FanHouse RickDipietro

John Tavares has yet to step on the ice for the New York Islanders, but he's already making an impact for the once-proud franchise that has been aimlessly stumbling along a path of mediocrity for the past decade-and-a-half. This is, after all, a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series since David Volek beat Tom Barrasso in double-overtime way back in 1993.

Can Tavares, an 18-year-old phenom, change all of that? Well, he certainly can't hurt. Heading into Friday's NHL Entry Draft, there were rumors that the Islanders might be leaning toward either Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman or Brampton center Matt Duchene with the top pick. In the end, the team selected Tavares, and already Islanders fans are roaring their approval in the form of cold hard cash.

We're less than one year away from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Once again, the NHL will take a mid-season break and allow its players to participate in the Games.

After a wonderful run to silver in Salt Lake City back in 2002, Team USA was nothing short of disappointing in Torino three years ago. The Americans went just 1-3-1 in pool play, including an inexplicable tie against Latvia, before dropping a 4-3 decision to Finland in the quarterfinals. Heading into 2010, general manager Brian Burke has plenty of decisions to make, mainly surrounding the question of age.

Finally, the New York Islanders are making one of the smartest moves they can make this season. Whether or not you think that it's come too late, the team has officially announced what most fans and media members have been thinking for the last month or so -- they are shutting down franchise goaltender Rick DiPietro for the rest of the season.

For a guy as competitive as DiPietro, it's got to be a tough decision, but it's good to see him and the team make the logical one. It's a simple math equation, really. Last place team + star goaltender's complications with knee surgery = don't try to be a hero, big guy.

It's one thing to be a Hall of Famer. Mats Sundin, Joe Sakic, Martin Brodeur, and (soon) Brendan Shanahan are examples of active players who will definitely be enshrined once they are done. It's another to be a young superstar. I'm talking about the kind of player you can build a team around for now and the future.

No disrespect to the veterans, but this roundtable is centered around the players we would want to build a new team around. Sure, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Alexander Ovechkin (in no particular order) are widely recognized as the best players in the game today.

But would you pick them first when trying to build a new franchise?

The bad news continues to pour in for the New York Islanders on Thursday, as Greg Logan reports the team has signed goaltender Wade Dubielewicz to a one-year, $500,000 deal. Such a move would likely indicate Rick DiPietro, out for much of the season with a knee injury, will be shut down for the remainder of the season.

The Islanders goaltending situation is a mess right now, as DiPietro's absence, combined with the recent injury to Joey MacDonald, leaves New York with Yann Danis and Peter Mannino as its options in net for Thursday night's game against the top team in the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins. Good luck, gentlemen, you'll need it.

Fun times to be an Islander fan. Really, I swear.

Right now the Islanders are in the middle of the second period against the Rangers at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. The Islanders are losing 2-1 after two periods, which is not surprising considering the record of the two teams (the Islanders are the worst team in the NHL and the Rangers are fifth in the Eastern Conference). But the biggest story coming out of the game tonight, and what could likely be the lead story in the morning papers, is that the Islanders goaltending situation has actually gotten worse.

That's not to say that Joey MacDonald is a bad netminder. He's actually been playing surprisingly well for the Islanders this year in the wake of Rick DiPietro's plethora of injuries. Through 35 starts, MacDonald has a .900 save percentage and a 3.28 GAA, which isn't bad considering the team that he has playing in front of him and that he has been pelted with shots each and every night. Coming into tonight's action MacDonald had made the most saves of any NHL netminder and had also faced the most shots.

But early in the game tonight, the Islanders temporarily extended their lead in the John Tavares sweepstakes when MacDonald left during the first period with what appeared to be an injury to his left leg. During the second period of the MSG+ telecast, play-by-play man Howie Rose reported that it was a "groin strain" and that MacDonald will be "further evaluated tomorrow." Backup Yann Danis entered the game and appears to be in for the duration. There is no timetable right now, but if MacDonald is out for a long time, the season for the Islanders just went from terrible to horrific.

There is also no word on whether or not Garth Snow would come down from the press box and suit up if Danis were to get hurt.

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.

The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.

Mike Sillinger, Kyle Okposo, Blake Comeau and Mike Comrie scored for the Islanders.

Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.

Just 10 months ago, Rick '15 Years!' DiPietro, the 'savior' goaltender of the New York Islanders franchise, had to undergo major hip surgery on his left side. This prompted me to comment, "Any time you sign a player to a long-term contract, a major injury is a big worry. When that player is your #1 goalie and you signed him to the most insane deal ever, you have to hope this hip problem doesn't become a constant thorn in Ricky's side. Hip problems doesn't always just go away, as any senior citizen will tell you."

You would hope a major surgery would clear away the problems, but now DiPietro will have to face another surgery on his other hip, and the problems for their prized goalie continue to mount.

I guess it is no coincidence that DiPietro's play regressed quite a lot this season, as he dropped from 91.9% to 90.2% in the save percentage department. Rick tweaked his hip at the All-Star break, and never seemed to be in the fine form that he showed in his breakout campaign. The Isles, in the meantime, lost any hope at making the playoffs as their #1 goaltender looked about as good as Dan Cloutier handling a Nick Lidstrom shot.

Two hip injuries, some nasty concussions ... and the Isles still have over a decade left on this guy's contract. While DiPietro was perfectly healthy when he signed that massive deal, it just goes to show that any player can break down like an American-made car once they actually go on a road trip or two.

One of the neat little wrinkles Versus has inserted into this year's NHL All-Star Game again is having a goalie fitted with a headset and microphone so they can talk with the play-by-play team in the booth. Last year in Dallas it was Marty Turco, and this year in Atlanta it's Eastern Conference starting goalie Rick DiPietro.

Something tells me DP is going to be wondering whether or not it's worth it. Not long after the opening faceoff, Versus play-by-play voice Mike "Doc" Emrick asked DiPietro how he was feeling after tweaking his hip last night in the Skills Competition after making a great stop on Minnesota's Marian Gaborik (pictured above). Unfortunately, Emrick's question came right around the same time that Western Conference winger Rick Nash let loose with a wrist shot that found the back of the net to give the Western Conference a 1-0 lead.

After the horn went off, Emrick did his best to apologize, but DiPietro waved him off, making sure to let Emrick and the rest of the world that his hip was "killing him".

Sure, it's a gimmick, but after listening to DiPietro for a couple of minutes, I'd be up for more of it.

All weekend long, FanHouse's Kevin Schultz is going to be reporting back to the mother ship from the NHL All-Star Game in Atlanta.

It's hard to describe the feeling of walking into a room filled with a couple hundred people, recognizing most of them, and still not knowing any of them. Most of the room is recognizable from the internet and television, but none of the people there actually know you and you don't know them. This has got to be one of the weirdest phenomena there is in the modern world. Add that to the anxiety that comes along with being a rookie presser, and those feelings (or whatever the heck they are, men don't have feelings after all!) are really hard to describe.

This morning, my feelings entering the media availability meetings did not have a lot to do with nerves or being scared as much as I was intimidated like fresh meat at boot camp. After all, I'm just a novice. The people in attendance were the Joe Michelettis, Pierre McGuires and Doc Emricks of the world. People who, you know, do this sort of thing for a living. Standing around and trying to talk to, oh I don't know, Alexander Ovechkin is somewhat intimidating to being with but can be made infinitely more intimidating when you come to the realization that the folks standing next to you doing the same thing are sort of your competition. Not only that, but they also just so happen to be damn good at what they do. I have some advantages too though, some things that work in my favor. Like being young. Actually that's about it. So, intimidated and sort of confused about how I ended up here in the first place, I pressed on into the waning hours of the morning shaking hands and smiling politely.