Al Arbour would be very disappointed. The current iteration of the New York Islanders hardly resembles the franchise that rattled off four straight Stanley Cups in the beginning of the 1980s. The only things common between Arbour's dynasty and the 2009 Islanders are the uniform colors and Nassau Coliseum.
The Islanders are the worst team in the NHL. They are so bad that their points leader is a defenseman. Mark Streit leads the team with 53 points in 67 games and is having an excellent season after signing with the Islanders last summer. His defense has improved tremendously, he can move the puck well and he has a plus-8 plus/minus on a team that allows far more goals than it scores. But he is still a defenseman, and he is still the points leader on the Isles by 17 points. Put another way, the best forward on the Islanders is Doug Weight, who has just 36 points (and a minus-12 plus/minus). Not a recipe for success.
As a result of their sustained efforts at less than mediocrity this season, the Islanders are in line for a very nice present on draft day. They have a 25 percent chance of winning the NHL's draft lottery for the No. 1 overall pick, and this season, that pick is huge, both literally and figuratively. The first-overall pick is likely to be John Tavares or Victor Hedman.
Hedman is a gigantic human being, a 6'6" defenseman who has spent the last two years playing for Modo in the Swedish Elitsieren, Sweden's top league. Hedman is just a boy playing in a man's league at 19 years old, but he's shown that he's ready for the next level with 21 points in 43 games this season. He moves the puck very well, skates effectively for a big man and plays on the top defensive pairing for Modo as well as the power play and penalty kill.
The only real question for Hedman concerns his physicality. Hedman has always been the biggest kid on the ice, so his size has been more of a passive advantage rather than an actively managed asset. The Elitsieren is a relatively soft league, however, unlike the Finnish Elite League, and physical play is not as prevalent. Making the transition could be tricky, but Hedman's outstanding size should insure that he does not get pushed around.
Hedman would fit in extremely well on the island. He is NHL-ready now, and he was probably NHL-ready last season. The Islanders' best defenseman after Streit is probably 24-year-old rookie Bruno Gervais, who has no business being much higher than the third pairing at this point in his career. Hedman would fill a huge hole in the Islanders' back end and would make an immediate impact.
Still, if the Islanders manage the first overall pick in the draft lottery, they will almost certainly draft Tavares. Tavares is the best Major Junior player of the last decade, and he might be the best Major Junior player since Gretzky. He spent most of his junior time playing with the Oshawa Generals and the London Knights of the OHL and has excellent vision on the ice, a great wrist shot and outrageous stick-handling ability. He's not just a goal scorer, with nearly an assist-per-game pace in juniors. Add in some size, at 6'0", 200 pounds, and Tavares looks like a future NHL superstar.
Tavares has absolutely dominated the OHL. At age 16, he scored 134 points for the Generals in 67 regular-season games and added another 19 points in nine playoff games. Tavares is so talented that his campaign at 17 years old was a disappointing season with118 points in 59 games.
In fact, that's the major knock on Tavares. He has the talent and the size and pretty much everything under the sun, but he has dropped off a bit this season. His production has been slightly down, with 104 points in 56 games. That's a worrying sign for the Islanders and may steer them in Hedman's direction on draft day.
There's a distinct possibility that Tavares has outgrown the OHL and needs to move on to bigger and better things to keep his edge sharp. He's already a better player than the Tampa Bay Lightning's Steven Stamkos, last year's first overall pick. Stamkos went straight to the NHL and has put up 38 points in a season that has focused on development. Note that Stamkos would be leading the Islanders in points by a forward, and his 18 goals would also be the best on the team, so Tavares will be the Islanders' best forward the minute he is drafted.
The Islanders have so many holes, and Hedman and Tavares are so talented, that it's basically impossible for them to go wrong selecting either one. The nod has to go to Tavares since he is a generational talent in the OHL and should immediately provide the Islanders' tepid offense with a massive boost. Tavares is just the sort of franchise cornerstone that the Islanders need in order to begin the long, hard journey back to the glory days of the 1980s.
