Staple: With DP's return, Snow has his work cut out for him

Rick DiPietro made it back to the NHL.

Now comes the hard part for the Islanders.

DiPietro was as expected Friday night in Dallas - decent, active, a bit rusty - in his first game in 371 days, a 4-3 loss to the Stars.

There still is a long way to go for the goaltender if he wants to become No. 1 again, but he surmounted a big mental hurdle by making it through a full game. Good for him.

Is it good for the Islanders? Well, it could be, if DiPietro eventually can return to the form that made him the team's best player back before all the surgeries.

Right now, it's murky. Dwayne Roloson can handle the goaltending workload, with DiPietro working in spot duty as the backup. That leaves Martin Biron out of the mix, which doesn't help general manager Garth Snow's master plan.

That plan, back in August, was to have Roloson and Biron split time while DiPietro worked his way back, then flip Biron to a team in need of a veteran goaltender for a second- or third-round pick (or both) as the March 3 trade deadline crept up and DiPietro began playing regularly.

Snow has had a few preliminary talks regarding Biron, according to an Islanders insider, and there are any number of teams that could use Biron despite his 2-11-2 record and 3.22 goals-against average.

The Senators, with two young goaltenders and a terrific team, could do with a steady presence like Biron's. The Lightning, fighting for a playoff spot, could use Biron. The Red Wings and Stars, sitting outside the Western Conference top eight, could do with a goaltending jolt.

Those last two options are much more attractive, obviously. Snow is limited by the fact that his team is in the playoff chase in the East; it wouldn't look so hot if the Islanders traded Biron to an Ottawa, a Tampa, a Philly, and Biron catapulted his new team into the playoffs while the Isles missed out.

Of course, Biron needs to play a bit more to entice potential customers, but the NHL knows what Biron has to offer.

Perhaps Snow can pull off a decent deal for Biron and DiPietro can provide better support for Roloson. Perhaps the Islanders, who work as hard some nights as any team in the league, can become a consistently tough team to play against.

At the very least, none of that is complete fantasy. That makes all these other decisions a bit easier.