Congratulations to the Danis Family

Yann Danis was absent from Islanders practice today and for good reason. Yann and his wife Kayla had their first child, a baby boy. Jayden Joesph weighed in at 7 pounds and 20 inches.

The family is resting in Connecticut, where Kayla is from. Yann is expected to be back on the ice tomorrow.

Casual Observations of the ASG

Mark Streit not only returned to Montreal but also showed again what the Islanders knew already. Streiter had two assists and an impressive plus-3 rating. He also recorded two blocked shots and had three takeaways. [That’s with his former coach Guy Carbonneau behind the bench.] In an all-star game, those are impressive stats for a defensemen...

Alex Kovalev might be the least talked about, but best player in the NHL.

Alex Ovechkin, however, is the best and most exciting player in the NHL. If his English were better, he would eclipse Sydney Crosby as the face of the NHL…

Jay Bouwmeester looked pretty good along side of Mark Streit…

Topic of conversation: Fighting in the NHL. I think it belongs, but should players be taking off helmets, no. Should fighting be allowed in junior hockey? No. The NCAA gets along just fine and prospects develop just the same. Should fighting belong in senior hockey? No. But lets not forget, there are just as many – if not more – serious, career and life-threatening injuries occurring from hits from behind. Let’s put as much time and focus on that too.

If you thought the atmosphere in Montreal over TV was impressive, you have to go to a game there. Best NHL experience…

I personally loved the all-star jerseys, but those white gloves for the West… I don’t know about those…

Just sayin’: Last year in his first All-Star Game, Islanders’ goalie Rick DiPietro started and stopped 15 of 16 shots. Rangers’ goalie Henrik Lundqvist came in at the start of the second period and allowed six goals on 21 shots…

Read this and appreciate Jack Capuano and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers even more...

Topic of conversation, part 2: Players being “suspended” for not participating in the All-Star Game. Agree with the NHL here. The league needs their best players representing hockey this weekend. If you want to be the best, you have more obligations to fulfill...

More noticeable last night for the Skills Competition, but the NHL and the TV networks need to get on the same page with each other. Knowing Doc Emrick, he was prepared for the events as much as possible. But too often, the viewers were left wondering what was going on or what was next. Unfortunately, Doc couldn’t provide any answers. Casein point: At one point, Doc said that Marc Savard could not shoot at his teammate Tim Thomas in the shootout elimination event. And then in round three, guess what… Not Doc’s fault because the information wasn’t being passed along. But for a great event, the viewers at home shouldn’t be left wondering...

Great job by the city of Montreal, the Canadiens and the NHL for a successful All-Star weekend. Too bad no All-Star Game next year, but we got the Olympics!

Media Alert: Weight on XM at 3:45

Doug Weight will be the guest of Gary Green and Mike Ross on XM Radio’s NHL Home Ice Channel today at 3:45 today.

Where are they now… Bill Mikkelson

An original Islander was in the house this morning. ’72-‘73er Bill Mikkelson attended the morning skate today as part of the Anaheim contingent. Why was he here? His son Brendon is up playing for the Ducks this season and the team is at the tail end of their fathers/mentors trip.

I gave Bill a tour of the locker room, which he said looks nothing like it did the first two seasons he was with the team. (The locker room went through a minor renovation in the mid-to-late 90s, and the layout was changed)

He also was touched to see the team photo of the original 1972-73 team hanging up in our team office at the Coliseum and took a picture with Brendan pointing to his dad.

Bill will be a guest of Rich Barabbi at the end of the first intermission on the scoreboard.

Streit Up for Hardest Shot

Islanders All-Star Representative Mark Streit will participate in the hardest shot competition during the Super Skills showcase on Saturday night in Montreal.

Streit was working on the craft at Iceworks today and was getting his shot at some pretty high speeds. I’m sure when he’s in the moment and the adrenalin is pumping, it’ll be even higher. If so, that will be him right in the thick of things for the title.

He’ll have some stiff competition, but I’m sure Streiter will hold his own.

Road Trip, Day 9: No Sleep Till… Long Island

Weather on Long Island? Cold, but clear.

Weather in Calgary? Snowy.

But as of 8:30 local time, I’m told this won’t affect our 2,500 mile flight back home to Farmingdale’s Republic Airport. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

That will bring our total miles traveled on this excursion across North America and back to approximately 7,600 miles.

We’re scheduled to return home at 6:00 AM on Friday. Does that make it a 10-day road trip? If everything goes according to plan tonight, I’ll settle for calling it a nine-dayer, but who’s counting.

------

One odd note I want to pass along. Aside from the 24-hour Yule Log channel at the hotel, we also received WPIX 11. Nothing exceptional, just wasn’t expecting it. Typically, Canadian cities and hotels will carry some American channels. Usually they pick up the ones that are in close proximity. For example, in Montreal we got Burlington, VT channels. Usually, there’s in the same time zone. But we got our 7:00 showing of The Family Guy at 5:00 local time.

1 on 1 with Mark Streit

I interviewed Mark when we got back to the hotel after the morning skate this afternoon.

Albatross? Don’t think so…

Just like the day after the NHL draft when they attempt to name the “winners” and “losers” of the event, journalists think they can name the “busts” and “steals” the days and weeks following the free agency boom in July.

Granted, Mark Streit wasn’t a household name on Long Island on June 30th. But he’s becoming one.

Signed for five years and $20.5 million, GM Garth Snow was getting a quarterback for the power play and someone to patrol the blueline on a regular shift. But there were doubters everywhere that Streiter wasn’t worth the money.

On August 23rd – a month and a half before the regular season even began – Adam Muir of Sports Illustrated labeled Mark No. 5 as the 2008 free agent most likely to bust.

Here’s a link to what he said and here’s what he said:

5. Mark Streit (five years, $20.5 million)

The Islanders might as well have declined the extra man most nights last season, so ineffective was their 29th-rated power play. Streit, whose 34 PP points ranked second among all blueliners, seems like an ideal free agent addition. But did the success of the top-rated Montreal power play revolve around the 31-year-old, or was he the beneficiary of an established system that had led the league without much help from him the previous year? And how much of an asset will he be defensively considering he was minus-six at even strength for a team that was second overall in goals scored? Streit might earn his keep, but the potential for this deal to be an albatross is there.

--------------

Not only offensively, but defensively as well, the star of Switzerland has proven otherwise.

Mark Streit isn’t going to the All-Star Game because every team has to have a representative. In fact, that’s not even a rule – but to the League’s credit, they do try to include at least one person from all 30 teams.

The bottom line is that this isn’t the year of Mariusz Czerkawski or Scott Lachance at the ASG.

As of today, Mark is tied for the league lead among defensemen (and leads all Eastern Conference defensemen) in points with 32. He flat out leads all NHL d-men in power play points with 20. His defensive play can’t be measured in numbers, but everyone around the league is taking notice. Just in the past week, there have been stories in both Edmonton papers about his superb play and Logie has taken notice all season of Mark for Newsday. The Canadian Press named Mark a starter at the game if they had it their way.

So bust? Nah. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if there needed to be an injury replacement in the staring lineup, I can’t think of a better choice than Mark.

So, on January 25, Mark Streit will show the hockey world (his former team who said he couldn’t be regular defenseman and SI who labeled him a bust and all the other teams that didn’t make him an offer) that he’s the real deal on the blueline.

Oh, and what a better place than in the city that told him he can’t be a regular defenseman in the NHL.

The Islanders have him locked up for another four years (at a bargain of a price compared to the other free agent signings last July). And Mark is first class off the ice as well. That’s something we “love” as an organization. Mark Streit loves being on Long Island and an Islander for the next four years.

And the Islanders nor Streit wouldn’t have it any other way.

Way to go Mark. You deserve to play in the All-Star Game.

Road Trip, Day 8: Practice Day in Calgary

Here for our second of three days in Calgary, it was time to get back to work. The team practiced in the mid-afternoon and nothing exceptional to report.

We meet up with Assistant GM Ryan Jankowski, who hails from the Calgary area, today. It’s always a pleasure to catch up with him and see how our young prospects are doing.

One of the cool perks of the job is that you find out some information before everyone else. Today I got an e-mail from the NHL PR office informing me who our All Star Game representative would be. [I’m sure everyone has it narrowed down between two guys.] So, after I got the message, I passed it along to Garth, who told the player. The announcement comes out at Noon EST exclusively on NHL.com.

The team will have a morning skate tomorrow, the game is at 7:00 local time and hopefully a flight back home afterwards. The road is always fun and I love traveling with the team – wouldn’t trade it in for anything – but it would be hard to find someone on the trip who doesn’t miss home at this point.

Road Trip, Day 7: Cal-Gary

After a 45-minute flight from Edmonton to Calgary, we arrived at hotel at around 12:30 last night. It’s substantially warmer here in Calgary. And by warmer, I mean it’s about 16 degree Fahrenheit compared to the 0 degrees it is in Edmonton right now.

We only traveled 190 miles from the two cities, our shortest journey of the trip. That brings us up to a total of 5,150.

The team has a full off-day today and they took the hour-and-a-half trip to the resort town of Bamff, which is like the Vail, Colorado or Miami of Canada.

There will be a team practice at the Saddledome tomorrow afternoon.

The Flames are playing tonight against the San Jose Sharks (remember them?). A lot of the staff and some of the traveling media will be attending the game.