It isn’t quite accurate to suggest the Islanders are on a treadmill to obscurity, for the fact of the matter is Charles Wang’s franchise long ago arrived at that destination.
And it isn’t quite correct to state the team is on the road to nowhere, because general manager Garth Snow’s club is headed somewhere no one in the NHL has gone before since the league expanded to 30 teams in 2000 — a fifth consecutive bottom-five finish.
Not one of the 122 North American big-league franchises has made itself as irrelevant as the Islanders. The three New York City-based daily newspapers do not see eye-to-eye on much, but not one believes the Islanders are important enough to merit coverage with more than a passing glance.
The operation has become an affront to the club’s long betrayed yet still loyal fans, who are expected to carry the ever-increasing freight for a floor team that cuts corners, glories in its outsider status and hasn’t made a single stride in closing the gap on the adults in the league despite consistently favorable draft position.
With the chance in 2008 to select Luke Schenn, Tyler Myers, Anders Karlsson or Cody Hodgson, the Islanders chose Josh Bailey before refusing to allow him to play in the World Juniors his freshman season.
With the chance in 2010 to select goal-scoring machine Jeff Skinner, the Islanders chose Nino Niederreiter, who, more likely than not for cap reasons, has wasted his 19-year-old rookie season as a spare on the club bench and was similarly not permitted to play in the World Juniors.
There is no excuse this season in which the Islanders theoretically would be 20 points out of a playoff spot if realignment were in place and they played in a Patrick Division including the Rangers, Devils, Penguins, Flyers, Capitals and Hurricanes.
The Islanders have been healthy this season. Their goaltending has been as stable as it has been in years. John Tavares has become one of the 10 or 15 best forwards in the league, with P.A. Parenteau and Matt Moulson following in their 21-year-old center’s wake to form one of the NHL’s most dangerous lines.
And yet, the club has lost ground to the competition. Kyle Okposo has somehow devolved into an ordinary player at the age of 23. Frans Nielsen and Michael Grabner have gone backward. All three of those young forwards are on back-loaded contracts that enabled ownership to deal with stated cash-flow issues, and all three delivered performances commensurate to their comparatively minimal salaries.
The team has no identity beyond Wang and Snow’s shtick. There may have been a fair amount of chaos under Ted Nolan, but at least his teams always were in their opponents’ face, and the same for Scott Gordon’s teams until he lost the room.
Now there’s nothing.
They have taken the treadmill to obscurity. They are the team that doesn’t matter.
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The Rangers will attempt to pump another resource through their Badgers Pipeline by getting in on the derby for Wisconsin junior defenseman Justin Schultz if the 43rd overall selection in the 2008 Entry Draft spurns Anaheim’s offers and becomes a free agent on July 1, Slap Shots has learned.
Schultz, who will turn 22 on June 6, is a 6-foot-1, 185-pound defenseman much in the mold of Ryan McDonagh, but with a more developed offensive game. McDonagh and Derek Stepan each played the 2009-10 season with then-freshman Schultz at Wisconsin before turning pro with the Rangers.
The Blueshirts would be in the hunt for this Hobey Baker nominee regardless, but their interest likely is intensified because of uncertainty regarding the health of Michael Sauer, who has been sidelined since Dec. 5 with post-concussion symptoms.
Under terms of the collective bargaining agreement, Schultz would be bound to sign a two-year Entry Level contract if he chooses to become a free agent. If he were to eschew free agency and sign with Anaheim before the end of the season, he would have only one year remaining on the Entry Level deal.
Apparently the NHL Department of Player Safety isn’t all that concerned with the safety of Ruslan Fedotenko, what with Pittsburgh’s Deryk Engelland getting in a free elbow to the head of the Rangers winger at 8:54 of the third period of Thursday night’s match at the Garden, this a little more than two months after Dominic Moore was only assessed a fine for concussing the Blueshirts’ No. 26 with a blow to the head.
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Brandon Prust, eligible to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, told Slap Shots he has placed discussions concerning an extension on hold.
“I just want to focus on playing,” he said. “There will be time to take care of business after the playoffs.”
There are many languages spoken in the Rangers room, including the inventive one used Friday by Marty Biron, who wanted to know if someone had, “Ruled the rooster?”