“Can ]the Islanders] be better than last year?” Mike Milbury said, repeating a question on an NBC conference call Monday to promote the start of the NHL season. “I think so.”
Still, while Milbury and fellow analysts Ed Olczyk and Patrick Sharp expressed cautious optimism about a team that largely returned intact, the consensus was that goaltending and scoring punch are areas in which the Islanders must prove themselves – with Mathew Barzal being a key piece of the latter.
“The one question for me, clearly, is they had incredible goaltending last year, and will that hold up is a major factor,” said Milbury, a former Islanders general manager and coach.