One last run at the ‘Old Barn’

Soon-to-Be Brooklyn Islanders embark on final season in L.I.

October 9, 2014 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Islanders will kick off their final season on Long Island Friday night in Carolina.

Share this:

At this time next year, Brooklynites will be gathering Downtown for the arrival of our borough’s second major pro sports franchise in three years.

The Nets officially cracked the seal on the Barclays Center in November of 2012, ending a drought of more than a half century since Brooklyn had a big-time team to call its own.

But come October 2015, the state-of-the-art facility on the corners of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues will be the official home of the NHL’s New York Islanders, who have already played a pair of exhibition contests on Brooklyn ice.

That will give us not just one, but two teams to help fill the painful void the Dodgers left here when they fled to Los Angeles following the 1957 season.

As the Islanders prepare to kick off their final season at the outdated, but history-drenched Nassau Coliseum Friday night in Carolina, the Eagle would like to take a quick peek at the team we will get to call our own in approximately 12 months:

2014-15 Islanders Season Preview
—————————————–

After thrilling fans with a scintillating and hope-inspiring six-game, opening-round playoff series defeat to Pittsburgh in 2012-13, the Islanders fell back on hard times last season, failing to reach the postseason for the eighth time in the past 10 years.

They also consistently ranked near the bottom of the league’s average attendance figures during the past decade as the Coliseum has been mockingly referred to in recent years as “The Mausoleum.”

Unable to advance to the second round of the playoffs since 1993, the Islanders are hoping a new goaltender, Jaroslav Halak, coupled with a pair of late-offseason pickups, defensemen Johnny Boychuk and Nick Leddy, will help established veterans like team captain John Tavares, Kyle Okposo and Travis Hamonic thrive during the final season at “The Old Barn” in Uniondale, N.Y.

The Islanders acquired Boston’s Boychuk and Chicago’s Leddy last Saturday to protect the blue line in front of Halak, who should help the Islanders close games more consistently than they did last season.

In 2013-14, the Islanders won just over 55 percent of the games they led after two periods, a horrifying league-worst rate that cost the franchise any reasonable chance of reaching the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1992-93 and 1993-94.

General manager Garth Snow also doled out some cold cash for frontliners like center Mikhail Grabovski and right wing Nikolay Kulemin earlier this offseason, giving Tavares, a Top 5 NHL forward, some help in bolstering an offense that has lacked depth behind the first line for several seasons now.

In other words, Snow, a former Islanders goaltender, isn’t waiting for the team to arrive in Brooklyn to go for it.

“For us, the task at hand is to get better as a group, as a team and individually,” Snow, now entering his ninth season at the helm, told Newsday. “Whether you’re a player, a coach or in my position, you focus on the task at hand.”

Islanders owner and Brooklyn Tech alum Charles Wang, who is in the process of selling the team to incoming minority owners Jonathan Ledecky and Scott Malkin, will more than likely still be in charge when the Isles land here in 2015.

Whether he arrives with a team coming off another disappointing campaign or one that appears primed to challenge the Rangers for Big Apple supremacy will be decided this coming season.

“I’ve had the chance to meet the new owners,” Snow revealed. “They’re both great guys and obviously very passionate about hockey. We’re focused on the season. That’s what training camp is all about. Get your game in order and get the season going.”

The Islanders are hedging their bets that a new ownership group, a new future home and a new season add up to something their fans haven’t experienced since the glory days of the 1980s, when the franchise racked up four consecutive Stanley Cups at the Coliseum.

“The expectations are having the mindset to go in and win every single hockey game,” said fifth-year coach Jack Capuano. “The expectations are to go in there and make sure we’re extremely tough to play against. That we’re a postseason team.”

The Islanders’ final home opener in Uniondale will be Saturday night, also against Carolina.