Wrote this for another forum and figured it was worth re-posting somewhere that a few people will read it.
...on why the Islanders have a lot of potential for success and should not be moved.
The Islanders have a strong fanbase that has been alienated and disinterested by nearly two decades of mismanagement and ruining the franchise in one way or another. There are so many dimensions of the franchise's failure that they can get their fans coming back to games by doing nearly anything to improve.
First, the infamous Nassau Coliseum, the world's only bowling alley called home by a professional sports team. Not at all an inviting venue, thus the bowling alley comparison. The building has been decrepit for a long time - I remember hearing about structural problems ten years ago, and they haven't gone away, they have gotten worse. The nickname "Nassau Mausoleum" is pretty fitting for both the structure and the team.
The Islanders owners have even tried to renovate/replace the arena and develop the currently unused area around it, but the local authorities completely dropped the ball on it and the plan is effectively dead, as the deadline for the project's approval was nearly two years ago. More on this
@Wikipedia. Having the area around it developed would be the best thing the club could have asked for, and it would do great things for the community around it too. As of now, their AHL affiliate has a nicer arena in Bridgeport, CT that also has very little around it to attract people - it would certainly attract more people and fans if there was something else to do in the area.
Next problem, horrible management. Mike Milbury was by far the worst GM in the history of professional sports, even Glen Sather hasn't been able to catch up despite the hard work he has put in in the past few off-seasons. Trading away every prospect, young face, and the future of the team in general to move from a near-last team to a middle-tier playoff team for one year isn't the way to keep your fans (or your job). In addition to trades, bad contracts and the drafting fiasco have been infamous of all the Isles management for a while.
Mad Mike completely wrecked the team's future for the better part of a generation - even if trading Ziggy was an ownership problem (unloading salary) - if they had been able to hold onto even a few of the guys who were traded away for basically nothing, they would have a much more solid foundation - here's a list copied from Wikipedia for ease - Zdeno Chara, Wade Redden, Bryan Berard, Eric Brewer, Darius Kasparaitis, and Bryan McCabe, Roberto Luongo, Tommy Salo, Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, Tim Connolly, Raffi Torres, and the 2001 second overall draft pick Jason Spezza. Most of us have heard about most/all of these before, but all of these guys had solid playing careers earlier this decade while the Islanders were pressing their fans loyalty hard after a decade of failure.
They have done better more recently, which basically means not moving players much. Acquiring Wisniewski for a third round pick was a good move, a minor league player was swapped for a sixth round pick, and other than that they haven't moved anyone since the end of last year (nothing major or notable at least).
Insult was added to injury with some of these trades - Chara and the pick for Spezza landed them Yashin, who they are still paying close to $5m this year. They could have learned something from that 10 year/$87.5m contract. DiPietro was good, but they might have been looking too hard for the face of the franchise. 15 years at $4.5m each is so bad even Sather wouldn't do it, and it's not like they needed to secure him for that long. Buying out Brendan Witt also cost them, and for a near-minimum salary team, they have a quarter of it going to three guys who weren't playing. With DP back, that contract is looking even worse than when he was out.
I suppose they are improving with contracts, they don't have any new players signed to long-term contracts, and they don't have a whole lot of a future looking up for them. Tavares' contract right now seems to be a good move, no mistakes there.
Finally, the drafting fiasco. Trading Luongo for Weekes, then wasting the #1 pick on DiPietro over Gaborik and Heatley. The need for a goalie seems to have been brought about by the stupid trade, he became the laughing stock of the franchise, and those other guys who were ranked higher are still looking like the better choices they were before the draft.
The impact of the drafting problems is reflected very well by Tavares - they got a great player with a #1 pick and he immediately brought back a lot of interest to the franchise. While people seem to have some unrealistically high expectations of him, he has been playing well and growing as a player, and looks to be the new face of the franchise. This is some strong evidence that any form of improvement to the franchise is going to put life back into it.
As a lifelong die-hard Rangers fan and resident of the greater NYC area (SW CT), I have seen that there are a lot of Islanders fans who really want to see the team succeed in some way and will fill their crumbling stadium when they start turning their team around in any one of the many ways that they drove them into the ground.
