Monthly Archives: February 2009
10:25 pm, NVMC – Bill Guerin may be closer to becoming the Islanders’ former captain.
Guerin will waive his no-move clause and is open to a trade from the Islanders ”under the right circumstances,” a league source has told Point Blank. Guerin and the Islanders negotiated the no-move clause when the captain signed a two-year contract as an unrestricted free agent in July of 2007.
(From the Collective Bargaining Agreement: “A no-move clause prevents the involuntary relocation of a player – whether by trade, loan or waiver claim.”)
While the source refused to divulge the parameters of an “understanding” with the Islanders, consider that Guerin is a 38-year old from Boston with a wife (whose family is from New Jersey) and four young children on Long Island. Two years ago, he was dealt from St. Louis to San Jose as a “rental” at the trade deadline. Since the no-move clause gives Guerin complete control of this life decision, we will make the leap of assuming that the Islanders captain will lean towards approving a trade to a playoff team in the East.
This would appear to open up the possibility of a deal to the following teams:
Boston
Washington
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Montreal
Rangers
Buffalo
Pittsburgh
All are short flights (or closer) from the Island. There may also be plenty of appeal to moving from the league’s 30th-place team to Original Six contenders Detroit and Chicago.
Make no mistake: by waiving the no-move for the right deal, the captain is granting his team a favor. This provides the Islanders trade possibilities for an established veteran after the team had given Guerin the contractual right to stay where he is. This is a good situation for the Islanders.
With the Islanders in a rebuilding period, Guerin’s agreement to a deal could enable the team to acquire a high draft pick or prospect. There have been no discussions between the Islanders and their captain about a contract extension.
This season Guerin leads the Islanders with 16 goals and in shots on goal with 180. He is tied for second in scoring with 35 points and has averaged 17:14 of icetime per game. He is the only Islander to play in all 61 games so far this season.
The NHL trade deadline is next Wednesday, March 4.
More on this story as news breaks. Comments.
(l-r: Kelly Kelly, Rick DiPietro, Melina from the WWE)
Talk about the game in Comments.
According to two high-ranking NHL team officials, the phone lines in Garth Snow‘s office at the Coliseum have significantly heated up this week as Wednesday’s NHL trade deadline nears.
Although it is quite possible the team has already made its biggest deal, the Islanders are a popular hot spot for teams looking to beef up for the playoff push. While Chris Campoli was traded to Ottawa for a first round pick and Doug Weight is injured, one source said that more than 20 teams have spoken with the Islanders to see who else is available – and at what cost.
As many as 8-10 Islanders are both available and garnering some level of interest. With so many teams still in the playoff hunt, Snow’s jammed phone lines are the result of only 5 or 6 teams being true “sellers.”
Teams are inquiring about captain Bill Guerin, who leads the Islanders with 16 goals. The 38-year old right wing has a no-move clause, so Guerin will have the ultimate say in his fate. This is traditionally the time when players with no-move or no-trade clauses meet with their clubs to broker an understanding. For example, Brian Burke recently talked it over with Toronto NTCers Pavel Kubina and Tomas Kaberle.
Guerin had made no secret throughout the first half of this season that his wish was to remain an Islander beyond this season. A set Guerin plan – will he stay, or is he open to going to a few hand-picked teams? – should be finalized by the weekend.
Brendan Witt, for the right price, is available. There is major interest in the hard-hitting, shot-blocking defenseman. The key is whether other teams can entice the Islanders with enough to part with the 34-year old, who has two additional seasons on his contract. We discussed two Witt trade scenarios here.
Radek Martinek is respected throughout the NHL as one of the game’s most underrated defensemen. Now healthy, he could immediately step into the lineup of a contending team and provide 20 minutes of better-than-steady play. He’s 32 years old and under contract for the next two seasons at a very reasonable cap hit of $1.5 million, below the league average. Martinek has also been injured in four of the last five seasons. If any contenders want to make a push for the present, the Islanders are listening.
Recently-acquired Dean McAmmond could be on the move again. Picked up in the Campoli deal with Ottawa, McAmmond is an experienced and still-speedy center who can check and win faceoffs. He’s 35 years old and is an unrestricted free agent. If the Islanders are offered a third or fourth round pick, how could they say no?
Despite Doug Weight‘s knee injury, do not rule out a trade. One scenario for a Weight deal could involve a conditional draft pick. For example, the Islanders could move the 38-year old center for a third round pick that would grow higher based on playoff series victories by his new team.
Although he has 8 goals in limited icetime, Jon Sim has already cleared waivers this season. There will most likely not be much of a market for his services. Jeff Tambellini has not been put through waivers, but has just 2 goals in 43 games and is on a way-deal for next season. Joey MacDonald or Yann Danis could attract interest from teams looking for goaltending depth, but would not bring much in return.
Veteran Islanders that are significant longshots to be dealt but could be had if teams want to over-pay in a trade: Trent Hunter and Richard Park.
And, finally, contrary to what the managing editor of Point Blank said on XM Radio last night, Andy Hilbert is not going to be a restricted free agent. He is a pending unrestricted free agent. As much as he may fit in, Hilbert has to be available. If the Islanders love the versatile forward so much, they can always prove it to him all over again on July 1.
Comments. If a player is not mentioned, that’s because he is likely either unavailable, injured, attracting little interest or at best might bring back a 6th-round pick.
When the Islanders made some style adjustments and ran off a few wins at the end of January, we wrote the following:
“We’ll always believe a cornerstone like John Tavares or Victor Hedman is what the franchise needs more than anything else. But as long as the kids are being properly developed, the Tavheduch Watch can wait a while.”
And with that, we retired the Watch until the 60-game mark.
We’re back!
THE TAVHEDUCH WATCH
1. Islanders 18-36-6 42 pts (60 games)
2. Atlanta 22-33-6 50 pts (61 games)
3. Tampa Bay 20-29-12 52 pts (61 games)
4. Ottawa 23-27-9 55 pts (59 games)
TW Notes: With Ron Wilson coaching his brains out in Toronto (58 points) and some of that young talent starting to shine for St. Louis (60 points), our pollsters have made it official: the Maple Leafs and Blues are off the Watch! Nevertheless, watch for Toronto GM Brian Burke to dominate the headlines before draft day with buzz about the Leafs trying to move up.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that a team cannot be added. If Colorado (57 points) goes 0 for New Jersey-Rangers-Islanders, they could join the pack. We understand it might be tough for the league’s 30th place team to make up 15 points in 22 games, but hey – just play along.
As for those Ottawa Senators, they should be better with Christopher Campoli manning the point. (Hmm, maybe that’s what the evil genius Garth Snow had in mind for a short-term benefit. Just kidding).
There are still 22 hockey games to be played, more Kyle Okposo goals to be scored. Maybe it’s really just a two or three-horse race, but remember this: if the Islanders finish with more points than the Thrashers or the Lightning, they are not guaranteed John Tavares or Victor Hedman.
POINT BLANK 2009 DRAFT TOP 5
February 26, 2009
1. John Tavares, C, London (OHL)
2. Victor Hedman, D, Modo (Sweden)
3. Matt Duchene, C, Brampton (OHL), right
4. Magnus Svensson-Paajarvi, LW, Timra-IK (Sweden)
5. Evander Kane, C, Vancouver (WHL)
Comments.
Lots of topics: trades, Lighthouse, my Hilbert mistake, NTCs, Yann Danis, Matt Gilroy, Duchene and more. If you didn’t join in, please roll through the thread when you get time…CB
Amazing. It never ends. On the same day we lauded the current Islanders owner for an Oscar-winning documentary about his charity, two more former Islanders owners are arrested. This time it’s Stephen Walsh and Paul Greenwood of “Gang of Four” fame on securities fraud charges. Greenwood was the quiet one; never spoke with him when I worked for the NYI. Walsh led the charge for the fisherman logo.
Looks like the Islanders will ice the same lineup tonight in Pittsburgh that beat New Jersey on Saturday.
The Penguins will be without Sidney Crosby. But they will still have Malkin.
In-Game Comment-ary Tonight: As the Islanders play in Pittsburgh, we’ll talk about the game. If you have any questions, I’ll get to as many as I can. With the trade deadline less than a week away, there’s plenty to talk about. See you tonight at 7:30. The game is on MSG Plus 2.
The Best of Burke: Point Blank sat in on a media conference call with Brian Burke, the President and GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The angle to the call, of course, was the impending trade deadline. Here’s a summary:
- On the trade deadline: “We (GMs) make more mistakes at the trade deadline, historically, than at any time in the year.” He said some GMs have made brilliant deals that helped their teams in the playoffs, but for every brilliant move there have been plenty of bad ones. “It’s a day of magic and a day of very poor decision-making,” Burke said.
- On the cost of rental players: “There are no blue-light specials.” He said the two NHL deals made so far (Chris Campoli, Matt Schneider) have fairly set the bar.
- Burke said no-move-clauser Pavel Kubina has told him he wants to be a Maple Leaf and does not want to name teams that it’s okay to deal him to. Burke said it’s unfair for fans and media to criticize a player who bargained for a no-trade clause and want it honored. He said a Tomas Kaberle trade will also be difficult to make. Kaberle’s no-move goes away at the NHL Draft in June if the Leafs do not make the playoffs this season. Kaberle also wants to stay, but – hoping to have some control of his destiny – gave a list to Burke of 10 teams he would prefer to be traded to.
- His price for Kaberle: “The same price I paid for Chris Pronger. I want a first round pick, a player who can play in our lineup right away, and a top prospect.”
- Burke predicted, “You’re not going to see these massive long-term contracts anymore.” He said his self-imposed term limits when he was in Anaheim was 5 years because you can’t predict where the cap is going to go. He said the NHL will be more like the NFL. “You draft a player and you have him until he’s 26. After that if you lose him, you lose him and you move on.”
- On trade rumors: “I think trade rumors, as long as they are not untruthful and don’t spook a player, are good for our game. The water-cooler talk is good for the game.”
- He bemoaned the negativity of the news media that focuses on empty seats in some cities and wondered why there isn’t more talk about the great success stories in towns like Boston, Chicago and Washington.
- Burke believes there is no serious movement in the NHL to end fighting.
- On now-former Leafs forward Mark Bell, acquired by the Rangers on waivers today: “Mark was a model citizen for us, never gave us a speck of trouble. Glen Sather asked me about him the other day, asked if Mark could help them, and I said yes.”
Charles Takes Charge: My take on Charles Wang’s thoughts to Newsday is that the Islanders owner is not bluffing. The last thing he wants to do is move the Islanders – whether it’s to Queens, Brooklyn, Kansas City or anywhere else.
But he’s also not going to stand there as Newsday writes an article making it sound like he has no other options until 2015 because of an iron-clad lease. He doesn’t want to give the Town of Hempstead the comfy feeling that they can sit on the Lighthouse Project past the next election (Kate Murray runs again in November, 2009). There was progress yesterday, but there’s still a long way to go.
When his team delivered the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Study yesterday, Wang’s strategy was transparent. The Lighthouse developers will meet every deadline and answer every question in record time. They will not give the Town of Hempstead or the County of Nassau any excuse, any wiggle room, to not have the project shovel-ready this summer.
Split on Higgins: Just like our Brendan Witt version of You Play GM, there was no overwhelming consensus on whether the Islanders should strike a deal for Chris Higgins of the Montreal Canadiens.
Some readers went out of their way to say that they didn’t give a rat’s behind where Higgins was from. I would agree with that if all he’d proven in his NHL career was that he was a fourth-liner or sixth defenseman. We often see names like Eric Nystrom and Rob Scuderi brought up in Comments and that doesn’t make a lot of sense because the Islanders need much more. The difference with Higgins is that he’s a Long Islander who averaged 24 goals his first 3 years in the league. In today’s NHL, that makes him a second-line player. On today’s Islanders, that makes him the toast of the town.
Regardless of where Higgins is from, many readers expressed concern that he was a third-line player and the Islanders have enough of them. On the other hand, a third of the readers said his acquisition was a no-brainer and another third said they’d add Higgins for the right deal. Contrary to what a few suggested, the Islanders are not going to offer the pending restricted free agent an offer sheet this summer - only to lose a bunch of high round draft picks if they sign him. If the Islanders want Higgins, now is the time to try and get him.
We’re on XM at 6:00 pm: Point Blank will be a guest with Jim Gordon on NHL Home Ice on XM Radio at 6:00 pm tonight previewing Islanders-Penguins and discussing everything else in Islanders Country.
“Boomer” Ross knows his Islanders, so we usually get into it pretty good. If you have the satellite radio, please tune in.
Comments.
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