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Mama said there'd be days like this, but that doesn't make them any easier for fans of the Blueshirts. Here's a quick rundown of the bad news the Rangers endured in their 1-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.

" The Sabres have now matched the Rangers with 87 points and moved into a seventh-place tie.

" The Carolina Hurricanes waxed the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2, to close within three points of the Rangers/Sabres and the final playoff seed, while the loss means the Rangers missed a chance to tie the Habs in sixth.

" Henrik Lundqvist's strong, one-goal-allowed effort was squandered in his 21st consecutive start, a number that matches his career high.

It looks like it will be a grind indeed for the final playoff spots in the East and the Rangers' bitter rivals will not make it any easier on them Wednesday night. Here's what to watch for when the Blueshirts battle the New York Islanders.

E Is For 'Effort'

After Wednesday's loss, head coach John Tortorella called the Rangers' effort in the first two periods "unacceptable." They were outshot 12-3 to start the first and never really mounted any serious pressure against Buffalo backup Jhonas Enroth, who recorded his first career shutout while filling in for all-star Ryan Miller. After a few whip-cracks from Tortorella, expect a rededicated effort from the Rangers tonight.

Who Put Out the Red Light?

After a three-game stretch that saw the Rangers average over five goals per game -- a span that started with a six-goal night against the Islanders March 15 -- they have averaged under a goal per game through the last four contests. That's largely been the story this season for the Rangers; the faucet is either flooding the apartment or trickling down the drain. After looking like he was about to catch fire with five goals and an assist from March 9 through 20, Marian Gaborik has disappeared. With 11 other forwards on the ice every night, it might be unfair to lay the blame entirely at his skates, but $7.5 million per season tends to make you ask, "what's going on?" when a star isn't producing.

The Isles' Outage

The Rangers aren't the only team struggling to score, as the Isles tallied more than one goal for the first time in two games Wednesday night in a 3-2 loss to the Devils. The drought didn't seem to bother Frans Nielsen, who notched both of the Islander goals Wednesday. With a career high 13 goals and 44 points, combined with his defensive contributions (plus-14 on a team with a minus-32 goal differential), Nielsen might be the most underrated player in the NHL. And he's a steal for the Islanders too -- he will remain under contract for just $525K next season. Cha-ching! Party on, Garth.

Feeling a Draft

The Islanders' decent stretch run has been encouraging for a struggling franchise, but it may also end up hurting their draft position. With Florida in a free fall (six straight losses) the Islanders are now tied for the fifth pick in the draft, pending the outcome of the lottery. As we discussed a little while back in this blog, you play to win, but that doesn't change the fact that most NHL scouts see this draft class as four-deep with elite NHL prospects. After that the future gets a little murkier. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Sean Couturier and Gabriel Landeskog are the top forwards in the class, with Swedish D Adam Larsson as the top D. After that, Insider's Gare Joyce ranks centers Ryan Strome (Niagara - OHL) and Jonathan Huberdeau (Saint John - QMJHL) as the next two talents. Both are strong players and could develop to be better than the top four -- the draft is always a crap shoot -- but right now, scouts seem to be convinced there's a clear upper crust ... and the Islanders may just miss out.

Talented but time-challenged New York Islanders prospect Kirill Kabanov learned some good news this week, nominated for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's Humanitarian Award.

Since being traded from QMJHL powerhouse Moncton to the Lewiston MAINEiacs (and yes, they capitalize the state in their nickname) Kabanov and fellow Russian Andrey Makarov have been doing outreach work with Lewiston-area schools, among other charitable activities.

From the article on the Isles' website:

“Kirill (Kabanov) did a tremendous job visiting blood donor clinics, several schools, Veterans at the American Legions, attending youth clubs at church’s and he even took the time to read to seniors,” Marcel Patenaude [Executive Vice President of the QMJHL] said. “He did a great job making sure that people around Lewiston knew about the team.”

Granted it's not exactly Nelson Mandela-type work, but it does show a team-first attitude that has to be encouraging to those invested in his future with the Islanders.

Talent has never been a question for Kabanov, who started the 2009-10 season with first-round hype but dropped to the third round of the 2010 draft amid character questions centered around his team dedication. In one instance, he left the Moncton Wildcats in the playoffs after he was unable to get more ice time. After returning to Russia for national team tryouts, he was cut from the squad amid mixed reports. Some say he clashed with the coach over a team rule not to eat peanuts off the coach's desk (seriously). Others -- and Kabanov -- maintain the Russians made an example of him to try to discourage players from leaving for North America.

Those who have spoken with Kabanov give him high marks for a congenial personality. And even Moncton head coach Danny Flynn, who will faceoff against Kabanov and the MAINEiacs in the QMJHL playoffs, still speaks highly of him.

From the Times & Transcript:

"He's a very talented player and a real likeable young man," said Flynn. "When the trade opportunity with Lewiston came up, it was something we felt made sense. We were looking to restock the cupboards (to build for the future). We got four draft picks and a young player in the deal.

"Lewiston received a very talented NHL drafted player. He'll give them help this season and next season. We hope the players we acquire with the draft picks will help us in the following seasons."

The winner of the Humanitarian Award will be announced April 6 in Montreal, but either way it seems like Kabanov may be maturing and moving past some of his enigmatic behavior. If that's the case, it can only be good news for the Islanders.

Thanks for the great comments to yesterday's blog post on whether the Islanders should play to win or play for a better draft pick. The overwhelming majority of posters said they should play to win the game. You now have Herm Edwards' approval. Well done.

Here's my two cents: You have to play to win. Period. Even if you're rebuilding, the second you start treating games like they don't matter I believe your players will start treating the team like it doesn't matter. That's a behavior you'd never want to encourage.

The Islanders' drafted talent is deep, though I think some folks might be overrating it slightly. Hockey's Future currently ranks the Isles' organization 17th overall. If they can ever get Kirill Petrov to come over, that's another step in the right direction. Or if Kirill Kabanov finally gets hit with the sanity stick and comes back (to Earth, not just the Island) that gamble of a pick could pay off.

Still there are at least two up-and-coming studs. Nino Niederreiter is certainly projected to be a star and of the players who have yet to have more than a cup of coffee in the NHL, Calvin de Haan gets into that conversation as well. Could the Islanders use a center like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? Absolutely. But as one commenter pointed out, Ryan Strome out of Niagara in the OHL isn't too shabby either. And if Adam Larsson slips out of reach, then they may even be able to trade down and hulking Jamieson Oleksiak might provide the Isles a shot at another Zdeno Chara-type defenseman.

Bottom line: the Islanders aren't that far away from being a playoff team. Injuries to Kyle Okposo and Mark Streit probably killed that hope instantly this season. But next season? Hey, as far as I'm concerned, the Isles' 2011-12 season starts now and runs all through this summer as they continue to shape their roster.

As you’ve no doubt read by now, the Islanders dealt D James Wisniewski to the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick in this coming draft and a conditional fifth-rounder the following year.

The move has some Islander fans frustrated that this season's top defenseman -- who was also tied for the team lead in points -- was being shipped out, in December, for more draft picks. Yes, it’s yet another step in a seemingly never-ending rebuilding project, but everyone knows the Islanders aren’t going anywhere in 2010-11, so adding chips for the future makes sense. You can’t fault GM Garth Snow and the Islanders for that.

You can, however, fault the team for getting less than top value for one of their most coveted trade assets. And it certainly appears the Islanders sold a little low on Wisniewski.

The value of any tradeable asset is always relative to the market and already this season we’ve seen one team trade for an established blueliner, with the Washington Capitals acquiring D Scott Hannan from the Colorado Avalanche. In return for the veteran stay-at-home blueliner the Avs received Tomas Fleischmann one of the top young talents on the Caps’ roster (51 points in 69 games in 2009-10). That’s an NHL-ready contributor who has been a point-per-game player in his 12 games with Colorado.

As their career stats indicate, by any points-based comparison Wisniewski (.41 points per game in 286 games) is a better asset than Hannan (.23 ppg in 788 games). And Wisniewski seems to be flourishing with all of the power play time he’s received, already posting a career-best in the power-play points department. Such offensive skills have traditionally improved the value of a player on the trade market, so maybe Wisniewski's defensive shortcomings sapped his stock.

Defensive metrics are tricky to pin down and seldom tell an accurate story, but Wisniewski’s +/- was a very suspect minus-18. Pretty wretched. But considering he spent 70 more minutes on the ice than the next closest Islander and his team allowed 3.3 goals per game, while scoring just 2.3, that’s not as terrible as it could be. There are four other skaters and a goalie out there with him after all. For his career, Wisniewski’s +/- stands at plus-1, a figure that stood at plus-19 before he joined the Islanders.

Both Wisniewski and Hannan have contracts expiring after this season (as does Fleishmann’s) but Wisniewski is younger and any team acquiring him will have extra time to ink him to an extension, if they so choose (and with injured D Andrei Markov approaching free agency as well, that makes some sense for the Habs).

Compared to the Hannan trade it sure seems like the Isles got the short end of the deal, but that’s just one example. Take it back to last season’s trade deadline and the picture doesn’t get much better.

Last season, the Isles’ Andy Sutton was dealt for a second-rounder. And while the Islanders may have thought they’d stick to that price range for their top tradeable D commodity this season, it seems the Isles undersold last season as well. Other D-men switching teams at the trade deadline included Joe Corvo and Lubomir Visnovsky. Corvo netted Brian Pothier, a prospect and a pick from the Caps, while Visnovsky (and a sixth-rounder) returned Ryan Whitney.

While the Isles acquired Wisniewski for a conditional third-round pick in July, it certainly seems that D-men of Wisniewski’s caliber have yielded NHL-ready contributors in the recent past, which is obviously more than the Islanders received for him yesterday. But a rebuilding team doesn’t necessarily want talent ready to contribute immediately, more or less a pending free agent like Fleischmann, so draft picks make sense. But it’s tough to draw a conclusion until we know the value of a second-round pick. So exactly what is a second-round pick worth?

Last season, Alvin Chang of ESPN’s NHL Draft Blog studied that topic after we noticed second-rounders were common coin at the trade deadline.

While the Draft Blog is part of ESPN’s Insider package and you may not be able to see it in full, he found that since 1996 second-round picks have a 59-percent chance of reaching the NHL and a 25.8-percent chance of playing more than 82 games. Fifth-rounders? A 9.9-percent chance of playing 82 games in the league.

Draft picks are all well and good for rebuilding teams, but the Islanders essentially just traded their biggest chip for two lotto tickets with a 1-in-4 and 1-in-10 chance of winning a player that might give them equal production to Wisniewski. On average since 1996, defensemen taken in the second round average 20.9 points per season, forwards 31.9. Both totals are lower than what Wisniewski puts up on an annual basis. The Islanders would have to hit on both picks in order to better his production levels.

GMs have their own math for how they value picks, and I’m no GM, but from our math, this deal doesn’t add up for the Islanders.

Add $3 million dollars and a first- and third-round draft pick to the cost of signing Ilya Kovalchuk.

Despite arbitrator Richard Bloch noting that the Devils did not act in poor faith when they first signed Kovalchuk to the 17-year, $102M contract he interpreted as a form of salary cap circumvention, the NHL nevertheless severely punished New Jersey for the attempt.

The penalty, issued Monday night, strips the Devils of their third-round pick in the 2011 draft and a first-round draft pick sometime in the next four years.

Even as many debate whether the acquisition of Kovalchuk will help the Devils, the cost keeps escalating. The first price was a package of the Devils’ 2010 first-round pick, Johnny Oduya, Niclas Bergfors and prospect Patrice Cormier, sent to Atlanta for Kovalchuk, in addition to Anssi Salmella and flipping second-round picks with the Thrashers. Tom Gulitti of the Bergen Record has a running tab over at the Fire and Ice Blog. (And bartender … keep it open.)

Because of Kovalchuk’s new contract, New Jersey must still balance its salary-cap ledger by shedding at least $3M from its 2010-11 player payroll, which will likely require two players to be traded or relegated to the minor leagues/a European team. Should one of those players be talented young center Travis Zajac, or if Kovalchuk’s signing prohibits them from retaining 26-year-old star Zach Parise -- a restricted free agent after the season -- the move may well be indefensible without a Stanley Cup to balance the columns.

Trading Zajac is a last resort, but the most likely trade candidates all carry bad contracts most teams are in no hurry to acquire. And the league requirement for salary cap compliance by the start of the NHL season already strips Devils GM Lou Lamoriello of any and all leverage. Some media speculated that Lamoriello may have to entice trading partners by adding a top prospect or draft pick in addition to The Expendables -- Dainius Zubrus and Bryce Salvador, the most likely players for the Devils to deal.

But now short two more future draft picks, New Jersey’s picks and prospects become even more valuable (New Jersey already swapped its 2011 second-round pick in exchange for Jason Arnott this summer), particularly as the team looks for young, cost-controlled players to balance against Kovalchuk’s $6.67M cap hit. Fortunately for the Devils, the $3M fine will not count against the team’s salary cap, as it could have under league rules. That concession was “won” at the time the Kovalchuk deal was signed, after negotiations between the league and the NHLPA, according to an AP report.

However, with the other teams under scrutiny for possible salary cap circumvention at that time -- the Flyers (Chris Pronger’s contract), the Blackhawks (Marian Hossa), the Canucks (Roberto Luongo) and the Bruins (Marc Savard) – going unpunished by the league, it certainly provides the appearance the Devils are being made the scapegoat for franchises with similar sins. After many of those pacts were finalized last season, the league did warn team to stop signing players to such excessive, long-term deals, so perhaps New Jersey shouldn’t have been surprised by the ruling. However, the league did still accept those previous deals, while the Devils were the team out of which the NHL finally made an example.

Morning Links

• Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski discusses the NHL’s lack of sympathy for the Devils.
• The New York Post says the Devils could appeal to the NHL Board of Governors, or take the league to court -- though both options are unlikely.
• Lou Lamoriello issued a short statement. In summary, he’s less than thrilled.
• In a poll on In Lou We Trust, 60 percent of voters said Kovalchuk was worth it, through 7:50 a.m. Tuesday. The site also posted its training camp preview this morning.

As hurricane season continues, and hockey season creeps ever closer, talk on Long Island is turning towards El Niño.

No, not that freaky weather pattern folks blame for global warming, never-ending rain storms and Rick DiPietro’s bum hip. I’m talking about the freaky good prospect the Isles tabbed with their first pick in the 2010 NHL Draft -- Nino Niederreiter.

Lighthouse Hockey tackled the topic in wonderful depth yesterday, including a report from Portland, Ore., where Niederreiter’s old WHL club conducted its media day last week … without Niederreiter. WHL scribe Gregg Drinnan of the Kamloops Daily News writes that the Islanders kept their top prospect in New York and speculates the team will keep Niederreiter with the big club to start the season.

ESPN Insider Gare Joyce, the guru of the NHL Draft Blog, wrote back in June that Niederreiter was a prime candidate to crack the NHL from Day One. Here’s what he had to say in an article on the 2010 draftees’ NHL ETAs:

LW Nino Niederreiter, New York Islanders
Under GM Garth Snow, the Isles are wide open to the idea of bringing their prospects right in. John Tavares was a no-brainer, but Josh Bailey is a useful analogy. Niederreiter is more ready than Bailey was a couple of years ago when he had his initiation under fire on Long Island.

Recently ranked as the Isles’ top prospect by Hockey’s Future, Niederreiter projects as a top-line forward in the NHL. A sensational performance (6 goals, 10 points in seven games) at the 2010 World Junior Championships started the hype machine for the super-skilled LW dubbed The Swiss Can’t Miss, and coupled with his NHL-ready size (6-foot-2, 205) he raced up draft boards last spring. However, expectations should be tempered a little as he’s still among the youngest prospects in the draft class. He turns 18, Sept. 8.

Should he sign with the team, he doesn’t have to permanently stick on the roster in order for you to see him in game action this year. The Islanders can sample the goods for nine NHL games before returning him to his junior team. Something to keep a close eye on when the puck drops on training camp.