Parked at 223

Considering the man-games lost to injury over the last two seasons by the Islanders, Richard Park was the only Islander to play in every game.

Since he became an Islander in the fall of 2006, Park has played in every game, all 221 of them.

That put his consecutive games-played streak up to 223. The other two games came with Vancouver in 2005-06.

Park missed tonight's game versus Carolina and is sidelined four weeks with broken ribs.

“A”

With the return of Brendan Witt to the lineup comes not only one of the team’s top defensemen, but also one of their on-ice leaders.

Brendan will be wearing an “A” on his jersey for both home and away games for now. Richard Park will wear an “A” for road games and Doug Weight will wear the “A” for home games.

MORNING SKATE: Ducks at Isles

With the fresh faces up from Bridgeport, there will some changes tonight. Here are some notes from the morning skate…


- According to Ted Nolan, Bryan Berard and Marc-Andre Bergeron are out tonight and Aaron Johnson is in. Only six defensemen will dress.

- With that, don’t be surprised if you see Radek Martinek, Miroslav Satan and Brendan Witt getting power play time at the points. Said Nolan: “We need to put guys there that will get the puck through traffic and on net.”

- Richard Park (flu) is a game time decision. If he doesn’t go, Jeff Tambellini will skate on the left side of Josef Vasicek and Bill Guerin.

- With the chance of Teemu Selane making his season debut for Anaheim tonight, the Finnish media was in full force this morning. While in town, they also took the opportunity to talk to Sean Bergenheim.

- Mike Sillinger spoke to the media this morning about his hip injury. Greg Logan will have a more substantial report, but Silli said: a) He has battled through the injury since the beginning of December and b) He loves playing and wants to contribute, but at this point he can’t perform that he knows he can and that’s it better for some young guys to get an opportunity.

- If the match-up in goal is anything other than Rick DiPietro versus Jean-Sabastien Giguere, we’ll be surprised.

MORNING SKATE: Panthers at Isles

Here’s the round-up from today’s morning skate at the Coliseum…

The probable match-up in goal tonight is Rick DiPietro for the Islanders and Craig Anderson for the Panthers. Anderson was one of two Panthers to skate this morning and it didn’t look like it was because the other skater needed someone to shoot at.

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DiPietro is thinking about wearing a new set of pads tonight. The weird thing is, is that they are all white.

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Other than the addition of DiPietro and Mike Sillinger (and the subtraction of Joey MacDonald and Ben Walter), the Islanders will go with the same lineup tonight.

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Panthers’ broadcaster Denis Potvin was seen walking the hallways this morning as well. It looked like he was filming something for FSN Florida by the Islanders Hall of Fame wall mural outside the team’s locker room. Looked like a neat piece and we’ll try to get a copy of it for Islanders TV.

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Richard Park will be named the Sharp Player of the Month prior to tonight’s game.

NYI: Islander Holiday Shopping

As millions of people around the world do some last minute shopping before Sparky Claus comes tonight, I found out some interesting holiday shopping tidbits from the Islanders locker room.

The players set an Islanders’ record by purchasing 150 personalized jerseys this holiday season. Another 75 player t-shirts were ordered, including 50 custom-made for Richard Park.

I myself helped a number of my fellow PR colleagues around the league secure a few Islanders sweaters including a royal blue Bossy #22 for a friend in Pittsburgh.

MORNING SKATE: Isles at Penguins

Both teams were at the rink for meetings today and both had optional skates. Here’s what we learned at the morning skate for tonight’s game:

- The match-up in goal tonight should be Rick DiPietro for the Islanders and Dany Sabourin for the Penguins.

- By moving Richard Park up to the team’s top line with Mike Comrie and Bill Guerin, Ted Nolan reiterated that the best players will continue to get playing time and be rewarded for their hard work.

- With the same notion, Freddy Meyer will remain in the lineup on the blueline.

- On the team’s “so-called fourth line”, Andy Hilbert will center Blake Comeau and Tim Jackman, who will play on the left and right sides, respectively.

- Nolan doesn’t expect any extra emotion between the teams due to the Chris Simon/Jarkko Ruutu incident from last week.

NYI: A Great Day at the Coli

It was a beautiful morning and it was great to see so many Islanders fans back at the Coliseum. Bruno, Dubie and Richard Park were awesome with the Orange and Blue supporters and you can really see each patron become a huge fan of each guy as they moved up and down the line talking to each and every one of them.

Looks like Islanders TV got some good stuff with Bruno, which should be very funny. So you’ll want to look out for that in the next few days.

Weirdest story of the day: A San Jose Sharks fan from Philadelphia drove up I-95 to purchase tickets to the Sharks/Islanders game on February 18th. Only problem was that only first-half tickets went on sale today. Fret not, the NYI ticket staff took his information so he won’t have to make the drive back up when second-half tickets actually do go on sale.

Thanks to all the fans who came down.