MRI DELAY FOR WITT
The latest on (one of) the injured defensemen
8:55 am - Brendan Witt will not have an MRI on his injured knee until this week because it was too swollen, sources close to the Islanders defenseman have told Point Blank.
Witt was injured in the first period of Thursday’s 5-3 Islanders loss to Dallas. The MRI could come as early as today, but the swelling has needed several days to subside before the medical staff could make a proper diagnosis.
The Islanders are facing the likelihood of playing the Rangers at the Coliseum tonight without Witt, Radek Martinek (4-6 weeks, shoulder), Andy Sutton (hand, back sometime this week) and Freddy Meyer, who has an doctor’s appointment today to evaluate an undisclosed injury suffered Saturday night against Carolina.
Brett Skinner has been recalled on an emergency basis to fill out the blueline. He has 8 points in his last five games with Bridgeport.
55 Responses to “MRI DELAY FOR WITT
The latest on (one of) the injured defensemen”
Please Wait
CB, with this new info about Witt’s severe swelling… whats your best guess as to when we’d have him back??
That’s not looking good at all. I’m afraid we’ll be without Witty for a long time…
I am not a doctor, but I have had experience with ACL injuries. Sure hope I’m wrong, but this is not encouraging news.
Here we go again….The Isles will definatly lead the league in something this year(just like last year),man games lost to injury!!I dont understand how our guys keep gettin injured like this?Its unreal how this just keeps happening over n over !This team has no real depth to begin w/ !Now w/ Witt out we have Zero tuffness on the Blueline !Just in time for the Ranger game !!
Hey C.B?? Any chance of the Isles pickin up a guy like Vrbata from Tamba??
8-0 Rangers! Ouch! Nobody else could get hurt for us tonight could they? Too bad Snow wouldn’t get injured and have to be out of GM action for a while.
ANother day in the injury plagued lives of our New York Islanders. As a fan, I am asking myself, is the team just unlucky when it comes to injuries, especially to it’s defensive corps, or is there something more to it??
As much as I am a huge fan of Witt, I must admit that on a top team, he is not a 1/2 guy but a 3/4 guy. Martinek, on a contending team is at best a 4/5 guy as well. Players such as Gervais, Meyer would be 6/7 defenseman on a good team…etc…
My point through all this, is as follows: Are the Islanders overextending these guys and may be causing the ridiculous amount of injuries. If a guy should be playing 10-15 mins and is playing 20 mins +, he is tired, overextended and leads to him being put in situations that he cannot compensate for thus leading to injuries…. Anyways, just a thought.
You really couldn’t make this stuff up. It’s amazing the injuries day after day with this team!
Someone over at BD’s blog noted that Justin DiBenedetto has 24 pts in 10 games so far in the OHL. Looks like he had a pretty good season last year as well. I’m sure there’s a good reason why he dropped down to the 6th round in the draft, but does anyone know what that reason was? Is there any chance at all he could become a decent point producer in the NHL in a few years, or is there some critical flaw that the numbers don’t show?
Also, what happened to Dustin Kohn? Is he still in the system? He was projected to be a solid defensive defenseman, I heard, and it seems with Witt, Marty, and Meyer down, that’s exactly what we need.
yea, it’s certainly not looking to good for us with all these injuries, one after another, guess you roll the dice and see what happens.
Tonights game should be a hoot to watch, Rangers have been looking real sweet, gaining every game more points more wins, meanwhile back at Islanders camp we keep losing key players.
But still an fan who’s keeping the faith so I’ll say..Good luck tonight guys!
Like Jeff W., I’m not a doctor. At the old job, there were times we had to delay an injury announcement until swelling subsided and there was an MRI. In the end, it wasn’t always bad news. Would not make any conclusions yet. See you after the morning skate for the Pre-Game Show…CB
Just curious - if we have to call up any more Soundtigers, could NYI just have the ‘tigers play the Rangers?
As much as the defense is obliterated, I’m still looking forward to it, expect a Rangers matchup to show what key personnel are made of. Look for 1-2 of the young guns to make a statement (personal prediction: Bergenheim & Hillen standout, along with vets Hilbert, Hunter & Park). From the Random Predictions Dept: Tambellini nets his first goal tonight. Also, Nate the Great (Effort) Thompson has another strong game.
is logan crying that you know about witts health…where is logan at 8 55 am sleeping?
isles upset the rangers tonight…isles are overdue and they played real well sat night..
When your team is made up of unconditioned athletes who cant keep up, you end up getting hurt constantly.
We have sub par nhl level talent - plain and simple and horrendous management is to blame over the years.
Also, if this team finished anywhere close to .500 for the next 3 to 4 years, the “rebuild” will take even longer. Middle of road performance yields middle of the road draft picks. I can deal with finishing bottom of the league for a few years as long as it yields us a few franchise players to kick start this youth movement. Finishing 8th with a first round playoff exit gets you no where fast. If we are going to suck, then lets be the best at it. Tavares and Hedman here we come.
“Middle of road performance yields middle of the road draft picks.” Tell that to the Devils, the Red Wings, etc. They pick late in the draft consistently, and pick very good players. So your theory is disproved by reality- and I frankly am really sick of hearing it as if things always work out that way when they DONT.
Kyle McLaren would fill in nicely for Witter. Temporarily of course. Having both in the lineup would be that much better. Just my .02 sense…
Chris,
Please refer to my comment about management being to blame. They are the ones making the decisions. Fact is, our management sucks, our drafting has sucked (parise for example)so i dont care where you finish. WE finish middle of the pack, and our scouting and management cant make an accurate assessment of talent. What we need to happen is, finish dead last, and take the guess work out of it. They have a much better probablility of landing an impact player that way. Detroit and the Devils perform every year, difference is, they have great management, make great decisions and so on.
My theory is as realistic as you get / and although it may not sound as if we are on the same page /we really are.
I say again, the strength and conditioning staff needs to be replaced. Enough is enough already.
But if we ever get our full defense corps into uniform, look out. We’ve been scrambling to keep up from the start of the season, but a full NHL calibre (sort of) blueline will help us dramatically.
IF Witt & DP (glass goalie) need to miss any specific time - they may benefit from a Khabibulin or McLaren trade (could aquire extra draft picks & prospects)….then maybe trade them again at the deadline
How can you people blame conditioning on these injuries? A knee on knee, a finger injury, a shoulder injury? These injuries would’ve happened no matter what condition they were in.
As someone above said, this could be a very bad injury if there is that much swelling that they had to wait to do the MRI.
But Valentino, the Islanders revamped their scouting staff since Garth came in- there are different people making draft and scouting decisions than there were when the decisions you are complaining about took place. Thats is a fact. It just makes no sense to judge a group of people by the actions and decisions of a different group of people.
I dont know why this is brought up every single day- but I really think that people would benefit from thinking things like this through. I shouldnt be judged buy the person who used to sit at my desk, neither should you, and neither should they.
Does it really matter? Not that I wish injury on anybody but this team SUCKS PERIOD and with or without him they will be lucky to win 20 this season.
And the injuries just keep on coming…
I think its time for Garth to examine our conditioning team and practive! This many injuries over the past season and first 7 games is probably not just a coincedence…
UIF, they want Dustin Kohn to develop one more year so if there is another injury they will bring up Lee. I knew we should have kept drew fata, aaron johnson and mathew spiller. we should also bring up fritz. him vs orr would rock th ecoliseum but i guess management doesnt think the rangers are tough enough seeing as they only need a heavy for tough teams
gtg guys, feeling under the weather
UIF, DiBenedetto is an “Over Age” Junior. When he was first draft age elligible at 18, no NHL team selected him. When the Islanders took him this past draft, he was at least a year older than everyone else in his draft class. He’s a 20 year old playing with younger kids. The Islanders had another guy like him a few years ago–Luke Aquino. Never really progressed.
Thanks for the info Kevin. I think we have enough “Aaron Johnsons” back there, but Spiller’s size would be nice in the absence of Witt and Sutton. Where did he end up, anyway?
I figured there had to be something going on there, mrlbem. Hopefully they get luckier this time around and DiBenedetto is just a late bloomer.
spiller went to devils, johnson is in chicago with a goal and 2 assists and fata went to the coyotes
Welcome to Bridgeport LI! Last feery leaves April 12th.
my bust johnson is 2 goals and 2 assists
2g, 2a…OK…way to make me eat my words with the “we have enough Aaron Johnsons” comment, haha.
lol yeah. anyone think that the isles should bring up fritz? other then guerin and hunter and maybe weight, we have a small defence and whos are biggest guy on defence?? like pock is listed as 6′1 210 but he doesnt act like it and thompson (offence)is listed as 6′0 and 207 but doesnt look it.
So Dannis and Skinner huh? Snow is betraying us all and setting his team up for disaster tonight against the Rangers by not calling up at least Fritz. Even with Fritz we wouldn’t have enough fighters to handle all of thiers but there would be something. Oh, Garth your so wise and no so much better then all of us your gonna get so much production out of Andy Hilbert that it isn’t worth bringing up Fritz…..YA RIGHT IDIOT!
Is Snow married? Remember the photo of him with the three drunk (mostly fat)blonde girls kissing as he directs the action? Andy Hilbert must have been the photographer and there must be some more damaging ones.
Botta you should tell Snow he is turning fans like me (who was a Garth supporter) against him. We hate that he ignores size and toughness in favor of AHL players like Hilbert and THompson. No one say Thompson is tough. I watched his AHL fights when we got him and he won one of them. TIm Gleason of all people beat him up what does that say. Snow just doesn’t want to allow us to watch a team we can be proud of. Watching is not that fun. But the jerk knows best or so he thinks.
i like thompson but i think we should have him and fritz on one line. thompson vs voros/dubinsky and fritz vs voros/ orr
I don’t know if this really means anything, but Witt is already listed as being on Injured Reserve on the Islanders website.
Botta I hope when you see Snow (if he isn’t too busy trying to give everyone another SNOW JOB)you inform him how much we all all not entertained watching the team he has assembled and hate the lack of toughness. He made a committment to us to call up toughness as needed. If it isn’t needed against the Rangers and Flyers then who is it needed against. You lose nothing by sitting Andy Hilbert. He shouldn’t even have an NHL sweater. I guess Snow is taking advice from his three blonde assistant GM’s.
I for one love we rebuild with mediocre prospects. We are basically made up of expansion waiver draft players.. Our prospects are basically all third liners. I feel sorry for Gordon. He should resign as HC of the NYI. This “expansion” rebuild is going to take about 20 years. I might get killed for saying this but I actually like Milbury better than Snow! Under MM I believe DP would only have about 2 years left on a contract but rather under the backup GM with a degree in Business has about 12… Jeez!
Hey, whoever posted the excellent article on the resurgance of fighting in the NHL can you please repost it? THANKS!
more people come to see fights then more people stay away from games because of them. oh brian, get off this site, jk, milbury traded away chara, jokinen, luango and more and missed out on spezza and gaborik. snow was left with shit. now i dont agree with him not playing fritz but we have some good prospects. okposo, figren,petrov, kohn , ness, niemi, trivino and hamonic (sp)
***I AM BREAKING NEWS***
I emailed the excellent beat writer for the Conn Post who covers the Sound Tigers. His name is Michael Forbino. I asked him if the Isles had called up Fritz for the Ranger game and he said they had not.
SKREW YOU GARTH SNOW!!!!!!!!
Shoot, I had no idea that the Isles sent Fritz down to Bridgeport ( 10-19) - I was away. I had better see a guy wearing # 49 in the lineup tonight. Anything else is not acceptable. We just have too many small guys on this team.
besides Hilbert who should be on waivers…Richard Park would be a better 4th line player on a good team not the islanders…they should consider freeing up a few roster spots to see who can play in the NHL from Bridgeport…this team is going no where
I cannot even express how godd*** SICK I am of hearing about Mitch friggin Fritz. Holy crap.
The assistant coaches couldnt do get the powerplay working last year. They certainly cant get it going this year. Why are they still assistants?
Our players suck. Our GM sucks. This has turned into a Mickey Mouse organization.
I like the idea that we may be switching to a classic jersey from the early 70s. At least now we will dress and perform as we did in the 70s. S-U-C-K !
Ive been a loyal fan since the 70s but i gotta say, they are really testing my patience.
yeah chris, god forbid we get something to cheer about
look on the bright side if we can somehow score 3 goals tonight we get free wendy’s chili!!!….
Both the islanders and wendys chilli give me explosive diarrhea. Both are SHIT !
interesting rivalry fact: currently the Islanders post a 97-97-19-3 all-time regular-season record against the rangers. So this year one of us WILL be the first with 100 wins vs the other.
We all know that in this rivalry ANYTHING can happen, so tonight let’s hope that “anything” is us winning with injury’s to a 1/4 of our roster.
LET’S GO ISLANDERS ! ! !!!
rANGERS SUCK!!!
its too bad sutt’s cant go tonight -it would ease the loss of witter
its usually games like this when the isles end up surprising us by playing above their heads -I’ll predict a 3-1 win
Chris Botta has asked people repeatedly not to curse, he has subtlely urged people to stay on topic and not bring up the same silly things, etc- if you have THAT little respect for him what are you doing here?
i could see us winning despite my prediction of a 3-1 loss in the article above. chris, who cursed??
Strummer’s Army, Valentino, Kevin and all the other babies posting non-sense on this respectable blog…
You’re all geniuses!
My mommy promised me people would like me when I grow up… she said I was smart… If I don’t get my way I will hold my breath until I’m blue in the face…
Garth promised me we would have a fun to watch, hard working, youthful team… wah wah wah.
It’s 7 games people.
Grow up!