Jumping the Gun

Scott Gordon deserved better.
(This is Scott)

Sure, coaching jobs don't come around every day. But this is the Islanders. The team that has two great young forwards in Matt Moulson and John Tavares, and...that's about all that's left on the roster.

Top defenseman Mark Streit? Out till February with a injury caused by a hit from Matt Moulson during an intra-squad scrimmage.

Future captain Kyle Okposo? He's out indefinitely, recovering from surgery that repaired a torn labrum. He also has been out since the preseason.

Bruno Gervais, the surprisingly successful defenseman from last season? He's on pace to only play 41 games this year, a drop from last year's 71.

Now, normally, those injuries would hurt a team, but not cripple it. And so it seemed for the Islanders, who rolled off to a 4-1-2 start. But as fast as the team started, it sunk, going 0-9-1 in its last 10 games. The offense looks stagnant, only topping 1 goal in one game, a 7-2 blowout at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes.
(This describes the game to a T)

Is it a bad stretch of games? Absolutely.

Is it a fireable offense? That's a trickier question.

It's not like Garth Snow, the GM of the Islanders, had it any easier than Gordon. He inherited a team with no salary cap room, thanks to awful decisions to sign the KHL's Alexei Yashin and injury-prone goaltender Rick Dipietro. Instead of pursuing any top defenseman, like Dan Hamhuis or Paul Martin, he was forced to patch over the defense with role players Mark Eaton and Milan Jurcina.

He also knows that his team doesn't have any depth to deal with injuries. For example, P.A. Parenteau has been a staple of the offense, the same P.A. Parenteau who has spent his last six years in the AHL. Then again, last year's leading scorer, Matt Moulson, had spent three years in the same league and played a grand total of 29 games in the NHL before breaking out with the Islanders.

Gordon tried to make this hodgepodge of a team work. But he couldn't, that much was obvious. And with his hands tied due to cap space, the only logical move for Snow was to fire Gordon.

At the end of the day, it might be the right move.

But it doesn't mean that Scott Gordon didn't deserve better.