A few days ago, Doug Praskach of Predlines did an interesting read on how the Nashville Predators would look if they only played with their own draft picks and never traded or signed anyone in free agency. You can read it here. Their defence would have looked absolutely loaded.
So why don’t we do the same with our beloved New York Islanders? They have an interesting draft history, so let’s see how they would look if they were made up of players they only drafted.
Before we delve in, here is a peak of the team’s projected depth chart (in my opinion) heading into the season, just for a reminder and for comparison:
Forwards
Anders Lee – John Tavares – Kyle Okposo
Josh Bailey- Frans Nielsen – Ryan Strome
Nikolay Kulemin – Mikhail Grabovski – Brock Nelson
Matt Martin – Casey Cizikas – Cal Clutterbuck
Michael Grabner, Steve Bernier
Defense
Johnny Boychuk – Travis Harmonic
Nick Leddy – Calvin de Haan
Thomas Hickey – Ryan Pulock
Brian Strait
Goalies
Jaroslav Halak
Thomas Greiss