| Scott Essman. 19th February, 2008 - 4:44 pm
 In all of team sports, there was perhaps no greater immediate success story than that of the New York Islanders. When the team debuted in 1972 as an expansion franchise on New York's Long Island, about 20 miles east of Manhattan, they were but the laughingstock of sports, only winning 12 games while losing 60. Only baseball's New York Mets, who went 40-120 in their 1962 debut season, and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, who were 9-73 in the 1972-1973 season, fared more poorly in one individual season than the first Islanders' year.
But something funny happened on the way to the island. Due to strong draft picks and clever trades within three seasons, the team was in the playoffs, going all the way to the semifinals. On the heels of players who debuted in the mid 1970s named Billy Smith, Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier, and Mike Bossy, the Islanders were first in their division within six seasons. In merely their eighth season, they went on a run of four consecutive Stanley Cup victories.
Not only was this unprecedented for an expansion team, it was nearly the equal of the five straight Cups won by the insurmountable 1970s Montreal Canadiens. In fact, only the mid-1980s Edmonton Oilers were arguably as powerful a team as the early 1980s Islanders, and the Oilers never won more than two straight Cups.
Alas, what goes up must come down, and the team that General Manager Bill Torrey built in the 1970s all aged simultaneously in the mid-1980s. After losing in the Cup finals to the 1984 Oilers, each of the next three seasons saw earlier and earlier exits from the playoffs. If not for a miraculous win in multiple overtimes against the Capitals in the 1987 Division Semifinals, the Islanders would have been winless in the playoffs for seven straight years leading up to 1992.
And those were the salad days. Inn the unlikely year of 1993 the team only won 40 regular season games but won two tough playoff series and marched to the Conference Finals before finally being disposed of by the Canadiens in five games. Alas, following that year of excitement, to date the Islanders have yet to win another playoff series. In the 15 years hence, they have not qualified for the playoffs eight times, including seven straight years from 1995-2001.
In 2006-2007, they climbed back to the 40-win plateau and made the playoffs before losing in five games to the dominant Buffalo Sabres. One had a belief that this current season would build on the successes of last year and possibly lead to a playoff series victory for the first time since that 1993 Cinderella story. However, this season has, thus far, been a great disappointment.
As of February 18, the Islanders sit in 10th place in the Eastern Conference, having notched a respectable 63 points in 60 games played. This is not as bad as it might seem since the team is only one point behind eighth place Boston which would qualify them for the playoffs. Of course, they are also only three points from being in 13th place and decidedly out of playoff contention.
Without a doubt, one of the Islanders' most serious problems is scoring. They are currently last among the NHL's 30 teams in goals scored with 150. That puts them 10 goals behind the next highest scoring team Edmonton, who are in 14th place in the Western Conference. The Isles do not have as much as a 20-goal scorer as yet, with only six players who have scored more than 10. High scorer Bill Guerin has 19 goals and 13 assists. His 32 points, by comparison, are 46 behind the league leader Washington's Alex Ovechkin. Alhough they have good goaltending and decent defense, the lack of scoring has killed them.
In fact, if there is a bright spot, it is in goal, where Rick DiPietro's 2.70 goals-against-average and 22 wins are soundly among the top goalies in the NHL. However, with the Islanders only scoring an average of 2.5 goals per game, one can understand why a 2.70 GAA is not winning them enough games.
Also, with 16 wins at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the Islanders are a decent home team, but with only 12 road wins, they are fairly punchless when away. If the team is to improve, they must notch more gutsy wins on the road.
Whether the team can reverse this trend without acquiring another scorer is unclear but is at best unlikely. The once proud franchise who laid claims to the fastest ascent to greatness of any major sports' franchise seems on the ropes. They appear to have their collective work cut out for them to eradicate memories of the last 15 years and restore their 1970s-1980s successes. |
