On the Islanders Beat

Ninth overall draft pick Josh Bailey could have returned quietly to Windsor as soon as he recovered from the lower body injury he suffered in training camp, and all concerned would have praised the skill he showed and the wisdom of the club to let him mature as captain of the Spitfires and a member of Team Canada at the World Junior Championships after Christmas in Ottawa.

But quite simply, the Islanders need a bright light like Bailey far more than he needs them. In the midst of their struggles in the third period to hold leads and sustain an aggressive attack, Bailey's continued development has been one of the sources of evidence that management might be on the right track in building for the future, which can't come soon enough for general manager Garth Snow and coach Scott Gordon.

As disappointed as he was by Bailey's injury sidelining him after one NHL exhibition, Gordon said it actually worked in the rookie's favor in the long run. Mike Comrie's problems with his hip surgery created an opening at center, and the multiple leg injuries that knocked Frans Nielsen out for 8-12 weeks opened up time for Bailey on the first power-play unit.

When Bailey finished rehabbing what is believed to have been a groin-related injury, management had a decision to make. "Do we bring someone up from Bridgeport? Or do we take advantage of Josh being here and give him a second look?," Gordon said this morning at the news conference to announce Bailey will remain with the Isles this season. "With Frans being out, I don't think there was anybody in Bridgeport that had the skill level of Josh . There's offensive players, but not with the abilities of Josh.

"Once we decided he was going to play, the first couple of games, he held his own. So, we said, 'Let's see what we've got here.' Really, he's been very consistent in every game he's played. I would like to think he's only going to continue to improve."

As Gordon said, Bailey never had the look of "a deer in the headlights." He's yet to score his first goal, but he has five assists in nine games, and he made a move in Friday's 7-2 loss at Boston where he threaded a pass betwee two or three defenders in the Bruins' zone right to linemate Andy Hilbert, who was unable to get off the shot he wanted but also was probably surprised to even get the puck in that situation.

" I think it really comes down to the maturity of the player, and Josh is a mature player and person," Gordon said. "Like I said, he's done everything right that we've asked him to do…Whoever he's going to play with down the road is going to be a better player because he's one of those players who can make something out of nothing. That's an exciting thing to have because those players are hard to find."

That play might have been the best indication yet that Bailey is capable of giving the Islanders the flashy playmaking he exhibited with Windsor. "That's my game, and that's what I do best," he said this morning. "I'm going to try to keep improving on that and bring it to this level."

Recalling how bleak his chances of staying in the NHL appeared when he was out for six weeks before making his NHL debut on Nov. 11, Bailey said, "Obviously, there were times I was sitting in my hotel room thinking it was almost a matter of time before I went back to junior. But I was fortunate to get the opportunity, and I've got to thank them for that."

Bailey's confidence level only has grown over the nine games he's played prior to tonight's contest against Ottawa at the Coliseum that will activate the first year of his entry-level deal worth up to $5.25 million. He talked about that with Snow and Gordon when they called him to the front of the plane on the way back from Boston last night to give him the news.

"Once they told me I was staying, they were just talking and one of the things I said is that I'm starting to get my confidence as a player," Bailey said. "The first couple games, I wouldn't want the puck as much, and I'd be quick to get rid of it. But now, I'm feeling, 'Give me the puck.' I'm ready to hold onto it a little more and try and do the plays that I would do last year and try and play my game a little more."

After landing, Bailey said he let his former teammates know via Facebook that he was an Islander for good now. He called the Spitfires coaches and also spoke to a couple of his buddies in juniors directly. He said all his thank yous and let them know he'd be around Windsor for a bit next summer and wished them the best in winning the Memorial Cup. With a 23-3-0 record, they seem to be doing just fine.

On Sunday, Bailey will move out of the Uniondale Marriott and into a home in Roslyn Heights with fellow Isles Bruno Gervais, Kyle Okposo and Nate Thompson. "I'm excited to pack up," he said. "It won't be an emotional goodbye [to hotel life]."

Recently, Snow said that, if Bailey made the team, his place would be with the Isles rather than Team Canada. So, the Ottawa media in town for tonight's game asked if he'd miss an extra visit to their city. "You think about it a bit," Bailey said. "It wouldn't be a bad thing. It would be a really fun situation to be in. Playing for your country is always a good thing. But my focus was here with this team. That's the No. 1 goal, and I'm happy being able to accomplish getting to stay."

ISLES FILES: Goaltender Yann Danis, who stopped 45 of 46 shots in Bridgeport's 4-1 comeback win over Hartford on Friday, has been recalled to serve as backup to Joey MacDonald. Rookie Peter Mannino, who gave up three goals on eight shots in relief yesterday in Boston has gone back to the Sound Tigers.

Danis lost his only Islanders start when Montreal scored four third-period goals in a 5-4 win. But three games in BP were a confidence booster. "Yeah, it definitely helped," Danis said. "It was good to feel the puck a little bit and get back into some sort of rhythm. Played three in a row there. Two last weekend and one last night. Things went really well last night. It was good to get back into it and get some confidence, too."

Only RW Kyle Okposo (hand), C Mike Comrie (hip surgery) and D Thomas Pock (healthy scratch) skated this morning. It was Comrie's first time to skate with the equipment on since going on injured reserve on Nov. 11. Comrie spoke at length about what he's been through with his hip and how it has affected his game, and I'll post the whole thing in the next couple of days. For now he said: "I want to come back the way I started the season last year when I was fully healthy. I want to feel I can help make a difference in the game and that the team can rely on me. Before I was hurt this year, before I went to Colorado [where hip surgery was performed in May at the Steadman Clinic], I felt like I wasn't at the level I needed to be and that was the reason why."

Mike Sillinger scored a goal in the Sound Tigers' four-goal third period yesterday and will complete his three-game AHL conditioning stint tonight. It's conceivable he could be available for the Islanders' next game Thursday in Washington…Okposo certainly will be ready for the Capitals.

As if there were any suspense left to rookie Josh Bailey's status at this point, the Islanders just issued the official announcement that the 19-year-old center will be with the team the rest of this season as predicted in this space a couple of weeks ago. Bailey has five assists in nine games and will play his 10th against Ottawa tonight at the Coliseum, activating the first year of his three-year entry-level contract worth up to $5.25 million with all bonuses.

Following a team meeting this morning, Bailey and coach Scott Gordon will be available to the media, and we will have an update here.

ISLES FILES: Kyle Okposo (hand) is still on the ice with the extra skaters, meaning he's not back in the lineup tonight…C Mike Comrie (hip surgery) is with Okposo for the first time in public with the team since he went on injured reserve for more rehab related to his hip surgery.

Scott Gordon was far from angry at goaltender Joey MacDonald after Blake Wheeler and David Krejci scored 10 seconds apart in the third period to break open a one-goal game and start a five-goal third period as Boston crushed the Islanders 7-2 this afternoon at TD Banknorth Garden. MacDonald already had made his share of difficult saves to give the Isles a chance to win for more than 46 minutes.

Gordon said he likes his goaltenders to fight through adversity earlier this season when MacDonald suffered through a 7-1 rout with Rick DiPietro on the bench and termed healthy enough to play. But this was different. The Islanders have another fight against Ottawa Saturday night at the Coliseum, and after watching rookie Peter Mannino get torched for three goals on eight shots in his NHL debut, Gordon will give MacDonald his 14th straight start against the Senators.

"Joey was outstanding for us," Gordon said. "I didn't like the way we were playing at the end of the second period, and it started to snowball into the third period. I didn't want to expose him to poor play in front of him when we have to play tomorrow. I said to him when he came to the bench, 'Don't even worry about it. You'll be back in there tomorrow.' When you ride him a long period of time, you have to identify the situations where it's time to take him out."

The Islanders have suffered several third-period meltdowns this season, but they usually happen after 40 minutes of quality play. Not so in Boston, where the Bruins manhandled the Isles the whole game. As much as the Islanders might have wanted to attack and force turnovers in Boston's end, Gordon admitted his team had trouble gaining possession of the puck, especially from the Bruins' defensemen.

For MacDonald, it was like standing in the middle of a freeway and trying to stop tractor-trailers coming at him doing 80 miles per hour because the Islanders never really established their forecheck. "The 'D' were back, and our forwards didn't come back and help," MacDonald said. "There was a big gap between the two, and it seemed like when our 'D' got it, they didn't have much to do with it. They had to just throw it up the boards, and that causes turnovers.

"You've got to have everybody on the same page. I don't think the forwards and the 'D' were on the same page. We just couldn't get anything going after the first period…The [Bruins have] a great team, guys with a lot of skill and guys that work every shift. They've got big 'D', big physical bodies. They played the same the whole game. First period, we stayed with them, and after that, we kind of watched them."

ISLES FILES: For one of the few times this season, Gordon complained about the officiating, especially a hit from behind by Boston's Milan Lucic on Islanders forward Tim Jackman. "That looked like a hit from behind," Gordon said of the Lucic hit. "There was another hit where Jon Sim gets high-sticked pretty good and there's no call. Some nights, those are five-minute majors, and we could have used them tonight."…The Bruins outshot the Isles 32-15 over the last two periods…Jeff Tambellini played his 100th NHL game (4-15-19) and has gone 40 games without a goal extending back to last season…As expected, the Islanders likely will announce tomorrow morning that rookie Josh Bailey will play his 10th NHL game against the Senators, activating the first year of his three-year entrty-level contract.

By now, it should come as no surprise to Islanders fans that rookie center Josh Bailey is a stone-cold lock to remain on the NHL roster after his nine-game tryout ends with this afternoon's game in Boston. He's yet to score his first goal, but Bailey has five assists in eight games and has points in three straight games.

Time for discussion is short between today's game and Saturday night's encounter with Ottawa at the Coliseum, when the first year of Bailey's entery-level deal would kick in if he plays. But it's not as if general manager Garth Snow and coach Scott Gordon face some kind of major quandary. When I asked Gordon after yesterday's practice if the decision on Bailey already has been made, you should have seen the look on his face. He couldn't suppress a huge grin. Talk about an open book.

"Uh, I haven't gotten any official word on it," Gordon said. "Ultimately, it's Garth's decision. He'll ask my opinion. I guess what we really need is a five-point night from him."

That remark got a big laugh. "No, he's been great," Gordon continued. "He's done everything we hoped he could do and more. It's a tough thing to do as a 19-year-old to come in and not only play well but to produce, and he's done that. He's had some scoring chances, too, and he's eventually going to put it in."

Starting with today's game against the Bruins, Bailey has 60 more games this season to get his first NHL goal if he stays healthy.

ISLES FILES: Looks like the Isles are going to draw yet another backup goaltender today, facing Manny Fernandez instead of No. 1 Tim Thomas, who is resting up for tomorrow night's game against defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit. That's the 10th time in 23 games the Isles will face a goalie who began the season as a backup…Bruins rookie forward Blake Wheeler, who has six goals, including a hat trick, and nine points in 22 games, was college teammates with Isles forward Kyle Okposo at Minnesota. But Okposo remains out with a hand injury, so, he will have to wait to face off against Wheeler...Only two Isles have better than a minus rating -- D Andy Sutton at +3 and Bailey at 0...Please check out this week's Islanders Insider by clicking here.

The heavyweight battle between Isles enforcer Mitch Fritz and Pittsburgh's Eric Godard Wednesday night at Nassau Coliseum might be the last one Islanders fans see for awhile. Fritz packed his Bridgeport equipment bag and returned to the Sound Tigers following this morning's practice to make roster room for the activation of forward Nate Thompson from the injured reserve list.

Normally a center, Thompson lined up at right wing this morning on the fourth line with LW Jeff Tambellini and C Jeremy Colliton. Kyle Okposo, who is close to returning from a hand injury, took part in the practice on a limited basis and probably will not play in Friday's noon game at Boston. Top-line forward Sean Bergenheim sat out practice with an illness but is expected to play against the Bruins.

Coming off yet another third-period collapse in their 5-3 loss to Pittsburgh, coach Scott Gordon put the Islanders through a rigorous session, working to correct the mistakes that led to four goals by the Penguins in the third period. At one point when a drill went awry, the coach exploded in anger, but he later said it was about the mistake at that moment, not a reaction to the previous night's loss.

"It's a normal day of practice," Gordon said. "Literally, if I don't like something in practice, I'm going to be vocal about it."

The most disturbing part about the breakdown against Pittsburgh is that it came in the first game this season when the Islanders had their top-six defensemen intact. Sidney Crosby scored one goal on a feed from Evgeni Malkin, and then, Malkin had a natural hat trick, including an empty-netter at the end.

"It doesn't matter what lineup we have in," Gordon said. "It comes down to, for two periods, we were in the right places against their breakout and we were able to establish forechecks. In the third period, we weren't in the right places. As a result, they had easy breakouts, which throws off our forecheck.

"Malkin and Crosby play on a different level. There's no question about that. But that being said, Malkin and Crosby don't get those opportunities as cleanly and with speed if we're doing the right things in the offensive zone. And we didn't, and that's what the last part of practice stressed. We have places we have to get to, and if we get there and it fails, there's a defense mechanism in place to back it up. When we don't go to the right spots, a non-skill play beats us. That's what happened."

Basically, the Islanders allowed the Penguins to come up the walls on the rush with speed and left big gaps on the back end that gave Crosby and Malkin the room to work their magic. They can't afford a repeat in Boston against a Bruins team that recently went 9-0-1 before losing in regulation Wednesday night in Buffalo.

ISLES FILES: Center Doug Weight was kept on the bench for a couple of shifts in the third period to give him time to recover from a big hit to the upper body, not because of any defensive breakdowns, as it might have appeared…Goaltender Joey MacDonald was given the day off from practice but is scheduled to make his 13th straight start in the Boston game…The Bruins game will be the ninth NHL game for rookie Josh Bailey, meaning the Islanders must make a final decision on keeping him or sending him back to his junior team in Windsor before Saturday's home game against Ottawa...It's the first regular-season game for Gordon against his former organization.

Freddy Meyer was funny talking about his sports hernia surgery this morning. It took place back on Halloween in Munich, Germany under the hand of Dr. Ulrike Muschaweck, who is an expert in the field and has operated on Dallas defenseman Sergei Zubov among other top athletes.

"There's a few doctors who specialize in it," Meyer said. "There's a guy in Philly, Dr. William Meyers, and there's Dr. Muschaweck in Munich. About four years ago, I had the other side done by Meyers, so I've got kind of a science experiment going here. We'll see 10 years down the road who does better work I guess."

Meyer went on to explain the difference in the two procedures he's had. "The incision is the same," he said. "Dr. Meyers uses a mesh and sews your [muscle] fibers back up through it. She doesn't use any mesh; she just sews your [abdominal muscles] back up a certain way. She takes the mesh out of the process. She said, 'You don't want to put something foreign in your body if you don't have to.' But in terms of the scar, everything is the same. It's more or less the mesh that's the difference."

Freddy IV, who is paired with Chris Campoli tonight against Pittsburgh, has been skating for the past two weeks with no pain or strain. "I was running a couple days after I had surgery," Meyer said. "It's one of those surgeries that, as soon as you have it done, you're more or less pain-free leaving the hospital. It still takes time for everything to recover, but in terms of pain, it's been good."

Meyer got the nod over Bruno Gervais tonight basically because he has a little more offensive potential and he's a better hitter. "Freddy adds an element of speed," coach Scott Gordon said. "He's pretty good at lining up hits. He gets up and down the ice pretty well. He's a very competitive guy."

Greg Logan answers your Islanders questions today in a live chat at 2 p.m.