Breaking Down the New York Islanders Offensive Struggles and What They Can Do About It

8 Comments

1. YeRight 2pops 2 years ago

   Lou is the worst GM in hockey. Isles ownership is some of the worst too. Smart owners would never have this ego maniac clown as GM. People saw their lack of taken 3-4 years ago! But Lou doubled down on stupid.

2. steven bauer 2 years ago

   HI Gil. It is what it is. That early season pace when isles were top 6 g f couldn't be sustained even with injuries. Isles now 21st g f. The lack of true scorers is evident and is related to pp struggles. Of course a true offensive d man that could run a pp would help the offense too. I said all off-season isles needed two top six upgrades to have a sufficient enough offense to be true playoff team. Until that happens there just is not much more that can be done with this forward group. Switching line combos don't work. Expecting a raty, dufour, or ishkatov to suddenly rescue the offense is wishful thinking. That's why a re-tool needs to begin with the offense. The d top three is solid even without ufa mayfield. It is still better than 2/3 of nhl teams even tho it lacks true offensive d man. The goaltending is among the best. The isles back-end is solid. The forward ranks needs the overhaul. Bailey is useless. Wahlstrom just teases with potential yet may never even hit 20 g. Lee, palmieri get older and slower with each season. Beau has always been maddening inconsistent. Parise always plays hard and with heart. Too bad its not 2010. jpg plays hard and is versatile yet brittle. He'd make a good third line c but too expensive for that at $5 mill. plus term left. Any of these top niners should be moved out. Nelson-if he gets hot between now and tdl-could fetch something at tdl from a contender looking for two center upgrade. Barzal is going nowhere. And still don't know what barzal could do with elite wingers. Would he thrive or just continue figure skating out there? Isles have enough bottom sixers. Not enough top sixers. That is the problem. And the ones they should move out isles can't due to long term deals and no draft picks/prospects to go shopping for elite offensive talent with. In other words they are Fkd. Stuck with a bunch of average scorers/no game breaker types.
   Baliey, beau, lee, palmieri, jpg should all be moved but doing that would be quite a magic trick. Nelson could be moved. Parise even with cheap expiring deal is a ?. Lou couldn't move parise with same deal last tdl. Wahlstrom may have no value on trade market as well. Varly, mayfield the ufa's no doubt need to be moved. Too bad they aren't forwards. Maybe isles can get lucky at the tdl. There are some gm's out there that will do crazy things at tdl. Maybe one is ripe for the picking. And sj gm grier is fairly new on the job with a team going nowhere in tank mode. He has meier and karlsson sitting there to deal. And maybe some team will give isles a third for bailey to buy some cap $$$'s. Good show.

3. AP 2 years ago

   You made the point beautifully, Gil: the team hasn’t been constructed for “goal scorers.”
   Did Lou, The Great GM, think it was?!?!
   Any fan with his head on straight knew better for years.

4. Joseph Zummo 2 years ago

   Losing game 7 to tampa 2 years ago showed they had no offense!!!!!! Was Lou sleeping? Was he drunk? The entire league knew the isles had no fire power. I don't buy it. Nobody involved in hockey is that stupid. The problem is what it always was. Money. They don't pay for players or coaches. When they paid for a coach, they won. Players do not want to come here. They have been the joke of the league since the mid 90's. Bad ownership. Bad coaches. Bad players. Hardly any playoff appearances in the last 30 years. I know Trotz and the last 4 yrs. Yes I get it. But look at this team post 1987. It's an embarrassing mess. I really don't know how the faithful have put up with it. Spano, Mulberry, kirt muller, Don Maloney, DePeitro, Yashin, Nederider, Brooklyn, 40 coaches, 100's of Bad picks. I can go on for days and every isles fan knows it. I liked it better when it was 15 min away, and I could leave after the 2nd period.

5. Scott 2 years ago

   GM guys, obviously you guys and Gil made great points about us needing atleast 2 goal scorers, I don’t see Lou getting even a good 1 at the tdl, as for the aged guys, yeah, they gotta go and that’s if anyone is buying, as for Mayfield, if he’s gonna sign a decent deal to stay, ok, keep him, if not, put him on the block. As for the team play, Lane needs to go back to Trotz’ solid D play, forget about the D pinching, just have them put the puck on net. The offense, if Lane is gonna experiment, put Raty on the line with a Barzy and Nelson, tell Barzy to stop figure skating and shoot the damn puck. Enough with the entire team passing for 30 seconds on a possession and then losing it, shoot the puck and let the guys dig for rebounds. Honestly I think we got a better chance of Rodgers playing for the jets than the isles going to the playoffs ! Great show Gil !

6. Bob Henry 2 years ago

   John Maclean needs to go, but he's a buddy of Lou's from his Devils game. Lous nostalgia hires/signings are killing us.

7. steven bauer 2 years ago

   If wings beat isles tonight isles drop to 12th in east. Flyers winners of a bettman loser point last night a point behind isles. Could be four teams to jump with gap between isles and pens, caps, and rags at 6, 7, 9 pts.

8. Thomas Rudy 2 years ago

   a few more losses and it's sellers at the trade deadline, tank time for bedard