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Islanders can't seem to do anything right

Johnette Howard

October 5, 2008

Hey, Islanders fans. Over here. Take a seat right here on the couch. The psychiatrist will be along in a second. This should take only a few minutes.

You're a huge curiosity, you know. Even in a sport that's become a boutique operation since the 2004-05 lockout, you still rank as something special. The Few. The Proud. The Loyal Beyond All Reason.

The state of the Islanders' franchise is reminiscent of that old Steve Phillips line that putting Alex Rodriguez on any roster creates a 24-and-1 situation. The schedule says the Islanders still play in the 30-team National Hockey League. But deep down, you know it's really 29 and one.

That may be cruel to say on the eve of a brand-new Islanders season. But the truth hurts. Being a fan of this franchise means more than sending out your fraying old Bossy or Potvin sweater for regular dry cleaning after you wear it game after game, season after season, still hoping that the good ol' days will come rushing back.

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Rooting for the Isles now puts you in the same company as those hardy Pittsburgh Pirates fans, who will be back to pull for their club next season as the Pirates go for a big league-record 17 straight losing seasons, or those long-suffering Cubbie diehards who were back on the ledge after just one game - one game! - of their Division Series against the Dodgers.

At least the Cubs made the playoffs. Remember the playoffs?

To players and agents, the Islanders have become an NHL stop of the last resort. The sharpest proof lately was how Ryan Smyth, a character player the Isles gave up a gaggle of players for and hoped to build around, couldn't get out fast enough after coming here for an 18-game cameo during the season. He helped them make the 2007 playoffs, then refused to re-sign here. Now 37-year-old Doug Weight is here, hoping to prove he has more left than the Ducks saw in him. But the arrival of veterans like Weight is the exception.

Islanders general manager Garth Snow took the hint from the Smyth caper and is going with a youth and rebuilding movement, which seems like a sound idea on the surface. But the philosophy would feel a whole lot better if the kids whom Snow is counting on this season were a bunch of can't-miss prospects like Sidney Crosby or Dany Heatley were once upon a time, and not the middling-to-fair group that prompted The Hockey News to recently rank the Islanders' farm system in the bottom third of the league.

That was no mirage when fed-up Islanders fans streamed out of the team's draft-day party after Snow - having started out with the No. 5 overall pick - traded down once, then twice in the first round.

Snow's reasoning was he wanted to stockpile draft choices in addition to landing Josh Bailey. Help from them may come someday, all right. But once again, someday looks another three or four years away.

Goaltender Rick DiPietro, the Isles' best player, is coming off knee surgery. The Isles' best young player, Kyle Okposo, projects as a serviceable player but not a huge star. The same goes for Bailey.

The Isles' new young coach, Scott Gordon, was a winner with Providence of the AHL and is actually installing an aggressive system his players have been raving about. And that could be fun to watch. Gordon could be a bright up-and-comer, same as Peter Laviolette was here once upon a time.

You remember Laviolette. Got let go. Won the Stanley Cup at his next job with Carolina.

Sorry.

Was that you screaming as if a toaster just fell in the bathtub, or am I hearing things?

By now you probably know the best way to handle this, right? Lower your expectations. Get Zen. Take pleasure in the little things, like the Isles making a nice assist or one of their tough guys flattening some Ranger's nose. Or if the Coliseum beer actually is cold and the hot dogs aren't.

Don't totally condemn owner Charles Wang for this reheated, recast version of the same perennial mess; give him a little credit for his willingness to keep losing 15 to 20 million dollars a year while he chases that oft-stalled Lighthouse Project for a new arena.

As gloomy as it is to spend another season in a dim barn like Nassau Coliseum, which seems to have been built about the time British settlers were landing in Montauk and Sag Harbor, look at the bright side. That's still NHL hockey down there on the ice, isn't it? Sorry.

Not sure I could hear you again.

You said "yes," right?