I am trying to think of a season where I had lower expectations for the New York Islanders, and I’m having trouble recalling it. During the nadir of the Garth Snow rebuild, there was at least managed expectations about collecting and hoarding assets, trading your Andy Suttons (because I’m an expert) for a pick that was later packaged to move up and draft Brock Nelson.
(Snow had a very mixed record of trading up and down, such as the time he traded up to select Calvin de Haan by spending picks that were used on Nick Leddy and Erik Haula.