It was oddly quiet last night with the exception of ONE ripple through Islander Country. At 8:02 pm the news that free agent Mark Streit had signed a 5-year deal with the Islanders had hit the message boards and Greg Logan's blog. By 8:49 pm, there was a nicely done press release in my email in-box. (Never underestimate the power of the message board.) Truth be told, Okposo Net Ken was the first to inform me. Fly on the wall perhaps?
"Who?" I thought. Truthfully, I would have asked that anyway as there are still is a handful of the 725 or-so NHLPA members who are household names to the average fan. (And I am less-than-average not being, you know... Canadian.)
I read the info, got a warm fuzzy feeling, and didn't give it too much thought. How could I? I have no memories of seeing Mark on the ice, so I can't be impressed or disappointed. Let's just call it another box of Toasty-O's that will get the job done at the right price. (As per TSN's poll that was linked in Corey Witt's blog. 50% think it's good? Yep. Thanks Canadian media for not ripping on the NYI once again.)
The balance of the night must have been uneventful because the message boards weren't lit up this morning when I logged on at 6:30 am. Greg Logan's article in Newsday was a nice feature with lots of Snow quotes. Maybe there shouldn't have been so many.
One in particular set Big Angry Man off like a rocket. "Mark solves our power play."?? B.A.M. yelled to me from the den holding Newsday in his hands. I stopped buttering my breakfast to wait for the rest of the rant.
"SOLVES? One guy SOLVES the power play? You mean the power play that was what? 25th in the league? ONE guy doesn't SOLVE THAT power play!!"
I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure how to respond since I wasn't holding the newspaper as reference. All I could think of was... Somewhere Bryan Berard was pouting. "Hey! I was supposed to "solve" the power play last season!" Uh... nice try.
Yes. We've heard this song before. After watching the power play last season, I'd say that putting that much pressure on Mark Streit may be just a little presumptuous.
Ok, so that was the "splash" for day one of free agency 2008. More of a little ripple, but again, we're told "He was a player we targeted early on." The Islanders must have the most low frequency radar possible. They always manage to "target" players their fan base doesn't even have on their "C" list.
Oh well. As long as they don't "target" a loud mouthed fashionista named Avery... I'm fine with it.
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