There were tough decisions to be made, and Garth Snow made them in cold blood.
That’s the reality of the modern NHL, where the Islanders general manager chose not to pay a few of his homegrown players full market value for the fear of being stuck in burdensome contracts. So out the door were three of the longest tenured Islanders’ forwards: Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin. They had not only been the nucleus of a locker room, but three of the biggest on-ice pieces in the supporting cast for all-world center and captain John Tavares.
So the team that reports to training camp on Thursday is going to be very different than the one that made it to the second round of the playoffs last season for the first time in 23 years.