New York Islanders setting sights on NHL playoffs
By Cory Buck
The New York Islanders had a disastrous 2013-14 season after a promising playoff appearance the previous year. Now the team is setting its sights on a playoff return in their final year playing in Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.
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Stephen Lorenzo of the New York Daily News writes that Islanders players arrived at training camp “with a bit more fire and a sense of urgency.”
“I’m tired of going home and watching the playoffs on TV, man,” said defenseman Travis Hamonic, per Lorenzo. “I’m just real sick of it. I think everybody in this organization, and I think we want to be back in the playoffs and pushing for a championship and it’s something that I honestly think we can do.”
The Islanders certainly improved from last year, but the question is how much. Their goaltending situation is better thanks to the addition of Jaroslav Halak. The goal scoring should be improved with John Tavares 100% again after an MCL injury last winter. The team’s second line should be much better with Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin. But will all of that be enough to override an incomplete blue line and the gray cloud that has followed this franchise for decades at this point?
“We certainly have a lot to prove,” Tavares said. “I think for a lot of us we really should be motivated on what went wrong last season and correcting those things for a fresh start to the new year.”
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