We put this call out a couple of weeks ago and circumstances — injuries to Mat Barzal, Adam Pelech , Alex Romanov and your faithful correspondent here — pushed it back a bit. Apologies all round. The New York Islanders are trying to tread water while Barzal, Pelech, Romanov, Mike Reilly and Anthony Duclair are out.
That may change the vibe around the team but it doesn’t fundamentally change the vibe of these questions, which are decidedly unhappy in tone. No surprise there given the Isles weren’t exactly tearing up the league before the injuries hit. Advertisement So we’ll kick off this two-part mailbag with a few big-picture questions and some smaller-picture ones about Oliver Wahlstrom and prospect Alex Jefferies.
Off we go! Note: Some questions have been edited lightly for length and clarity. Simple question: Are the players simply lacking the talent or are we in the dreaded country club phase of this team? — David F. I know that the “country club” thing is a longstanding insult around these parts — one day I might even get my once-and-current colleague Katie Strang, who got that quote a hundred years ago from an unnamed Islander, to tell us all the story of that amazing season — but it genuinely doesn’t apply to the group.
These Islanders are, perhaps to the franchise’s detriment, guys who try hard. Call them slow. Call them old.
Call them untalented. But this is not a group that coasts and you can tell by how hard they’ve worked to make the play.
