Do players really learn from sitting on the bench and watching?

You can learn by sitting and watching a game. That's an old coaches' chestnut, something usually tossed out when a player is benched as a healthy scratch and needs a little time away to get out of a funk.

So can NHL players learn by watching?

"I think you learn that everyone sitting up there [in the press box] thinks they could score 50," jokedTravis Hamonic, who returned Saturday night against the Sharks after missing four games with an upper- body injury. "But yeah, it's a different angle, a different vantage point, so I do like to watch the games when I'm out.

"I think the thing you dofind is that maybe you have a little more time with the puck than you think. It's hard when you're actually on the ice to think about those things, but maybe you can carry it over a little."

Mikhail Grabovski missed three games with a concussion a week ago and he said he makes a point to watch the games he misses.

"I think you can learn a lot," he said. "You see where the open ice is, where you can skate to find room. It's a big help."

Not everyone finds it that helpful, especially if you're sitting out without an injury.Josh Bailey went 37 games without a goal last season and was a healthy scratch in the middle of that skid.

"When you're healthy and you're not playing, it's a lot harder to watch," he said.

Bailey missed his fourth straight game last night with a broken hand. "It can help to see some things,'' he said, "but I'm more used to the playing part, not the watching part."

Ultimately, no one wants to be sitting in the press box alongside the reporters.

"I think the thing I've learned the most," Hamonic said, "is that I hate missing games and having to watch from upstairs."

Road bonding
This five-game, 12-day trip is the longest stretch of time the Islanders will be away from home this season -- they have a six-game trip in January, but one of those is against the Devils -- so the opportunity is there for some team-wide dinners to incorporate the newer members of the team, such as Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk, who joined the squad just a week before opening night.

"When the season starts, you look at the schedule and see where there are opportunities to do things as a team," John Tavares said. "We're a pretty close group in here, so it's not a problem to find time for dinners and things like that."

There also are opportunities for other types of group events. A big portion of the team plans to see Jimmy Kimmel live one of the nights this week when there's no game in Southern California.

Milestones await

Kyle Okposo's 400th game made him the 37th player to hit that mark with the Islanders. John Tavares will be the next to join that group, but not for a bit. Last night was his 361st game.

A dozen teams currently have at least four players on the roster with at least 400 games, so it's not that rare a feat. It's just rare for the Islanders, who haven't had so many long-time players since the dynasty days.

The Blackhawks and Canucks have five players each with at least 400. Each team soon will have a sixth.