Time is now
For Tavares & Co. to make run, they must get top - flight defenseman
IT is premature to declare the end of the Pittsburgh-Washington axis that has been dominant in the Metropolitan Division, but it appears as if we’re experiencing an ongoing redistribution of power in which a path to the conference finals is wide open.
And though the road to the final four might well go through goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in Columbus, there is also a team growing into a legitimate threat in Brooklyn, where speculation about John Tavares’ future has been pushed into recesses by No. 91’s play and leadership.
The arena issue does indeed cloud the future and could ultimately send the entire enterprise spinning off its axis into a great (alternate meaning) and dark unknown. But there is nothing the players can do about that, nothing the coaching staff can do about that, nothing management can do about that, and, really, little more that the owners can do about that unless and until the state calls on them to reinforce their bid for Belmont glory.
For now, it is hockey, at which Doug Weight’s team — 37-19-6 going into Saturday since he took command behind the bench last Jan. 17 — seems to be good enough to become an aggressive buyer at the deadline and put all those assets general manager Garth Snow assembled through trial and error to use in a time when the window appears wide open.
To be honest, the two-headed goaltender doesn’t strike us as Stanley Cup material. Of the 36 netminders who have played at least 400 minutes, Jaroslav Halak is 22nd in even-strength save percentage (.918) and Thomas Greiss is 23rd (.916). The Islanders are 21st in that fairly important category. But the prospect of trading for a goalie to push them over the top seems negligible.
For years there has been clamor ignored by Snow to acquire a running mate suitable for Tavares, a sure-shot Hart contender. And the Islanders do have the assets necessary to acquire Buffalo’s pending free-agent winger Evander Kane, who is having the second-best season of his career and is likely going to be the hottest commodity on the rental market.
Coincidentally (or not), the 26year-old Kane’s best season came in 2011-12, when he was on the final season of his first contract. Good news for the team that gets him now, perhaps not such good news for the team that signs him next July to a lucrative long-term deal.
But the Islanders and Tavares might not need Kane. With Taveras between Anders Lee and Josh Bailey and the scintillating rookie Mathew Barzal centering Andrew Ladd and Jordan Eberle, the Islanders have scored the fourth-most five-on-five goals in the league and are ninth in five-on-five success. Their shooting percentage is second and so it may regress, but the Islanders have weapons throughout the lineup.
So this may not be the time or place for Kane. Rather, this is probably exactly the time for Snow to load up a package for Arizona’s estimable defenseman Oliver EkmanLarsson, whose contract at $5 million per runs through next season and will be the object of a wild bidding war once the 26-year-old lets Coyotes personnel know he’s unlikely to re-up for more wandering through the desert.
As a counterpoint to the attack, the Islanders have surrendered the seventh-most goals-against at fiveon-five. A portion of that is on the goaltending, but what better way to mask certain deficiencies than to get one of the league’s premier defensemen who has a positive career possession rating despite having been stuck in an essentially perennial miserable situation.
It will cost any team to get Ekman-Larsson, and it could the Is- landers either Josh Ho-Sang or Anthony Beauvillier, perhaps Brock Nelson, maybe Ryan Pulock or Scott Mayfield, and probably one of the two first-rounders (their own plus Calgary’s) they own in this year’s draft. The price will be high, but it would be worthwhile.
One side of the East seems wide open and the other side, though presenting the formidable Lightning, doesn’t seem unassailable. This is the time for the Islanders to strike. This is the time for Snow to turn those hundreds of tomorrows he has been collecting into today.
Time for the Islanders to augment Tavares by getting the best defenseman on the market when he goes on the market.
The Islanders selecting Griffin Reinhart fourth overall in 2012 and three years later wheeling him to Edmonton for the 16thoverall with which they selected Barzal is the Rangers taking Hugh Jessiman 12th overall in 2003 and then three years later moving him for the pick with which they had selected Claude Giroux.
You mean to tell me that J.C. Tremblay, the splendid Montreal defenseman who jumped to the WHA Nordiques at age 33, is not in the Hall of Fame? By the way, and to the point, it is the Hockey Hall of Fame, not the NHL Hall of Fame.
Best trade/worst trade of the decade, wouldn’t you say: The Blue Jackets acquiring Bobrovsky from the Flyers after 2011-12 for a second-rounder and two fourths.
It just hasn’t been the same for Carey Price since Tanner Glass beat him with that 25-foot backhand up top for the first goal in last year’s Game 1, has it?
I’ve got to say, those Rangers Winter Classic duds are not bad at all.
In tribute to Ekman-Larsson, our teams’ all-time Number 23’s: 1. Bob Nystrom, Islanders; 2. Scott Gomez, Devils; 3. Jeff Beukeboom, Rangers; 4. Bruce Driver, Devils; 5. Chris Drury, Rangers. Honorable mention: Marcel Paille, Rangers. Dishonorable mention: Vladimir Malakhov, Rangers; Mention: Ed Hospodar, Rangers.
Finally, do you know when it sounds like hockey at the Garden? When John Amirante sings the anthem, that’s when.