Monday Center Ice roundup: Mark Streit, Sean Avery and Scott Gordon

 Good weekend, folks? Can't say it was for anyone associated with the Islanders. On with the roundup:

-- Mark Streit's season is likely over, as Katie Strang reported yesterday. One fairly innocent-looking hit from teammate Matt Moulson in Saturday's scrimmage, one awkward fall and landing, and it's a torn labrum, torn rotator cuff and dislocated shoulder for the Islanders' most important player.

Yes, that's right -- John Tavares is the one who needs to be most improved, the goaltenders are huge, but it's Streit who leads in ice time, on the power play (which hasn't been good, but he can still produce) and a defensive corps that's still getting to know one another.

Just a terrible, terrible blow to the Isles, if they had hopes of reaching the top eight in the East this year.

The only small bit of consolation is that the defense will still be better than last season, even without Streit. Andrew MacDonald needs to show that his rise to top-four D-man last season was no fluke, even more so now; a top pair of MacDonald and James Wisniewski doesn't strike fear into a lot of opposing hearts, but it could be a decent pairing.

The other pairs could be Mark Eaton-Radek Martinek and Jack Hillen-Milan Jurcina. We've seen far worse from the Isles defense in recent seasons. Anders Eriksson is in on a tryout, and he proved a third-pair capable defenseman for the Rangers down the stretch last season.

Might this open up a spot for rookie Travis Hamonic? Maybe. But if he's not ready for top-four work, there's zero need to rush him.

-- Sean Avery certainly made his presence felt on Saturday in Newark. He also scored a goal last night in Detroit, showing some urgency in his game, which is exactly what he needed to do to make the roster.

Avery got under Ilya Kovalchuk's skin, big-time, on Saturday -- if only he could play against the Devils every night, right? But John Tortorella seemed pleased with Avery's aggravating display, plus his effective work in front of Johan Hedberg on the power play.

Good for Avery for realizing there's a competition for just about every spot, and what he needs to do to be in the lineup.

-- Wade Redden was waived. In other news... No, this was significant, if only from the "I acknowledge my mistake" view from Glen Sather. As I pointed out yesterday, Sather has made quite a few mistakes on the unrestricted free-agent market the last five summers, but hasn't always been quick to say, "My bad."

With Tortorella's urging, Sather did so with Redden. We'll see what Redden's next move is, either Hartford or on loan to Europe. He'll still have the Rangers' money regardless.

-- In that same Sunday piece, I mentioned Charles Wang's promise to take everything into account when evaluating Scott Gordon -- injuries too. With Streit gone, Gordon's chances of having a non-playoff season have increased, but so have his chances of staying in spite of missing the playoffs.