Mark Herrmann had a cool item on his Isles blog: Coach Ted Nolan went to a Knicks game and said he gets a lot of coaching ideas from basketball. You can argue about the quality of the NBA game, but if you watch a guy like Steve Nash work the top of the key, or what we in hockey might call the point, you can't help but get some ideas about what a different kind of power play might look like. Especially with a real puck-moving defenseman at the point. Not necessarily someone who can blast the puck, but really more someone who can dish it.
Obviously, Long Island is on my mind because of all of the hullabaloo over the Amy Fisher sex tape (surprisingly safe for work). Nolan can watch all the basketball he wants — the Island will always belong to Joey and Amy. Eric will back me up on this.

OK. There was some stuff from the Sunday paper that I forgot to mention yesterday. Like the Buffalo Bills are going to play eight home games in Toronto over the next five years. Does this signal the end of hockey's dominance there? I don't know. Would a full-time NFL team in Toronto tip the scales away from hockey? I don't know. If you're in Toronto, feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts. Listening to The FAN today, though, I heard a fair amount of NFL talk. I don't think that's that out of the ordinary, though.
The Times also had a piece on the Islanders hooking up with an Islanders fan board. Interestingly, and perhaps insignificantly, the article mentions Islander fans clamoring for the Isles to dump the massive contract of Alexei Yashin, which the Islanders eventually did. Was the Yashinectomy an attempt to woo fans? I'm sure it wasn't the only factor in the decision, but I have a feeling it might have been a factor. Which is pretty neat if you think about it. That's fan friendly. Maybe, eventually fans can even vote on who the team will sign.
Also, speaking of fans, you've got to check out these positively insane commercials by the Phoenix Coyotes. Featuring a puppet. A vaguely offensive French-Canadian puppet. And Wayne Gretzky. I'd love to see the concepts that got rejected from this campaign. Maybe having the puppet take some betting action from Gretzky?

So what happens first? Do the Flyers just run out of players to suit up or do they hurt everyone else in the league until there's no one left to play? While I'm reasonably sure Randy Jones didn't mean to splatter Patrice Bergeron into the boards, you have to wonder what Philadelphia coach John Stevens is telling his players. One incident is relatively random. Two could be coincidence. But three awful incidents, all from the same team? At a certain point, the league has to look at the coaching.
Obviously, none of this applies to Sami Kapanen (login info.).
And while the league is looking at stuff, they really need to look at the beatings goalies continue to take during the course of a game. Watching Leafs-Rangers Saturday, I saw two or three times when Toronto players shoved Rangers into Vesa Toskala, Toronto's own goalie. Like since a fellow Maple Leaf is initiating the hit, Toskala is somehow immune to injury. Just because teammates don't care about a goalie, and Toronto isn't the only team I've noticed this with, doesn't mean goalies around the league don't deserve protection.
Also, last week Larry Brooks wrote a kind-of rough column, wondering if Brendan Shanahan's career was finally over. Sunday, Brooks apologized (scroll to the end). Who says hockey is brutal? You know. Outside of Philadelphia.
Finally, my fantasy column is up on RotoRob.