Islanders Sign G Roloson, Players For Depth

In the first two days of NHL free agency, the Isles have hardly made a huge splash, as apparently Garth Snow warned fans before the draft. The one major signing he has swung is in goal- Dwayne Roloson for two years, $2.5M per. Although he is an older player (will be 40 by the time the season begins), Rollie is a very capable goaltender who keeps himself in great shape and, in my opinion, is fully capable of taking the reins should Rick DiPietro not be ready for the start of the season (and something tells me with all of these goalie signings that he won't be).

Another netminder was brought in for the minors. Scott Munroe, formerly of the Philadelphia Phantoms (AHL), was signed as insurance. According to islanderspointblank.com, he played 56 games last year and had a 31-19-4 record, 2.46 GAA and .926 save percentage, which is not too shabby. Whether he plays here or backs up Rollie in the event of DP not being 100%, this is a solid pickup on Snow's behalf.

Along with Munroe, winger Jeremy Reich and defenseman Brett Westgarth were signed to one-year, two-way contracts. Both add a little bit of toughness (Reich alone had 121 PIM last season according to Botta), but only time will tell if they will actually get any ice time with the big club.

As for bigger name signings, well, the one I really wanted- D Mike Komisarek- was swept away by Toronto, and Rob Scuderi (my #2) was taken by Los Angeles, both for contracts that are a bit overboard, at least by the Islanders' (and their fans') standards. The way I see it, I'm willing to overpay at least a little bit in order to get a good D here, if only because I feel like we certainly need the security. Our D is pretty undersized, and often injured (if I recall correctly, the only player who doesn't get hurt on a regular basis is Mark Streit). If we could get some size and some toughness, we would be all set- because we can't really depend on only Andy Sutton and Brendan Witt for all the kick-ass-ness. (Pardon the language. hehe) Sources say that perhaps they will zero in on Francois Beauchemin, but who knows.

With that, I'll leave you for now. Hopefully the Isles can pull off another "Streit-like" signing for this offseason!! =P

LET'S GO ISLANDERS!

(Kudos to Islander Mania and to islanderspointblank.com (Chris Botta's blog) for the info on our new signings!)