Sweeping declarations are fun.
On Thursday night, the New York Islanders will square off against the San Jose Sharks in a matchup of teams off to hot starts. While it’d be extremely far-fetched to say that this is a potential Stanley Cup Finals preview, there’s no doubt that both of these teams have the ability to make some noise in the postseason when the springtime rolls around. Of the two teams, a deep playoff run would be much more surprising on the part of the Islanders.
The Islanders were a playoff team in 2013, giving the Pittsburgh Penguins all they could handle in the first round of the playoffs, before falling off and plummeting to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings in 2013-14. But with injured players recovering and several key additions throughout the offseason, right up until the days before the regular season got underway, this is a team on the upswing.
It’s difficult to get too excited over a 3-0-0 start, and while they’ll experience their first loss at some point in the near future, as will obviously be the case across the league, there’s no reason to think that this can’t be a playoff team in a conference that doesn’t quite have a full slate of them like the Western Conference does.
The Isles have already scored 15 goals on the year, good for an even five goals per game and a goal differential of plus-6. They still have some work to do on the back end, but their offensive attack, in conjunction with an improving blue line, certainly bodes well for their immediate future.
The offense that this team boasts is obvious. John Tavares is one of the best young superstars in the game, and he already has seven points on the season through just three games, five coming via the assist. Second year man Brock Nelson is off to a strong start of his own, with seven points in the trio of tilts, four finding their way to the back of the net. Kyle Okposo, who continues to demonstrate how reliable he is, has five through three, four of them being assists. There’s a solid supporting cast in place to, including Mikhail Grabovski, Cory Conacher, and Nikolay Kulemin. Don’t sleep on Ryan Strome, either.
On the blue line, Johnny Boychuk is off to a strong start, with six points, including a couple of goals of his own, both of which have come on the power play. Nick Leddy and Travis Hamonic have each added goals from the defensive side. If the Isles can continue getting an offensive push from their blue line, that offense is going to be able to score on anyone.
There are still some questions about their ability to keep the puck out of the net, for sure. That blue line is improving, but isn’t championship quality quite yet. Jaroslav Halak has always had elite upside, but has never really been able to piece it together, mostly because of health reasons. He’s been just okay to start the year. If he can round into the form we’ve seen him at in the past, the Islanders are going to be golden when the postseason rolls around.
All in all, it’s difficult to make an assessment of a team through just three games, but with their offensive firepower on paper, and what they’ve flashed in that first trio of contests, we have every reason to think that they’ll be a team that’s going to be a lot of fun to watch as the season continues to wear on.
