Hilbert has two points all season for the Islanders, despite playing in each of the team's 23 games. Two points. For a winger who is not an enforcer and is supposed to score, those numbers are simply mind boggling. He has, how do you say, as many points as six NHL goaltenders, including teammate Rick DiPietro. Yes, Hilbert has the offensive talent of a goaltender. For the sake of emphasis, it should also be noted that he has as many points as goon Chris Simon and fewer points than offensively-challenged blue liners Andy Sutton and Brendan Witt.
How did this all go so horribly wrong?
That's a hard question to answer, and probably one that only Hilbert himself really knows the solution to. Whatever the problem is be it concealed injury, playing in an offensively challenged system or other, one thing is certain -- the problem has to be fixed quickly.
It's hard to understand why things have gotten to this point. At the University of Michigan, Hilbert had 93 points in 80 career games. In his last full AHL season, 2004-05, he had 79 points in as many games, earning All-Star honors in the process. Through his first 85 NHL games, spread over the course of four seasons, he had 33 points for an average of .38 points per game. While it should be noted that he played almost a sixth of those games alongside Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh, the real story is the unbearable lack of production since he was given a full-time role on Long Island at the beginning of last season. Since then, he has notched 30 points in 104 games, for an average of .28 PPG. That's a fairly sizeable drop if you're not putting up big numbers to begin with. There's no doubt that Hilbert was never expected to be a top six forward, but these numbers are nonetheless irritating.
One thing that I cannot take away from Hilbert is the fact he plays with guts. It's clear that thanks to Ted Nolan behind the bench, guts may be the only thing keeping him on the team. Ask any knowledgeable Islander fan and they will tell you that the organization's patience with someone who wasn't a stud to begin with is questionable and horribly painful to watch. Fans lost their patience with Hilbert a long time ago, and it may only be a matter of time until they get their way.
Then again, this is an organization that has a history of giving all the chances in the world to guys who under perform such as Todd Bertuzzi, Oleg Kvasha and Mike Milbury. At some point though, you have got to put the puck in the net. At some point, there has got to be accountability.
