It's still early and this current Islanders team is still very young but as they continue to mow down the opposition, the effort only seeming to make them stronger and more voracious, the idea that New York could have a potential dynasty on their hands seems less and less far-fetched.
General Manager Garth Snow has, seemingly overnight, managed to turn the much-maligned franchise into one of the NHL's best teams thanks to an offseason that saw the addition of several key components.
"With the signing of Jaroslav Halak, the team solidified their goaltending. Then, as reports were circulating that the Islanders were about to acquire defenseman Johnny Boychuk from the Boston Bruins, the team scooped up Chicago's young defenseman Nick Leddy before shocking everyone and also picking up Boychuk," Jared Clinton of The Hockey News writes.
"The Islanders also added Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski, two advanced stats darlings who have helped round out an Islanders team that, on paper and on the ice, looks primed to compete. You won't find many that will argue with that, either."
The Islanders, currently tied atop the Metropolitan Division standings with the Pittsburgh Penguins, are, 25 games into the season, experiencing a brand of success no one in the league thought was possible.
"While you'll always have John Tavares and Kyle Okposo to look forward to in New York, the real surprise is the depth of scoring. Be it breakout star Brock Nelson, the inspiring two-way play of Ryan Strome, or even the contributions from down the roster like the goals from Casey Cizikas and Matt Martin, this New York team is winning in ways that few thought possible from a squad that had been mired at the bottom of the standings for so long."
With stars like Tavares and Okposo, up-and-comers like Nelson and Strome, key secondary players in Martin and Grabovski and a strong goaltender in Halak, the Islanders already have many of the necessary parts to make them a Stanley Cup contender for years to come.
The trick for Snow will be finding a way to keep it all together and periodically replace the pieces they can't keep with players able to fill the same roles within the same parameters of value.
