Friday, August 13, 2010

Who'll Be Better? Rangers or Islanders

Justin Bourne (Former Islanders prospect and son of former Islander Bob) wonders who will finish higher this season the Rangers or the Islanders...

"So this NYR vs. NYI debate is legit because…. did the Rangers somehow get a ton better? I got messages about Lundqvist and Gaborik (72 and 76 GP respectively last year, BTW), but…. weren’t they there and healthy last year? So is Frolov going to be enough to push that team above and beyond? I dunno, but when you only have a few cogs to count on (same goes for the Isles), it really comes down to which team has better injury luck.

I think the Rangers will probably finish higher, but not by much."


...i've got agree with Bourne that the Rangers will finish ahead of the Islanders, but it won't be by a lot. The teams in the middle to bottom portion of the Eastern Conference are so similar (lots of weaknesses) I can see 10 teams fighting for the final 3-4 playoff spots.

...let's hear what you guys think and why. Including from my Islander trollers.

...h/t to Puck Daddy.

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12 comments:

John said...

This year the Ranger will finish ahead of the Islanders, but by about 5 points. The islanders are a year or 2 ahead of the rangers as far as building their young talent. They will be a threat soon, and the Rangers will be in 2 years

Brett C. said...

The Rangers will finish several spots ahead of the Islanders.
Hank has a solid backup that looks to take some of the pressure off of him.

IF they send Redden to the Minors, they open up their defensive core to some younger, hungrier talent looking to make their mark.

The Islanders are not even close to ready to make the playoffs, they're missing too many pieces. They have one line of legit NHL forwards and a bunch of AHL scrubs filling out the rest of the roster.

They have improved their defense this offseason, and their young guns will start getting dangerous, but there are way too many holes on that team to really think they're going to surpass the Rangers this year.

Hutch Gibbs said...

I never bother to judge stuff like that until well into the middle of the season. In my opinion the team with the best injury luck and the strongest Penalty Killers will end up topping.

Fleisch14 said...

If neither one of them are in the top 8, then who cares!!! That is a dead rivalry anyway.... Would have been a nice guest blog debate...

Kevin DeLury said...

Put it together and send it to me Fleisch.

AnnoyingJoe said...

Last season the two teams wete neck and neck in the standings thru Jan. till the Isles started to crap out.

Cant see the Isles finishing ahead, especially with their goaltending issues. What the hell is up with DiPietro?

LI Joe said...

i don't want the isles to ever be good at least until they move out of tri state area. but part of that is for them to never be awful either as i don't want them loading up on any more high end guys. so about 10th from bottom league wide would be perfect. and that would continue their streak of not winning a playoff series since 1993.

ivaNYRicov said...

They have better talent to develop. Okposo, Tavares. I still think we will finish much higher than them. I think we are a lot better than last year, at least on paper. We will see if that actually plays out.

Anonymous said...

Amazing to listen to you Ranger fans. You honestly believe you're going to be better than us! You honestly believe you have young talent! You have Stepan, Kreider, and Grachev. We have Hamonic, Petrov, De Haan, Koskinen, Poulin, Niedereitter, Kabanov, Nelson, Martin, etc. You're in for a rude awakening, that's for sure. We WILL finish ahead of you this season. you have a great goaltender that suffers from poor offense and overpaid defense. You have two hard working American boys with limited offensive potential. You have one superstar that prefers to stand in the neutral zone looking for home run passes for 60 minutes than contribute defensively. The days of you guys beating us out in the standings are over.

AnnoyingJoe said...

Can't even dislike Isles fans anymore, just have to pity them.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. And you'll be pitying us when we make the playoffs and you don't. I will take pleasure watching the young Ranger fans cry like they did on national television after Marian Hossa scored on Henrik Lundqvist two years ago.

Rick said...

Funniest part of all is the question - when was the last time DP was scored on? LMAO
But seriously, neither the NYR's or the NYI's have anything on their "look what I have done" list that warrants bragging rights. Other than the NYR's having the best of the two teams there is not much else to say.