Yes! Islanders

Well, things are changing in Islander Country.

Newsday’s Greg Logan thinks John Tavares can be the next Sydney Crosby, but you get the feeling he won’t be as dynamic. I am expecting him to be a force at times, but see him going through growing pains as well. He’s an offensive machine and doesn’t have a great defensive game and because of that, I see him getting a ton of time on the powerplay, but little with the puck in the defensive end.

Because of this, it’ll take him a few years to become the type of player he truly can be.

Even he doesn’t know what that player will turn out to be.

For my taste, I’d love to see him score 30 goals as a rookie and win the Calder, but I don’t know if that’s entirely possible. Many scouts have said that he projects to be a 40-goal scorer and that he’s NHL ready now, but there’s no real way of telling that until he steps on the ice. With Josh Bailey, Frans Nielsen and Doug Weight up the middle to back him up, I think the Islanders with some nice versatility. Bailey projects to be a solid two-way center, while Nielsen in my mind has the potential to be a Mike Ribeiro-type player. Weight is a trusty old steed that I think still has a 50-point season in him. With those intangibles, I think Tavares can learn a lot in his rookie season.

Thinking about him playing with Kyle Okposo is also something that I think is incredibly intriguing.

As far as De Haan goes, he was the defenseman I saw the Islanders drafting at 26 and I even said so in April. So while I’m happy they went out and got him, the fact that they got him at 12 and didn’t pick up Landon Ferraro as well at 31 kind of shocked me. Kudos to Garth Snow for trading up to get his guy, but we’ll have to see what happens before we pass judgment. All I know is that he made a splash and people are talking. That may be the best thing for the organization right now. Nevertheless, I’m happy that the Islanders have a defenseman in the ranks that will be a solid powerplay quarterback in a few years.

The Islanders also drafted two goalies and to me, that shows that they may not be as comfortable with Rick DiPietro as they are making out to be. Both goaltenders have a plethora of upside and may be capable of big things in the future. However, with both Yann Danis and Joey MacDonald UFA’s this summer, this move could have been to shore up the depth chart at the position and may not be indicative of what the Isles think of DP.

Now with the draft behind us, the free agent period should be incredibly interesting.