MVN - Most Valuable Network

Meet Shea Guthrie

Continuing our series on the Islanders prospects, I figured it was fitting to go right to the other Clarkson Golden Knight in the organization Shea Gutrie.

Shea, also drafted in 2005 (3rd round, 76th pick), came out of St. George’s School in Rhode Island. Completing a prep career that totaled 90 goals and 91 assists, including 56 points in 25 games his senior year, Shea earned numerous awards including ISL Eberheart Division MVP (twice), All-New England selection (3 times), and NEPISHA Division 2 player of the year (courtesy of Islesinfo.com). In his senior at St. Georges, Shea led the team to its first ever ISL/New England Division II championship.

At college, Shea has scored 79 points (26 goals) through 107 games. In his freshman season, Shea received an ECACHL All-Rookie team selection. He was also third in overall scoring as a freshman in the ECAC. Last season, Shea led the team in game-winning goals with 5, including scoring the game-winner in the NCAA East Regional snapping a five game losing streak. He was one of two Clarkson players named to the East Regional All-Star team, a first since 1970 for Clarkson (courtesy of clarksonhockey.com). Shea has increased his plus/minus rating every season which could be a sign that his senior might be a break out year for him.

On Long Island at the prospect camp, Shea has impressed many with his strong skating ability and quality stick-handling. Over the past two years, Shea has scored 4 goals that I can remember personally. Unfortunately, the teams he has been on have not performed as well as he has. It was not until his third year at camp that his team won a game. Besides receiving high marks from fans for his on-ice performance, Ken Morrow liked what he saw from Shea saying, “Right from the start, Guthrie was skating well and making plays.”

Fans were impressed with Shea off the ice as well. He took the time to talk to many of the fans about life in college and playing hockey. Signed autographs for anyone who asked including a kid who didn’t even know who he was.

Every summer on HFboards, the Islanders fans do a top 25 prospect ranking poll to see how the fans feel about each prospect in the system. In 2006 and 200, Shea came in at 12th and 13th respectively (2006 listed only the top 20). In 2008, Shea dropped down to honorable mention status. In my opinion, there are a few reasons for this. In 2008, the Islanders picked 13 times in what has been considered a very strong draft year. After the draft, the Islanders receiving high marks for their draft from many media sources may have also influenced opinion of fans. Shea’s drop in points combined with a lack of highlight videos on YouTube provided little information with which to assess his potential (something this blog hopes to change). Similarly, the fact that reports from prospect focus more on the few players likely to have roster spots during the year with the Islanders contributed to the lack of quality information.

We all hope fans are missing the boat with Shea and that he is going to be someone to watch for over the next couple years. All you Clarkson fans and students out there chime in. Let us know what you have seen from Shea, and why you think he is going to be a quality NHLer in the future.

Streit’s path isn’t so straight

I just want to let everybody know that I had an unbelievable time at the 2008 JCC Maccabi Games and today is the first time that I get to actually sit down and write something. Also, kudos to Adam for getting up two posts while I was gone. Also, I’m editing this in on Tuesday, August 26th to wish Adam a very happy birthday!

First thing’s first- You have to realize that if Mark Streit was on the Islanders in 2007-2008, and had the same point total that he had with Montreal, he’d be the Islanders LEADING SCORER by a margin of 13 points. He’s a defenseman.

During the ‘08 offseason, the Islanders signed Streit for 5 years and 20.5 million dollars. He is 31 years old, so does he exactly fit into the youth movement? That’s a whole other story that I won’t be talking about here. The main reason the Isles signed him was to “quarterback” the power play. He was 3rd out of all defenders for points in the 2007-2008 season, and more than half of those points came off of the power play. He was also tied with Nicklas Lidstrom of Detroit for 12th out of all NHL players with 34 power play points. Now the question posed by many Habs fans, and now Islanders fans as well, is that is he the one that made the power play better, or did his linemates make him better?

It’s very common that a player scores a lot of points because his line-mates set him up for plenty of opportunities. For example, Miroslav Satan had 41 points last season with the Islanders. “The Hockey News” predicts that he gets 66 points this year (25 goals and 41 assists.) There is no other reason besides the team he will be playing with, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Streit situation is the opposite. Many feel he will get a lot fewer points on the Islanders than on the Habs, especially on the PP. It’s hard to argue that that’s not true when he has the likes of Koivu and Higgins in Montreal, and the likes of Weight and Comrie on the Island. However, he had 27 assists on the PP this year, which means he wasn’t set up by those players, but he set THEM up. When thinking about this situation, you have to take into consideration that the ranks on the PP were as follows:
Montreal, 1st, 23.7 PP%
NYI, 29th, 16.5 PP%

Streit is ranked 5th in 2008 Free Agents Most Likely To Bust by Sports Illustrated’s Allan Muir (which can be found here- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/allan_muir/08/22/muir.good.value/index.html ). Now, that’s fair, because he is moving to a 29th rated PP team from a team with a first rated PP. But, it comes to mind, what does he mean by “bust”? If Streit gets 45 points and helps the Islanders to a 20th ranked PP, is that still a bust? He would still be declining in points by 17, but he would have pretty much done his job on the Island, and I have a twenty dollar bill that says most Islanders fans would still be happy with the Streit signing. 20 points, 15 off of the power play, and not much of a defensive presence whatsoever, and yes, he’s a bust. (In case any Islanders fans are wondering, the top two free agents most likely to bust are both Rangers, Markus Naslund and Wade Redden.)

The Swiss defenseman brought hundreds of Swiss fans to the Island. While they may be biased, they say Streit is one of the best PP defenseman in the game. You can’t help but get excited about that, just as excited as we all are for the 2008-2009 season.

Final stories from prospect camp.

Now that we are at the point of the off-season where there will probably be no more major news until training camp, I figured we should take one last look back at prospects camp. Of course, having written that sentence, there will some major trade that happens within a week. I am going to share a few more interesting stories that came out of camp.

The Islanders usually invite a player or two from Long Island to attend prospects camp, and this year was no different. The team invited two players, Anthony Peridcaro from East Rockaway and Vladimir Nikiforov from Hauppague. The name Nikiforov maybe familiar to some, including Habs fans, as he runs a junior team that both Mike Komisarek and Chris Higgins played on in high school. Nikiforov came in as the smallest player at camp. That did not stop him from displaying some excellent speed and creativity on the ice in both drills and scrimmages. Unfortunately, he got injured mid-way through the week and could not continue to participate on the ice. According to reports, he tried hard to convince the coaches to let him at least play the final scrimmage to no avail.

Since there is internet access at Iceworks, we spent a lot of time updating Islanders fans through HFboards and IslanderMania. We spent so much time typing away that some of the players came over to inquire about what were doing. We had a chance to show Josh Bailey, Matt Martin, and Mark Katic threads devoted to them on IslanderMania. Justin DiBenedetto and Cory Trivino also had a chance to check out IslanderMania. We explained to the guys that we use these threads to keep fans up to date about their progress during the season.

Back during the 2006-2007 season, The Islanders created an internet television “network” called Islanders TV (ITV). They created it due to be able to provide fans more information and access to the team than they could through the more traditional sources. For the past two seasons, the Islanders have used ITV to introduce the prospects to the fans through intervies done at prospects camp; this year was no different. While we were hanging around on Thursday, Matt Martin was being interviewed. When he came back afterward, he asked us what ITV was. We showed him a few clips from the website. While we were showing him, Joel Rechlicz came by and watched a few as well. He wore a mic during one of the drill sessions for Soundtigers TV (the only AHL team to have a “network”) which was later added to the ITV line-up.  (You can search more prospect videos using the search feature and the word prospect or search using individual names.)

One of the things we heard from the players was that they got a chance to see Bryan Trottier’s cup rings and Ken Morrow’s Olympic gold medal and cup rings.  All were very excited to be that close to so much hardware.  Many said it reinforced the impact of what they were learning from both all week.

Finally, a die-hard Islanders fan and former 7th Man for the NHL, Roger Farina had a chance to talk with many of the college prospects and shoot video of the camp.  Check out his site Islandersestoteric.com for more from camp.  He also has video of the Islanders prospects from the World Junior camp in Ottawa.

Win Now or Tank?

Before we get to the post, GUWTI would like to wish Jesse good luck in his roller hockey tournament in Detroit this week. Jesse will have new posts when he gets back next week.

Now that the Islanders and Garth Snow seemed to be fully committed to “re-building” (all sports fans favorite term when their team is mired in mediocrity.), there has been a debate going on across the New York Islanders fan base for the past few weeks. Some fans believe the best way to continue to improve the team in the short-term is to tank the season to get a top two pick hoping to draft either John Tavares or Viktor Hedman. Other fans want the Islanders to go all out believing that developing a winning attitude helps the current young players grow faster. They say it doesn’t matter where the team finishes because the experience of a winning attitude has a more immediate impact than a top two draft pick would. I disappointed to say I am not sure where I fall. I can see the merits of both actions.

On the tanking front, the Islanders will be able to draft their first franchise player, sans DiPietro, in years. Sure, they had a chance to draft Filatov or Schenn this year, but I don’t think Filatov is a sure thing franchise player as many make him out to be. He is very small and thin currently; plus pressure from Russia is increasing to keep their players in their home country. Schenn, on the other hand, has the makings of an excellent defensive defenseman. Personally, I do not like to draft primarily defensive players with a top five pick. I prefer to get them through free agency or trades since they tend to be cheap now the NHL is much more focused on small, fast offensive defensemen. Drafting one late first round or later is also acceptable.

Developing a winning attitude also has it merits. As a team wins, players develop confidence in their game. This confidence makes players less prone to making mistakes, more likely to take reasonable chances during game situations and train more efficiently to improve their performance. Also, with the confidence comes knowledge they can pass on to new rookies who might play for the team in the future. However, confidence and attitude can only get you so far. Talent is still a necessary ingredient to the puzzle. While some talent can be taught or developed, most talent is innate. No matter how much practice, training, instruction you put in, you will eventually max out.

Furthermore to say you need to win to keep winning, I look back to the Islanders humble beginning. The first two years of the franchise, the Islanders were either the worst team or in the NHL or close to it. Nevertheless, in year 3 (74-75) the Islanders not only made the playoffs, they became only the second team in NHL history to come back from 3-0 to win a playoff series. Just as amazing, they are the only team since 1975 to force a game seven after going 3 games to none doing it in the very next series against the Flyers. Interestingly in the 74-75 season, the Islanders had less wins than the Atlanta Flames, but made the playoffs due to forcing a tie in a larger number of games. Certainly not the hallmark of a winning tradition to that point. The Islanders would make the playoffs every year up to the dynasty coming up short of expectations many times before finally winning the big one. What drove both of those successes in my mind? Learning how to overcome loss and the devastation felt after.

If I had to choose what I would like to see happen for the Islanders this season, it’s this. Play hard and go out with the desire to win every game you can. Then, depending on their standing between the beginning of January and the All-Star break, re-evaluate. If they have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs (70-75%), continue trying to get to the playoffs. Even if all they have is a one and done playoff experience, it’s still experience. Not that the Isles have even a fifth of the talent they have, but look at Pittsburgh the last two seasons. In 07, they were out in one round losing 4 games to 1 and in 08, Stanley Cup runner-up. However, in any other position and you have to seriously consider moving older veterans for picks/prospects and add in more young players. There is little benefit to the future of the franchise to finish the season in 10th-13th place in the East picking anywhere from 7th-15th. In absolutely no circumstance should there be any trades to move pick, prospects or young players to bring in a potential free agent or even one with only one additional year left on a contract at the deadline. Just because the season may go better than expected, does not mean you completely change your strategy in the first year of implementing it.

Which way are you leaning? Tank the season or go all out? Let us know.