Sharpshooter

Neil Smith basically put all of his eggs in one basket in 1994. Yeah they finally won, but they also traded a lot of young talent and the franchise just bottomed out in the late 90's. Getting Wayne was awesome, but then Messier leaves for Vancouver and everything was kind of in limbo. Everything came to a head and it was just a crash and burn that led to a decade or so of awful hockey and no playoffs.

The Islanders are one of those teams that, in a vacuum, don't overly impress, but you're not really surprised if they have a deep playoff run. If they wound up playing the Bruins in the postseason, I could have totally seen them winning. I think Horvat will be very good there, but they just need more.

Indeed. The sad part is, say they fire Cashman. Great, but I have zero faith in the ownership and the front office to even find a suitable replacement. I can't stand Randy Levine either.

That's a very good point. Although Lundqvist was taking a lot of the cap up when he was much older and on the decline. That was the frustrating part. At least with Igor, you hope, he's more great than not signing him to a long term deal when he's still fairly young.

Just not a very good team and a really bad mix of players. It feels like the late 80's/early 90's with this franchise again.

Plus he looks like Lex Luthor now, so maybe he can hit 110-120!?

UPDATE: New York baseball sucks.

Yeah, maybe they realized they kind of fucked that up with Kakko and Laf, so they're doing their due diligence with the others.

Given his age and everything it's still solid value for a guy who can still contribute nicely at 37. He obviously won't be what he was, but he'll be fine. It's one a year thing for cheap, you can't really complain about it too much. It's not like he's blocking anybody from coming up in the interim.

Yeah, true about Laf too. It's possible. Miller was signed rather easily and here we are still kind of in limbo over Laf being re-signed. We have the rumored bridge deal on the table, but nothing signed yet. Possibly Drury trying to work something out, if not, Lafreniere re-signs then.

Dude, I felt so sorry for Shattenkirk. The guy takes a hometown discount to play in front of friends and family every night only to get badly injured, and continue to play injured making it worse. He also came at the worst time when the Rangers started to tear things up. lol

Our boy Tarasenko still holding out hope for a Rangers reunion it looks like. If he didn't want to be here so badly, he would have signed somewhere by now. Maybe Drury works some magic, but imagine giving Barclay Goodrow a NMC.

Dude, seriously. I want the fall right now. lol I am excited for this season too. Even without great coaching and a good game plan, this is a very good team and still a fun one to watch regardless.

Yeah, seriously. The dude is a huge Rangers fan. I'm counting on him to have a bad ass set up here.

On paper this is the best coaching staff they've had since the Tortorella years. If they can't get through to him and if he continues to not help himself, then he is a lost cause. He seemed to be one of Gallant's biggest critics, which is fine, but he needs to put the work in too and he really hasn't. I think his skating improved marginally this past season, so that's something I guess. Plenty more work to be done though.

They made some moves, but they are more or less running the same team back which I have no problem with for the reasons previously stated. This is a very good team that should have had another deep run last year. Actually with the additions they made, they are now a bit deeper, although no Tarasenko and no Kane for the time being.

He just signed not too long ago. Cut him slack. lol If he sucks, it's going to be insufferable on here. lol

Yeah, Assassin's Creed is a franchise that never did anything for me either. Like you, I felt it should. Origins was really the only game that interested me and that I could get into, mainly because I like Egyptian stuff. Dying Light 2 is very fun, although I prefer the story and characters of the first game more, but they did a good job with the new one. The Dead Island games are fun also and the new one is solid.

I'm not giving up on him yet, but it's just been a massive disappointment so far. Right now we'd be elated if he's a 60 or 70 point player who has some edge. That's not terrible, but it is when you're expecting a franchise altering player that's going to put up monster seasons. Right now, the player we're he becomes at this point, you can get most of the time in free agency.

The first five episodes were absolutely terrible. Even other bigger Witcher fans I know that have read the books and everything have said the same thing. It's been officially Netflixed.

Common Coyotes 'L'.

All he did for me was provide a good laugh when he requested a trade after getting his ice time reduced because, you know, he wasn't that good.

That's it right there, Pete. Perhaps he just isn't that good, or all of the hype and everything inflated his ego so much that he feels like he doesn't need to put in the work at the NHL level. I fear it may be more the latter here. If he can't get it going under this new staff, then all hope is lost for me. He did seem to be one of Gallant's biggest critics apparently, so I guess we'll see.

You could've posted this accidentally in the Lafreniere thread and still been correct.

Should just say " Islanders fail to impress", and we're all like, 'Duh'.