, Mark Herrmann, has an interesting piece about the man behind this Saturday's Mirabito Outdoor Classic in upstate New York. Did you know the Syracuse Crunch owner is a Ranger fan? (Newsday)

-Ever wonder how Canadians fight wrinkles? Barry Melrose reveals the secret.

-Islanders Point Blank reports that prospect Corey Trivino is out with a broken leg.(Islanders Point Blank)

-In case you have not, Check out Olympic Hockey Blog for the most in depth coverage of all things Olympic Hockey.

-Another look into the on and off life of John Tavares, this time on HNIC feature, Inside Hockey.

-Fans have their criticisms of Bruno Gervais, but he sure does know how to go above and beyond when it comes to treating fans.(NYI)

-Scott Gordon talks withKatie Strang of Newsday about his first day on the job as assistant coach of Team USA.(Newsday)

-The Boys at The Rivalry have created an interesting and well thought out list of the top 20 post lock out moments for both the Islanders and Rangers.(The Rivalry)

-Last but not least, Make sure your subscribed to Nike Training and Steve Dangle on You Tube and Twitter for some hilarious and insightful videos and tweets from long time leafs fan and the future face of hockey coverage in Canada, Steve Dangle. Steve Dangle covered the world Juniors for Nike Training and is now covering the Olympics. Here is his latest video,