Brand-new ice in today at Harbor Yard now that the circus has vacated. It did not appear to be good. Guys wiping out everywhere. Looks like the paint was scraped in a few places. They’re working on it as I type, with Sacred Heart due to go on this afternoon. See how it is by Saturday.
Missing, again, was Colin Markison, returning to the doctor on that lower-body injury. But on for the first time with the team was Steve Bernier, skating with Carter Verhaeghe and Bracken Kearns.
“I feel great mentally,” Bernier said. “Physically, I was able to skate yesterday and today. For two weeks I’ve been skating at home, but I didn’t skate with a team. I feel good.”
Bernier took the two weeks to think about the Islanders’ contract offer; with two kids, at 31, he wanted to mull it over. In the end: “It’s the most easy thing you could say. I still have the NHL dream,” he said. “After 633 games” — he hedged there, 630-something, but he said 633 first, which is solid work — “you still always want to play that one more. Last year didn’t go the way I wanted to; 24 games, but I was a healthy scratch the rest.”
He said he knows he can help the Islanders, and in the meantime, he’ll try to set an example for the younger guys as a guy who’s been in the NHL. He wants to play the same way as he does up there, and that’s what Brent Thompson’s expecting as well.
“Leadership. Obviously his experience is key,” Thompson said. “He’ll be able to help us on the power play. I know he’s a net-front power-play guy. He’s going to have to play exactly the same way as the NHL, just more responsibility here on special teams.
“For me, he’s a Colin McDonald type of player. They can do a lot more in the minors than in the NHL … but he finishes his hits, goes to the net hard, detail-oriented.”
(Some other new stuff at Harbor Yard, too, though Christian’s reply indicates that the third floor was just a late adopter. And yes, the lights are off in the upstairs rest rooms most of the time when the doors aren’t open. I know the one by the bar (which, to and from the urinals and sink, is all straight lines) and the one at the harbor end pretty intimately. The way they turn the lights off around here, you’ve got to know your way around almost everything on the third floor in the dark.)
Jared Gomes has surfaced in Italy, joining Renon for a tournament.
The Rangers’ crowded roster situtation has Dylan McIlrath on waivers.
Atlas Obscura on why Belize is pulling for the Cubs in the World Series. (Yes, it’s the Superstation, but…)
And this business is horrible sometimes, especially when people like Kevin Oklobzija and Rick Carpiniello have this done to them.