New York Islanders

Talk of a possible Islanders move has recently sprung up again, with the Barclay's Center as a landing ground. Owners of the Barclay's Center have been doing their best to attract the attention of the Islanders ownership in the hopes of making a permanent move.

But realistically, is Brooklyn the best option for this team? 

Now sitting precariously 10 points out of the playoffs and in 12th place in the East, the recent trend in play from everyone on the team has consolidated them into a formidable team on the ice—light years' difference from what we saw earlier this season.

It seems to be a pattern for the Islanders to have an extremely strong second half of the season; we saw it last year and the past few seasons before that.

The Islanders have shown a sign of life at the beginning of the second half of the season. They've won four of their last six games, mostly thanks to the stellar goaltending of Evgeni Nabokov and solid production from the top line.

The New York Islanders have struggled on and off the ice for the past several years.

Some of the major things that have hurt the Isles recently are Rick DiPietro's long term contract, Mike Milbury's moves as General Manager and the failure of the Lighthouse Project.

But things have been looking up lately for the Islanders.

According to the Long Island Press, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano held an informal press conference unveiling a new project in the works for a "redevelopment" of the area.

For those who are superstitious, Friday the 13th is believed to be a day of bad luck.

New York Islander goaltender, Rick Dipietro may be a believer after today, if he wasn't already. It is believed he will miss the rest of the regular season after surgery to repair a sports hernia.

"This is something I thought that would just heal up and go away, and instead it got more and more debilitating," Dipietro said to local New York newspaper, Newsday.

Newsday is reporting that Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro will have surgery on Tuesday to repair a sports hernia. DiPietro suffered from a groin injury in a game against Dallas on December 3rd. The Islanders are saying that a best case scenario would be that he can return by the beginning of April.

So far, the 2011-12 season hasn't been that great for the New York Islanders. But one of the good things is that plenty of bigger name Islander players will be reaching some milestones in their careers.

One of the players will reach a milestone that will likely earn him a spot in the NHL Hall of Fame.

Many other players will be reaching milestones that help jump start their careers.

Years ago, a friend of mine worked for Charles Wang at Computer Associates, Wang's invention whose headquarters lie about 29 miles east of the Nassau Coliseum, and I heard first-hand accounts of how special a person Mr. Wang is. Every day Mr. Wang would travel down to the corporate headquarters' multimillion-dollar gymnasium and workout facility and play pickup basketball with his employees.

With 3:01 in the third period, Joffrey Lupul laid a cross check on John Tavares. The Islanders were down 4-3 after coming back from a three-goal deficit and had controlled the momentum for much of the third period.

With the Isles expected a powerplay and a chance to tie the game and bring it to overtime, the refs also awarded Tavares a penalty for diving.

Diving? Yes, diving.