Their superstar is off to a miserable start while flanked by workmanlike but unremarkable wingers. Three core players took advantage of free agency to go elsewhere over the summer. The team’s in-your-face identity that was created in large part by the best fourth line in the NHL has evaporated with the departure of one of that unit’s components. Summer additions have fizzled. The much-ballyhooed fountain of youth within the organization is barely sprinkling in meaningful contributions on the big-league level. Just five weeks into the season, the general manager has been forced to give the dreaded vote of confidence to his coach.
And if it is true Jack Capuano, the man behind the Islanders bench, is not on the clock, then surely general manager Garth Snow must be as the Jon Ledecky-Scott Malkin ownership assesses the situation in its first year on the job. For even in the oddly insular world the Islanders have created for themselves over the last decade, this 5-8-4 getaway in which the team has the fewest wins in the NHL over a not-so-small-anymore sample size is not remotely acceptable.
The team barely has created a ripple in the New York sports pond and now is drowning in a sea of slushy ice. And this is what John Tavares, who has 13 points overall (5-8) and eight points at even strength (2-6), is going to sign up for with 2018 free agency looming? Really? A future in an undetermined location for a franchise that has undervalued the importance of furnishing him with suitable, upper-echelon partners? Loyalty, after all, is a two-way street.
If Snow is holding the clock on Capuano and Ledecky and Malkin are holding the clock on Snow, it is most assuredly captain Tavares holding the clock on the franchise.
The decision to usher Kyle Okposo out the door last summer always seemed strange. The decision to waive P.A. Parenteau at the end of training camp was hard to comprehend. The expectation Tavares might thrive working with Josh Bailey on one side and one of a cast of thousands that thus far has included Andrew Ladd, Cal Clutterbuck, Ryan Strome or Anthony Beauvillier on the other was/is bizarre. The three-goaltender situation is reflective of the quirkiness in which Snow seems to revel.
There is more than just Okposo, Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin missing from the Islanders. Grind is missing. Relentlessness on the forecheck is missing. The Islanders used to outwork opponents on a consistent basis. Now, the work ethic seems ordinary.
Snow did not want to give Martin the four years and $10 million for which he signed in Toronto as a free agent. Objectively, that contract is out of whack for a fourth-line winger. But that fourth line made outsized contributions to the team. And the GM did sign Casey Cizikas for five years and $16.75 million ($3.35 million per), which is objectively too much for a fourth-line center. And listen, seven years and $38.5 million for Ladd?
The Islanders amassed a stable of high draft picks as the reward for years of ineptitude through most of the last decade. The organization has pushed the future as its calling card. And yet, Snow and his hockey department’s record in taking advantage of the opportunity to add elite youngsters to the program is underwhelming.
Of course, there was the 2009 home run on first-overall Tavares. But in 2010, the Islanders drafted Nino Niederreiter fifth overall when Jeff Skinner went seventh and Mikael Granlund went ninth. In 2011, Snow selected Strome fifth overall when Mika Zibanejad went sixth, Mark Scheifele went seventh, Sean Couturier went eighth, Dougie Hamilton went ninth and Josh Brodin went 10th. In 2012, Griffin Reinhart was selected fourth overall when Morgan Rielly went fifth, Hampus Lindholm went sixth, Matt Dumba went seventh, Jason Trouba went ninth and Filip Forsberg went 11th.
One can nitpick every organization’s draft-table errors. There are always going to be misses. There still is time for Strome and Brock Nelson and Anders Lee to become more, and time is on the side of Beauvillier, Ryan Pulock, Mathew Barzal, Michael Dal Colle and Josh Ho Sang to develop into next-wave centerpieces.
Still, though, the modest contributions of the younger guys invites scrutiny: Is the front office misidentifying talent, or is there a development problem within the system?
The season is young enough it cannot yet be considered a write-off. But the clock is ticking. It is ticking on Capuano, on Snow and on the Islanders.