Islanders quietly have become a pretty good team
Photo credit: AP | New York Islanders left wing Matt Moulson (26) is congratulated by teammates after his second-period goal against the Boston Bruins. (November 16, 2009)
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The Islanders aren't tearing up the league. They aren't in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff chase. What the 2009-10 Islanders are, after just 23 games, is better. And people are taking notice.
"They are going to have a lot to say in their division and the conference about who makes the playoffs," said Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team has an overtime and a shootout win over the Islanders this season in three meetings. "They're a really good, hard-working team. They're really tough to play against."
Former Rangers coach Tom Renney, now the associate head coach of the Oilers, said the same thing two weeks ago. And that was before the Oilers dropped a 3-1 game at Nassau Coliseum.
"They're a playoff team," Renney said.
Renney is a kind man, but this is not just puffery from some of Scott Gordon's colleagues.
The Islanders are a changed team from a year ago, when they were 9-12-2 through 23 games - not that awful, really, but on their way down the rabbit hole. In Gordon's rookie season as coach, the Isles went 17-35-7 the rest of the way, hobbled by injuries, by griping veterans and by a new system of aggressive forechecking that seemed to be impossible for some Islanders to embrace.
Here are some reasons why the Islanders are doing better through the first quarter-plus of this season, and why Boudreau's words may yet ring true the rest of the way:
1 JOHN TAVARES
He's the No. 1 pick, and the No. 1 reason why the Islanders are in a better place.
Not just because the 19-year-old has made a pretty smooth transition to the pros, with healthy stats (9 goals and 10 assists before last night's game) and a quiet demeanor.
His presence as the top-line center and playmaker on the top power-play unit has allowed the abundance of role players to do just that - be role players. Goals from the likes of Matt Moulson, Richard Park and Frans Nielsen are bonuses. No forward is being overused. And splitting up Tavares and Kyle Okposo, plus the current healthy state of Trent Hunter, has given the Islanders legitimate scoring threats on three lines.
2 HEALTH
The team that's lost more man-games to injury than any other NHL team three years running - the total exceeded 500 last season - is staying upright, none more so than 34-year-old defensemen Brendan Witt and Andy Sutton. Sutton missed 59 games last season, Witt 17. They've missed a total of two games so far. Radek Martinek is gone for the season again, but Jack Hillen may prove to be worthy of regular minutes.
3 GOALTENDING
"Apologies to [Yann] Danis and Joey MacDonald," one NHL scout said, "but they have two real goaltenders now." Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron haven't even played their best hockey yet, and both have produced points in games that would have been regulation losses a year ago.
4 THE COACH
Gordon is far more relaxed than he was a season ago, when he stepped into a bad situation with the Rick DiPietro knee saga and a host of other injuries, plus some veterans who carped about the new system and playing time. A person close to the organization said Mike Comrie, now with the Oilers, was a negative presence in the dressing room.
5 WHAT GARTH SNOW DIDN'T DO
With Charles Wang losing more than $20 million a year on the team, Snow may appear to be working in a constrained situation: The Islanders' payroll is roughly $44.2 million, far closer to the salary-cap floor of $40.8 million than its $56.8-million ceiling.
But Snow, as he did with Mark Streit in July 2008, targeted free agents who would fit with Gordon's style and the mode of the team. So he agreed to a two-year, $5-million deal for Roloson, who will be the true No. 1 goaltender all season even if DiPietro is healthy enough to play a dozen or so games. He took a flier on Matt Moulson, whose 10 goals already have justified his $575,000 salary.
And he said no to one-dimensional players such as Alex Tanguay, Maxim Afinogenov and Nik Antropov, all of whom could and would have been Islanders if Snow wanted to shell out some modest money.
"Like I said when we were 0-4-4 this season, I believe in the guys on this team," Snow said. "And I still believe we should have a better record than we have. We can get better, and we will get better."
But what if the Islanders are hovering around the edge of the playoff race as the calendar flips toward the March 3 trading deadline? Outside of the Ryan Smyth gamble in 2006-07, the Islanders have been sellers for a long time.
"There are no financial handcuffs, for lack of a better term," Snow said. "I've always been given the freedom from Charles to spend if I see a fit. I don't think we're in a situation right now to make that decision. When that time comes, we'll make it."
A year ago, the only deadline decisions were coming from veterans about whether to waive no-trade clauses. Bill Guerin did and he won a Stanley Cup. Doug Weight, who is out another month, did not, and it seems his fragility will keep him here regardless of what the Islanders look like in the spring.
There also is not a lot of depth, which is the case in most corners of the NHL. Any serious injuries to Tavares, Okposo or Streit will turn things upside down. But again, that's the case in a lot of places.
Even as they were selecting Tavares with the first pick in June, the talk regarding the Islanders being headed in the right direction was more about whether they would be in position to get the No. 1 pick again in 2010 to select Ontario Hockey League standout Taylor Hall.
Now, even with 59 games to go, it's about whether the Islanders can battle for a playoff berth.
"The day after we beat them [5-4 in a shootout last week], one of our reporters wrote that we'd beaten 'the lowly Islanders,' " Boudreau said. "I had a long discussion with him after that. Scott's done an excellent job with those guys. I'm glad we've already played three games against them and we don't have to play them again for a long while."
