Had nothing to write in the last eleven days, what's changed? They want from a season high nine over, lost two games they needed to win vs Caps/Kings & then beat awful Ducks, Sharks, in games they had to have. Nothing changed, and despite Florida gaining, many teams in their mix for 1/2 seeds have been struggling along.
Offensively regardless who comes out/returns the scoring is moderate at best & Horvat looks like another non-scoring forward here while Engvall is out producing him, does it really matter if we are hoping Parise, Palmieri, Pageau, Martin, Cizikas, Clutterbuck can provide offense?
Same circumstanes, differnt names. Barzal last played in Boston with Horvat, they looked like an AHL team against the Bruins. Feels like 1994 where New York beat out Florida for the last playoff spot but this time without Sorokin they are the 14th-15th seed, while Hextall was the reason they were not a much higher playoff seed, and struggled so badly.
Hextall was unbeatable or unplayable like many in this forward group as he was in Quebec as what happened after he left NYI. The 1994 forward group with good goaltending would have not crawled to the final playoff spot the last week vs expansion Florida.
I guess the only true progress is Ron Hextall is sinking the Pittsburgh Penguins like he did the 1994 New York Islanders. I don't know if Sorokin can be re-signed but he has to be and it should be a record contract.
#NYI #isles So they dropped two games to go back down to seven over (Caps/Kings) then won two games against terrible teams to get back to their season high nine over. This is not a formula for winning the final playoff seed. Without OT every game is a two win swing. 10 or 8 over.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@nyifancentral) March 19, 2023
#NYI #isles People have to accept the fact this is a 14th-15th seed without Sorokin/Dobson/Nelson. They are not here because of Parise, Palmieri, Pageau & many others occasional goals, those players are old, slow, bad in corners, transition, most not physical.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@nyifancentral) March 19, 2023
#NYI #isles Despite Lamoriello quickly rebuilding the defense to be young/fast vs last season this is an offense he signed up long term (not Bailey) that produced three goals once in 12/13 games, that's who this forward group is.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@nyifancentral) March 19, 2023
#NYI #isles Our fans who are not knowledge & bought into false narratives from awful/lazy media based on two Covid tournaments NYI backed into were a cup finalist when they were a team that fell apart in March 2020 to this day. They are not an 82 game playoff team.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@nyifancentral) March 19, 2023
#NYI #isles So here we are with the best goalie in the NHL & the highest expectation is this team matches interim coach Doug Weight's 2016-17 record at 12 over/94 point team that failed to qualify that went on a huge steak at Barclays at the end without Tavares.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@nyifancentral) March 19, 2023