they are very flawed and so far away from being a contender. their defensemen chronically get out hustled to the puck then out muscled in their own zone. sorokin has elite ability with a mentally weak constitution. they have pretty good front line except very few can finish around the net and even fewer can create of the dribble to use a basketball expression, thus essentially making most of their f/c pretty much the same guy more or less
reilly was an excellent find, roy a great hire.
kudos to carolina....they blanketed barzal and horvat where they were close to invisible the great majority of the series. i'm reading a lot of isles fans say dobson was hurt. i've been following sports since the late 60s and worked in the field back in the day. come this time of year, every player and every team is banged, nicked, bruised battered and hobbled. if you suit up, you're healthy. i don't buy into excuses. it's all about one thing and one thing only. winning or losing
matt rempe says hi
I think the Islanders have a lot of good young(ish) building blocks in place, but they need some more high end talent upfront. Horvat and Barzal are good pieces but not elite. Guys like Nelson, Palmieri, Lee are good secondary options but you're bang on with the take of shutting down the top two guys and there's not much there to break through. Isles played hard and the goals they scored were due to hustle and strong net-front. That's the way they are set up but that's just not enough to go far.
I think once some of the more expensive depth pieces have their contracts expire or maybe they can be traded out Isles could go big game hunting and do some damage.
In a way they are built not too differently from how the Canes were the last few years but the offensive talent on the Canes has steadily improved as young players like Svech, Jarvis, Necas developed and then Aho has taken another step and adding guys like Guentzel and Kuzy obviously help as well. The big difference is that the Canes blueline has always been stacked to mitigate lower scoring from the forwards and RBA's coaching style gets 100% buy in on playing a relentless forechecking game so even if there is a disparity in talent, the Canes can still compete with any team in the league.
The metro was weak to a degree this year but it wouldn't shock me to see it become a powerhouse again like it was last year if NJ and NYI make some moves.