One fun question at the beginning of each season is to guess which playoff teams will not be making a return trip.
That was the opening question leading off the new SB Nation FanPulse series, that will poll fans on a weekly basis on various temperature-checking questions. For the pilot week of the poll, the New York Islanders are among two Metro teams that the crowd has declared Unlikely To Return.
For the Islanders, that is not too surprising since few expected them to make the playoffs last spring — where they swept the Penguins but were then swept by the Hurricanes — and returned largely the same roster this season.