Bottom Line: New York still stuck in 07-08

Simply put the early schedule last season that had this club play three games in twenty days did not give them a three day break after Dec 26, 2007 the rest of the season aside from the all-star break.

A lot of players with a history of getting hurt could not hold up under that schedule and to this day the remaining roster is paying for it along with a combination of some new injuries combined with Scott Gordon's overspeed practices that is an adjustment.

Bottom Line: This club is still stuck partly because of last season and new coach Scott Gordon has already said he's never seen anything like it.

The New York Islanders will start 2008-09 in a week with players who at best if healthy will play games working their way back as if it's the first week of camp in terms of live game action and that's if they are not recurred.

That also means some of them may not be sharp or completely set with Scott Gordon's systems or special teams.

That means like preseason games this team may have to play some regular season games in survival mode against clubs that cannot wait to get going with a returning staff they are used to.

This could make for a tough start for what already is a fragile group with new injuries coming from everywhere with Campoli, Sutton, Bailey as we see if Bill Guerin, Mike Sillinger and others can even play.

These three games in four days are usually spent fine tuning, right now for Scott Gordon it's survival mode with the club unable to afford many more injuries as the Isles finish out preseason with a road trip to Newark, Boston and Florida.

Unlike the first weekend of last season which turned out to be an illusion we may have to wait to see the best of this club in 2008-09.